Being an expert takes time, not talent
I’ve been walking around with the July/August 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review constantly, for close to three years. Sometimes, if I'm getting on a plane, I'll put it with the other heavy stuff into my luggage, and then get it out later. When my last car broke down in the middle of an intersection, I got the magazine out of the trunk before I abandoned the car.
The article that I'm attached to is The Making of an Expert by Anders Ericsson, Michael Prietula and Edward Cokely. I would not normally bother to tell you all three authors for one article in my blog. This is not a medical journal. But I love the article so much, that I want you to know all of them.
The article changed how I think about what I am doing here. In my life. I think I am trying to be an expert.
Being an expert is not what you think, probably. For one thing, the article explains that “there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance in fields such as chess, music, sports, and medicine. The only innate differences that turn out to be significant”?and they matter primarily in sports — are height and body size. ”
So what factor does correlate with success? One thing emerges very clearly is that successful performers “had practiced intensively, had studied with devoted teachers, and had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years.”
There are a few things about the article that really make me nervous. The first is that you need to work every single day at being great at that one thing if you want to be great. This is true of pitching, painting, parenting, everything. And if you think management in corporate life is an exception, you're wrong. I mean, the article is in the Harvard Business Review for a reason.
It used to be, more than 100 years ago, that you could be a prodigy and come out of nowhere and be great. There are stories like that, ones we hang onto when we do things like watch the Olympics and allow ourselves to think, “Maybe I'll be on the luge team in 2014.”
Today the standard for being an international success at anything is so high that the authors say you need to spend at least ten years working in a very focused, everyday way on the thing you want to be great at. Evidence: high schools swimmers today would beat Olympic records from years ago. (And in fact, the importance of hard work over raw talent is the subject of the most popular Freakonomics column ever in the New York Times.)
This part of the research worries me because there is not a lot I have invested this much time in. Maybe the only thing is writing. I'm not sure.
Well, there are other things, but I'm not sure I could be great. Figure skating is a good example. I figure skated for ten years. I was good, until I went through puberty and then was clearly the wrong body type to be doing double flips. I should have been a basketball player. Maybe.
A lot of being great at something is having the right coaching, and part of the right coaching is someone telling you where you're not gonna make it and where you are. I'm not sure I have this right now.
But the coaching that successful experts get is special. According to the article, usually someone starts with a local coach, for anything, and then the person moves on to a coach who has achieved huge success himself. And people who practice very hard every day start to have a sense of who can be a coach who is capable of helping them succeed, and who is a coach they have outgrown.
An example the authors use is Mozart. Yes, he had innate ability, but also, his father was a professional violinist, skilled composer and wrote the first book ever on violin instruction.
I am panicking that maybe I am just figure skating again. Maybe I am doing something I'll never be great at. I worry about this because I don't actually know what I'm doing. Am I getting good at bringing a startup from fruition to exit? Am I getting good at writing career advice?
I am thinking, maybe, the thing I'm getting good at is living my life out in the open. But I'm starting to worry that it's like figure skating. Because I have a natural limit: I don't want my kids to be psycho from overexposure. The farmer doesn't like being on my blog, and I am not getting good coaching right now. I mean, I'm not getting any coaching, I don't think.
This reminds me of the day I realized that my figure skating coach was an alcoholic. My dad picked me up at the rink. He asked why my skate guards were on. I said I never went skating. I said, “I think Ivar is sick.”
My dad said, “Yeah. I've been thinking that for a while.”
I said, “I don't think he really can teach me any more.”
My dad said, “I've been thinking that for a while.”
I remember the heartbreak I felt knowing that I didn't have a teacher. I remember also realizing that it's important to know who can teach and who can't. If you are a person who wants to be an expert, the thing you want most is a teacher. I think that's why I carry the magazine with me everywhere I go. To remind me to look. Like my life depends on it.
But I’ve recently started reading research beyond the article, and it turns out that the teacher isn’t the important per se, but rather, what you need is immediate, helpful feedback. And this is what you get when you have a blog. So maybe I am still on my path to being an expert, and I’m just crowdsourcing my coaching.
I really like this post. It’s so interesting and I very much want to apply it to my life.
