Most management is in the first category. There's a reason for that -- their job is a nebulous one, one that's hard to do right and harder to estimate the quality of from the outside.

I'm not apologizing for bad management; it's repugnant that an important job (oversight and organizational design) is so often done by wretched social whores. My point is that the job has high complexity and less supervision, and is therefore likely to be a place that incompetents unconsciously set out to end up.

I guess this is interesting to me because i dont understand why people dont do some research into areas that a) they may be novice in and b) there is bound to be lots of information out there on said topic.

People don't do research because it's hard. There are a class of people who don't do hard things. They don't like hard things because doing hard things invites failure, and failure scares them. Those people push to be managers for the bad reason: Low accountability, easy blame possibilities, high income, etc.

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You are what you think.

1. Unconciously Incompetent - Ignorant of your own lack of ability, unaware of any structure or limitations, and have no idea of the big picture. May perform by imitation and without understanding the rationale.
2. Conciously Incompetent - Realization of structure, scope, and limitations. Have an idea as to how to things work, but perhaps an incomplete one, and are still learning how to operate effectively.
3. Conciously Competent - Have "seen the elephant", understand how things work, and have enough experience to not get into trouble. However, a certain amount of deliberate concentration is required in order to perform. There is a little hesitation and uncertainty.
4. Unconciously Competent - Performing no longer requires active effort, as practice has made this habitual and innate.

I went on a course one time. It classified people into four general categories: Unconsciously Incompetent ; Consciously Incompetent ; Unconsciously Competent ; Consciously Competent.

Was the course a book called "Mega Memory" by Kevin Trudeau?

- Yes, I reinvent wheels.
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It was a couse I attended while working for a Bank in Australia. It was meant to promote harmony and communication among employees who all had their own agenda's (that often conflicted).

The funny part was the course was originally aimed at senior management, and they thought it as so worthwhile it filtered down to the rank and file... :-)