The sequence you’re referring to is usually called the **Four Stages of Competence**, **Conscious Competence Model**, or **Four Stages of Learning**. It describes the learner’s movement from **not knowing that they lack a skill**, through deliberate learning, to a point where the skill becomes largely automatic. ### **Origin and attribution** The model is **very commonly attributed to Abraham Maslow**, particularly in NLP, coaching, training, and personal-development literature. That attribution does **not appear to be historically justified**: the four-stage formulation does not appear in Maslow’s major published works.   The attribution usually given for the modern formulation is **Noel Burch**, who worked for **Gordon Training International (GTI)** in the early 1970s. According to GTI, Burch developed a model called the **“Four Stages for Learning Any New Skill,”** which appeared in their training materials, including the _Teacher Effectiveness Training Instructor Guide_. GTI later used the language _unskilled/skilled_ as well as _incompetent/competent_.   However, the underlying idea is older than Burch. There are identifiable antecedents: - **T. Earl Pardoe (1923)** described learning as progressing from something resembling unconscious ignorance, through conscious ignorance and conscious knowledge, toward knowledge whose techniques have become unconscious.   - A four-stage treatment appeared in **Frank De Phillips, William Berliner, and James Cribbin’s Management of Training Programs (1960)**.   - **Martin M. Broadwell**, in his 1969 article **“Teaching for Learning,”** described what he called **four levels of teaching**, predating the Burch/GTI formulation.   - **W. Lewis Robinson** published a closely related **“Conscious Competency”** formulation in 1974.   So the most defensible wording is: **The modern Four Stages of Competence model is commonly associated with Noel Burch and Gordon Training International in the early 1970s, although earlier versions and precursors existed. Attribution to Abraham Maslow is widespread but unsupported.**