Behind the Scenes at Global-Roam

As noted previously, I have challenged all employees (and a few absent shareholders might participate, as well) to select an area of value to the company and undertake (in that area) to progressively develop their capability till they reach “Guru Status”.

That’s why we found these three articles to be of great interest.

”A star is Made” by Stephen J Dubner and Steven D Levitt
New York Times.   7th May 2006
(note, Dubner and Levitt are from Freakonomics)

“Success is all in the mind” by Shelley Gare
The Australian.  24th January 2009

“A wealth of explanations for earthly riches” by Sue Halpern
AFR.  7th August 2009

For employees, there’s copies of all 3 articles saved for each in our eLibrary:
L:\Market Information\By Issue\Management

Background

Our logic is pretty forward, really – we’re a small company (in terms of staff numbers) that already has a large, multi-national client list – and we have even larger aspirations.

That was one of the reasons we had a number of employees buy into the company over a couple rounds of an ESOP scheme.

As such, there’s really nowhere in the company for anyone to hide, and just be “average”.

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“A star is made” (created a furore)

When the NYT article was written, apparently it created a furore - perhaps too many parents upset by the notion that “little Johnny is talented” just would not wash anymore?

The three articles cite the studies conducted by Swedish psychology professor Anders Ericsson (this reference links to loads of his research papers).

Ericsson is a leading proponent of the principle of “deliberate practice”.  As noted in the OZ:

“his basic argument is that there’s probably no such thing as innate talent or, if there is, it’s overrated.”

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The 10,000-hour Rule?

To understand “deliberate practice”, we need to first understand the notion of the “10,000-hour Rule” – which is explained in the AFR as follows:

“The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise.  In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours”

The three articles cite numerous examples (Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Robert Oppenheimer, the Beatles, etc…) to explain that each of these were, in effect, 10,000-hour old “overnight successes”.

Ah well – when I  consider my own background (the teens spent daydreaming, the twenties in the pub & travelling, etc …  I reckon I’ll be getting to that 10,000 hour mark around the time I will be retiring…

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What is “Deliberate Practice”?

But wait, there’s more!

Yes – despite the fact that 10,000 hours is a bloody long time to be doing anything in particular – it’s actually even harder than that (but at least no steak knives).

The OZ quotes Ericsson himself to explain:

“If you take the shortcut, it’s probably not going to stick with you. I just thought if something is worth learning, it’s worth learning as well as you can.”

As the AFR notes:

the magic inherent in the magic number does not inhere to the number itself.  Most of us will eventually clock more than 10,000 hours doing the things we like to do a lot … and reach some level of competence and stay there.

This is where we get to the punch line – the practice has to be “deliberate”.  By deliberate, the AFR notes:

Deliberate practice is characterised by several elements, each worth examining:
1)  It is actively designed specifically to improve performance (often with a teacher’s help);
2)  It  can be repeated a lot;
3)  Feedback on results is continuously available;
4)  It’s highly demanding mentally - whether the activity is purely intellectual (such as chess or business) or heavily physical (such as sports);
5)  It is not much fun.

Because it is central to the finding, I have also noted the description in the OZ, for a slightly different slant:

“Deliberate practice, whether it’s applied to sport or business or the arts, begins in the brain. … (it’s) training via a kind of focused, repetitive practice in which the subject is always monitoring his or her performance, correcting, experimenting, listening to immediate and constant feedback, and always pushing beyond what has already been achieved.”

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Obvious Conclusions

These findings (published by Ericsson back in 1996, hence the NYT article) are very much aligned with what Stephen Covey noted in building up the elements of Trust – in very simple (trite?) ratio terms:

1)  Having natural talent represents only 1/5 of 1/4 (so 5%) of all that is required to inspire others to trust you (another measure of success)

2)  If you add in skills and knowledge (so what we learnt at uni) we still only get to 15%

Furthermore, it should not take a rocket scientist (or even a fraction of the 10,000 hours of practice required) to realise that, if you’ve got to sock away 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” at something to become a Guru – then you’d better pick something you enjoy doing!

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What’s the real reason you’re not good at something?

The NYT makes an interesting point:

“Most people naturally don’t like to do things they aren’t “good” at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don’t possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin.

But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.”

Hence, to those use the trash lines promoted in books such as Marcus Buckingham’s “Focus on your Strengths” as a crutch to avoid doing anything new and uncomfortable, especially early in their careers – well, this is a challenge to accept the real reason.

As I have explained to the guys on numerous occasions before (so much that they are no doubt sick of it) I am not a fan, at all, of the theory (fallacy) of predetermination.

Naturally, no-one can excel at everything.  Additionally, if you are not blessed with height, maybe basketball is not for you.

The main point here (in my view) is that people should choose what they want to excel in for reasons other than just the fact that it is familiar and comfortable – for to do otherwise is just plain lazy/chicken (not to mention career/life-limiting).

What grounds should their be for the decision – well, that varies.  It might be commercial considerations, or considerations based on religious or other ideologies, or perhaps something else….

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Implications for us

There’s four big ones, really – in relation to our requirement that everyone chooses (and declares) what they will become a Guru in:

1)  Begin with the end in mind.  By this I mean that we should be selecting our areas of speciality based on where we perceive the company will need to be in 10-15 years time, then work back from there.

2)  Don’t expect it to happen overnight.  Just because you’ve suddenly given yourself the title of “Vice-Regal Pomfret” does not automatically mean you’ll start sprouting the curly hat and pointy shoes.   Start small – under-promise and over-deliver.

3)  Implement a structured plan that will get you there.  This needs to take into account the 5 main points quoted from the AFR above.  Except for those sadists/masochists amongst us, make sure you take heed of the 5th point (it’s not much fun), so be realistic in how many of those 10,000 hours you can clock up in a given day.

4)  Continuous Feedback.  From a corporate point of view, that means we also need to gear ourselves so each individual can get continuous (live) feedback as they repeatedly stretch their own boundaries.

5) – who said I could count – yeah, of course we need to continue watching our cash flow on a weekly basis whilst we’re all investing our 10,000 hours into becoming an “overnight success” in 10 years time!

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Hammocks, anyone?

Finally, the OZ also notes that:

“He discovered something else intriguing about the best violinists, the ones who could one day become world-class soloists. They napped after lunch.

“The argument they made,” says Ericsson, “was that the real constraint on how much you could practise was not the number of hours in the day, but the number of hours in the day you could sustain full concentration.

If you couldn’t sustain your concentration, you were wasting your time.”

Perhaps at some stage in the future, we will actually get ourselves the beanbags Stephen keeps asking for…

Tags: 10000 hour rule, deliberate practice, growing pains, strategic planning, talent is overrated

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Article Review, Company Philosophy, Human Resources Management, Strategy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.