I’m working at a job that is not interesting to me, but I’m doing something I’m good at (or so they tell me). But I have no passion for it and I know I cannot become an expert. Frustrating because I’m not working toward any one goal, figure skating or otherwise. How do I decide where my passions and skills intersect, so I can start practicing them every day (question I keep asking myself)? I’m afraid it’s going to take me 10 years to figure it out, before I start productively working toward expert status.
I must say, I believe that most all of us are experts at something. That is, if all it takes is ten years of doing.
Of course, not all things are worthy of praise, especially those ambitions based on selfish pursuits.
I worked for a very high end engineering firm. They had some of the smartest people that couldn’t lead a dog to water. Sure they where smart individuals but that was, what I felt, their weakness. They where always above the rest of use, claiming to be the expert on everything. I agree with some of the previous posts. Real leaders and experts are people who gone through the trenches themselves and have a real understanding of all sides of the situation. I have learn the most from “Experts” with that kind of background. Great post!
Excellent article
I have always said that you have to be very careful where you get your advice from- never take weight loss advice from a fat doctor. I guess we are all trying to become experts at something. Whether we’re just attempting to be a better parent, a better partner or just trying hard to stay in our job through being an expert at it, we’re all on a similar path. Real experts however don’t need to say that they are, you just know. Whether it’s track record, reputation, media interest or some other factor, listen to people who have actually walked the walk. Talk really is cheap
I believe in this.
When you were first born, you might have some talent but you are not an expert. Being expert means knowing the ups and downs of the road and noticing the easiest route. That’s why it takes time and effort to be an expert. You need to be on the road and walk on it. Talent is an excellent foundation though, but in reality, talent is just another word of believing in yourself.
I totally agree with this. People nowadays want to see result fast and tend to miss out on this fact that they need time to become an expert at something that they do.
There is no point in you being talented but do not spend time to put it to practice and you will never be an expert.
Lets talk mathematics for instance, you can be talented in math but if you do not put in time to practice them, you will not be an expert. Conversely a normal student can be an expert in maths if he or she put in time and effort to practice.
I believe every person was born with a dream for his o her life, and that dream is the kind of life you were born to love, and in order to achieve your dream, you will have to work hard, learn and practice, but since it is your dream and what you love to do, it would be just and amazing trip through life.
There is no better feeling that working on that thing you love the most.
Wonderfully thought-provoking post, but it made me a little sad. So many people who can’t be experts because they didn’t get the right support? I don’t think we should limit ourselves by academic theories, even those from the Harvard Business Review. My daughter was told in 4th grade that she was a “kinesthetic learner”. The teacher who gave her the test told her that kinesthetic learners have trouble sitting still, learning in traditional classrooms and spelling. She came home telling me she can’t spell because she is a kinesthetic learner, which is ridiculous because she is great at spelling as well as learning in traditional classrooms. Sitting still – well she can sit still when she wants to. We have to be careful how we apply limiting theories!
But my main thought was: do we really want to be that much of an expert? Why? When I was in college and there was a guy in my area that was smarter than me in every way I felt like, “why bother?”. I took the question to smart-guy and he said the world doesn’t just need one smart person (or 10 or 1000), it needs everyone. Everyone has something to give. We would all be happier and more connected and would probably be giving more if we stopped worrying about whether we qualify as experts or not. What does it take to become an expert? — What does it take to become a lover of your art? To become someone who can share your passion and talent and inspire people to learn or think or go and do it themselves? That’s more interesting to me now than becoming an expert. I have just written my own mission statement without even realizing that I felt this way! Thank you for provoking thought!
I really liked this post along with the comments. A very interesting topic and worthy of more study.
I think of taking time to becoming an expert as being preeminent so that 1) decisions and relative comparisons can easily be made based on vast previous experience, 2) terms, concepts, etc. are so well understood that time can be spent focused on the work to be done, and 3) a well-established (professional and efficient) network of people and procedures are in place to assist if necessary.
The taking time aspect will become more critical in the future since many fields are becoming so much more complex and constantly changing at the same time.
