In my last post “Your strengths” I placed the emphasis on discovering one’s strengths, which is a mixture of talent, knowledge and experience. One of my clients pointed out that on my website www.abplan.co.za, I highlighted the findings of Geoff Colvin under the title “Personal greatness.” Colvin, my client correctly pointed out, holds the view that talent is overrated as for many people success is more a case of “deliberate practice” and of becoming extraordinarily proficient in practicing whatever they do.
I think the two views complement each other. It is possible to determine one’s talents by doing precisely what Marcus Buckingham suggests: Make notes in a journal for one or two weeks and then seriously analyze what you loved and loathed doing. Then proceed to restructure your work to do more of what you love doing. This will ensure that you will be happy to put more energy into your work.
On the other hand, a simple restructuring is not sufficient as it still will take hard work of the “deliberate practice” kind which Colvin described so well in two articles and also in his newly released book Talent is Overrated. (Fortune of 30 October 2006 and of 27 October 2008.)
In a nutshell, Colvin argues that it takes a certain mentality and commitment to become really proficient at anything. He offers the following practice tip sheet:
- “Approach each critical task with an explicit goal of getting much better at it.
- As you do the task, focus on what’s happening and why you’re doing it the way you are.
- After the task, get feedback on your performance from multiple sources. Make changes to your behaviour as necessary.
- Continually build mental models of your situation – your industry, your company, your career. Enlarge the models to encompass more factors.
- Do these steps regularly, not sporadically. Occasional practice does not work.”
Anyone who is very good in their chosen professions will have experienced that having a job which unleashes your passion invariably leads to extraordinary hard and dedicated work and to success. And you will have experienced that success requires a thoughtful approach. Simply working hard is not smart.
Three questions arise:
- Would you not wish to define your talents or to reaffirm them?
- Would you be interested in aligning your work more to your talents?
- Are you prepared to develop the mindset which would make the application of the five steps a habit?
You might not be interested in putting in the effort which produces an Olympic Gold medal, but then even gold medal winners mostly discover, only after having developed this type of mindset and after years of dedication and growth, that they are Olympic material. They gained much in the process.
What about testing both approaches – the talent and the deliberate practice approaches?
There is such a lot to gain!
What do you think?
Albert
Filed under: learning Tagged: | organisation, self-coaching, strengths, talent, training
I think that this is adults talking about things they ought to have been talking about when they were kids, or that adults now should be talking about with their kids, their students, whatever young people they interact with. The fact that we have people in the workplace for whom these conversations are necessary is a rather broad indictment of an educational system which is focused on the wrong things.
Young people need both deliberate practice and talent identification. They should have some opportunity to select areas of interest in a school environment and push their time toward that. Truth about Olympic gold medalists is that they are created starting at a very early age, either through state selection, like China, or individual selection like in the west. But if we leave these simple practices toward attaining excellence in work life until people are on the job, we have a significantly diminished chance of seeing excellence result. We need to start in schools, afterschool programs, homes, etc. Read Jenifer Fox’s excellent Your Child’s Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them (Viking, 2008) Forword by Buckingham. Great argument for starting NOW with our kids.
Hi Nick – A great comment! I totally agree. The process of talent identification and of attuning people to the concept of deliberate practice should start as early as possible.
In my work I get to work with adults and a small percentage grasp the fact that they can change their lives if they thoughtfully focus on their own growth. Work supplies the opportunity. They should think “ME Inc” and act with energy. They and their employers will reap the benefits.
And the first obligation of managers is to assist those who are in their charge to discover their strengths and to ensure that circumstances are created for each to flourish.
Hey Albert
Thanks for the post. I find this thinking encouraging, that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
The success of this simple five-step model depends on a process of regular reflection, which in my experience is NOT that easy to implement. What is the lever we can work that will make us get up and reflect on the day that has been and the day to come, rather than chundering on regardless?
I have found Personal Learning Contracts useful (from the world of Self Organised Learning) but deeper than this, an emotional drive is required.
This may also be one of those things we could encourage in children as suggested by Nick.
Hi Stephen
I would simply like to add that my reading is that one should focus firstly on creating a mindset of getting better at whatever one is doing which is important. Secondly, one has analyse while in the process of doing a task.
If one can establish these two habits, the other steps of reflecting on matters after execution will become easier. If an enjoyable emotion is experienced, learning and contemplation during and after execution benefits.
Learning while executing purposefully would seem to be the main ingredient.
I have come back to read these five points again. In fact I have copied them into my weekly plan.
This is what separates “Dabblers” from the skilled.