I just read a great book: Talent is overrated, by Geoff Colvin.
It explains where the greatest achievers find the source of their talent. And that’s not from some innate capability or just sheer hard work.
Geoff Colvin identifies the concept of deliberate practice as the key to sustained excellence. Deliberate practice is hard work, because it is still required to go through thousand of hours of practice. But it is more than that:
- deliberate practice follows a program specifically designed to improve performance by working on what is difficult
- deliberate practice is repeated a lot
- feedback on the results is continuously available
- it is demanding mentally and is not much fun
So it is not just the hours of practice that count. It is also how practice is focused on improvement, it requires feedback to be constantly available. It generally requires somebody else to design the practice program and give the feedback.
It is quite straightforward to understand this in the field of sports. What about the field of leadership in an organization? How often do you stretch yourself, repeat difficult actions, and do you get continuous feedback? Do you have a coach to design and force you through the process?
Yet without these elements, excellence will be impossible to reach.
Think about it. Design a deliberate practice program to become the best in what you want to do. That’s worth it.