Just as practice makes perfect, I’ve read a book I forgot what the title is but it says that being born with talented parents increases your chances to be talented as they are but it requires constant training to keep that or to really benefit from it. The same is true with being an expert, it doesn’t come instantly but something that has to be worked on constantly. This is what I’ve been telling in my blog that before people started listening to you, you’ve had more than 100 posts. Until we all reach that point, without abandoning our blog after a week of posting, then we could really say that we’rea blogger.
Jonha
dont be so damn equivocal! Im trying to find the meat in this article and there isnt any. You touch on what it takes to be an expert: TIME. All the research shows “talent” has nothing to do with it. Its not even quantifyable. Someone commented it takes 10,000 hours, and thats correct. Minimum. Thats it.
Penelope,
You said, “The first is that you need to work every single day at being great at that one thing if you want to be great. This is true of pitching, painting, parenting, everything.”
Momentum is a lie. I use to think it was like riding a bike. Pedal for a while, coast and then pedal some more to recapture momentum.
In reality it’s not like riding a bike. Rather, it is more like jogging. You can’t coast. Each step requires effort. If you stop, so does your forward progress.
There is no such thing as momentum. Rather, it depends on choices. In the jogging metaphor, each step is a choice. Better choices lead to greater success. I came up with a little phrase as a reminder to myself:
“Continue making better choices with ever increasing frequency”
Peace! :-)
i love to see women doing some figure skating routines~-;
I think that there is a big difference between expert and genius. You’re talking about genius like Mozart or any other people who worked a lot from the first years of their lives. If you want to be an expert you just need to be perfect and professional in your business but not to work 24 hours during the whole life. It is like difference between wise and clever person. Wise is a professional and clever is just always trying to become wise, but he fails.
Can’t agree more, talent without work gives nothing !
Fabulous! Based on the time I can afford to put into my art form and still make a living, plus market my art, I will be an expert at 107 years old!
I think part of my problem is I have too many interests.
I managed an airline, owned several high tech businesses, was a munitions tech in the USAF,
worked at an isp in the mid 90’s, learned computers on my own after stumbling on an open terminal in high school that used an acoustic coupler to connect to the then ‘intranet’, marketed for the entertainment industry and tons of artists most people would recognize, and so much more.
I started providing SEO services in 1995, real estate funding in 1988, and high tech services since 1973. And, my hobby became a business – hand made cigars manufacturing.
Now I’m writing a book.
I’ve been saying for years, I’d rather know just one thing, like how to paint steam radiators green. If I stuck to one thing, maybe I’d have been better off!
Great article. I tutor MBA students at
http://graduatetutor.com/ and find that most students think they are experts because they have taken a 3 month course in finance.
I blame the faculty/mba schools mostly for this as they do not set realistic expectations. You cant beat Warren Buffet’s investing record by reading a book on him or by him!! He started studying & owning stocks at the age of 9!!!
Downloading stuff from this website is as simple |as clicking the mouse rather than other blogs which move me here and there on the internet pages.
Hi,
I want to start up a website that provides high-school and university graduates with information about how to get a job after graduating and opportunities that are available to them.
This will include opportunities on travelling (ESL teaching), post-graduate study, how to get a job, and internships.
The only thing that holds me back is that I am aware that I have not worked as a careers advisor or in recruitment before.
However the experience that I do have include:
– graduating with a BA social work, BEd teaching, and graduate diploma in psychology
– teaching in the Middle East
– teaching in Korea
– living in 5 different countries
– travelling to 27 different countries
– having difficulties finding a job after initially graduating (feeling anxiety about the future)
– an obsession with careers, which has caused me to read many careers advice books
– visiting several careers advisors
– I have been writing friends resumes for them
– I am getting help with my dad who has worked as a human resource manager both in Australia and in Papua New Guinea (15 years worth of experience)
– I also have support from my partner who has worked in banking in England and has taught English in China, Korea, Saudia Arabia, and Kuwait for the last 5 years
– I have worked for several recruitment companies in New Zealand who I can get suggestions from
At this stage, I have been doing a fair amount of research, and would like to proceed with creating a blog, however the thing that is holding me back is concern that I am not a trained careers advisor.
How much experience do you need to start up a business?