Gail Rae Hudson's comments about my father's inability to recognise his inabilities - a form of senile anosognosia, I suppose - set off a train of thought. There is a commonly quoted breakdown of how people or organisations are supposed to develop, and it goes like this:
  1. unconscious incompetence - baby doesn't know what it doesn't know, can't do, or ought to do
  2. conscious incompetence - a small child knows that there are things it cannot do and needs help with
  3. conscious competence - an adolescent can make things work, but it takes constant effort
  4. unconscious competence - an adult doesn't even know they are doing things right, it just happens
We in consulting circles always assume that that is where it ends, but it doesn't. What happens in our life histories is that once we get to four we stay there for a while and then start sling back towards one again. After the unconscious competence of dealing with others and making our lives just happen comes first the relapse to:
  • Conscious competence - things are now taking a little more effort, we notice. We have to be more careful about where we put our feet - but we are still steady. Using banisters on staircases becomes, not necessary perhaps, but prudent. Glasses adorn our noses because we see that we do not see that well any more. When we wear them we are fine. We avoid dangers, take precautions, take care where once we were blithely confident.
  • Conscious incompetence - we may now avoid rough ground, or crowds. We've found a little rut that works for us, and we stick to it - we find things tend to go wrong when we try something new. We accept that things seem to be moving away from us and another generation appears to be taking control. People much younger than us are taking jobs far more responsible than any of ours were.
  • Unconscious incompetence - to all intents and appearances things have continued to get worse but we find ourselves feeling fine again. We assert that if anyone breaks into our house we will give them such a thrashing that they will not know what hit them. In demonstrating how this will happen we stumble and fall against the wall. We take dozens of hours of other people's time but see no reason why we cannot be left to our own devices. We expect everything to be done, but make no effort to do it.
Over and over again you hear people comparing dealing with the aged to dealing with children. I always thought there was a big lie in this - that with children you are laying brick upon brick and building an edifice, that with each brick you lay they become capable of laying six of their own. With the aged it seems the mortar is falling out and you are constantly stuffing tissue paper into the gaps, hoping it will hold up. The two processes seemed quite different. Now I wonder whether all the differences are just due to the reversal of time's arrow, that this is the only real difference.

Thanks, Gail.