Christmas Reflections

I've long debated making a comment at this post at the HBR blogs. I read a paper by the psychologist mentioned in that post earlier this year. The discovery of that paper, and the work of another psychologist, Simonton, have been two of my best discoveries for 2010. My comment would be in response to the people who don't believe the research discussed in the post because it implies that natural talent is not a necessary trait for people to achieve elite status in a chosen field. People mention elite athletes first as contrary examples of the research. They could never play tennis as well as Roger Federer or run as fast as Usain Bolt. That's true, now, but what if you had started playing tennis when you were 5 years old and had focused all of your time, energy, and effort on becoming the best tennis player you could possibly be? Would you still not be able to compete at an elite level? Jamaica is a very small country but there are a disproportionally large number of world class sprinters from Jamaica. Why? Well, it must be genetic. Maybe, but what if a segment of our population started racing at a young age and spent a lot of time and effort learning how to run faster? They do that in Jamaica.

Talent is an excuse for not being elite. It's easy to look at somebody who writes really well or gives really great presentations and simply say that they're good because they have an innate knack. The presence or absence of that knack is outside of your control. No knack, no pressure to excel. Ericsson proposes a different variable for elite performance. Focused and deliberate practice leads to elite performance in the Ericsson model. This work must be dreary, hard, and unpleasant in order to improve performance. In this model, the barrier to excellence isn't innate ability but a conscious decision to get better and the dedication and comitment to put in the work needed to achieve that goal. Simply sitting at a keyboard and pounding out blog posts won't make you a better writer. The effort must be directed towards improvement. 10,000 hours (or 10 years) seems to be a magical number toward reaching superior performance. It's not just passively doing something to pass the time that counts. Practice demands the same energy and focus as a performance if you want to get better. That's a heavy price.

The only thing that holds us back from getting better is ourself.