It’s easy to call yourself a master at something, but hard to become one.

As it turns out, there’s a

clear, five-stage development process you need to go through.

Already in 1980, Stuart and Hubert Dreyfus wrote a phenomenal article with the title “A five stage
model of the mental activities involved in directed skill acquisition.” Ever since, it is a reference
model and foundation for how someone develops from novice to master.

The five stages are:

• Novice: newbies that start with the basics and that can only follow the rules and repeat what has
been shown to them.

• Competence: able to apply what is learned step by step to a specific context and manage as long as
no problems pop up.

• Proficiency: able to treat situations as a whole, understand differences, see connections, and deal
with exceptions.

• Expertise: able to abstract from specific situations and work in every context, relying largely on
intuition.

• Mastery: able to work effortlessly and automatically, being fully absorbed in and by the work
delivered.

This is not just to create some sort of hierarchy or levels. The main relevance is that people learn
differently at different stages.

At the Novice and Competence stages, learning needs to be rule-driven and instruction-based.
Learners need a clear process and guidelines that they can understand and follow.

At the Proficiency and Expertise stages, learning is much more based on personal development and
gaining experience in different circumstances.

And, at the Mastery stage, learning is entirely individual. Rather than listening to a trainer or
practicing cases, at this stage the best way to learn is to figure things out yourself.

I’ve gone through this process to achieve a certain level of mastery in strategy and am at the stage of
“figuring it out myself” now. Based on that, I’ve also decided I want to help others develop the same
level of mastery, at least to the level of Expertise—thereby following the stages and their differences.