Malcolm Gladwell recently came out with the book Outliers. The hypothesis is simple: what makes people great is a lot of hard work. Mathematically, that works out to around 10,000 hours.
Seth Godin thinks that doesn’t hold up. I agree with some of his post – applying the basic idea of niches, and making time-to-expertise variable bears looking into – but this stuck out at me:
There were bar bands in Buffalo, where I grew up, that put in far more than 10,000 playing mediocre music… didn’t help. Hard work may be necessary, but not sufficient
This overlooks a simple, core component of “theories of practice:” it has to be deliberate practice.
You can practice golf for 50 hours, and demonstrate dramatic improvement. You can play for 500, and improve not one whit.
Deliberate practice involves mindfulness with regard to performance. It means paying attention, and trying to improve.
Most people, when they work, aren’t “deliberately practicing.” They aren’t attempting to become better at what they’re doing. Consequently, they don’t – their skill level plateaus.
Gladwell’s figure of 10,000 may or may not be correct. I don’t have a lot of faith in magic numbers. But I do subscribe to the idea that practice – real practice – well show improvement, and expertise is an inevitable result.
Post Revisions:
This post has not been revised since publication.