The closest thing your brain has to superpowers – part 2

Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hour rule, the amount of time experts put in to hone their craft and reach the pinnacle of their field. His book Outliers is brilliantly written, smooth as top self tequila, and highly entertaining. He also missed a golden opportunity to go deeper, where the real human performance payback is.

Gladwell may have gotten the idea for the book title in K. Anders Ericsson’s and Neil Charness’s August 1994 article, “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” published in American Psychologist, where the word “outlier” is italicized on page 731.[i]

The research on expert performance is nothing new; it dates back to the 1950s. I am delighted that it is being illuminated now; it’s my mission to get these pearls out of the research labs and into the workplace so we can all experience a higher quality of life.

But wait: just put your 10,000 hours in and you should be successful, right?

There are people who have put their 10,000 hours in and are not at the top of their field. For example, you can teach for 20 years and still be a bad teacher. What I didn’t hear from Gladwell loudly enough is that the key to excelling is not simply practice, it’s a special kind of practice.

The superpower takeaway is that the top performers studied by K. Anders Ericsson practice differently. They engage in a “constant innovation” feedback loop that gives them a chance to change and improve their performance by revising their practice methods.

Let’s take the mediocre teacher mentioned above. If she records herself and listens to her lectures, makes adjustments to the boring parts, hires coaches for an outside view, evaluates her performance based on her student’s progress, asks the students what they think she should do to improve, and puts her 10,000 hours in, she is far more likely to improve her performance to an expert level.

There has to be a feedback loop. The best kind of practice is what Ericsson calls deliberate practice in which the feedback loop is an integral component.[ii]

Dr. Ericsson has studied chess masters, Scrabble players, medical professionals involved with diagnoses and surgical procedures, musicians, writers, painters, ballet dancers, athletes in numerous sports, and individuals considered savants with exceptional memory.[iii] I design and teach deliberate practice in my high performance coaching and training classes with transformational results.

The research has seen very little limits. This is where the superpowers really come in. Ericsson and Charness write “Savants who can name the day of the week of an arbitrary date ( e.g., November 5, 1923) generate their answers using instructable methods that allow their performance to be reproduced by a college student after a month of training.”[iv] You too, can display superpowers with a little work. Cool.

As a function of this deliberate and extended training, the brain and body actually change and adapt in functional and anatomical ways.[v] A great example of this is Lance Armstrong. He is widely known for having larger lung capacity than other cyclists and especially other individuals. Many people believe he was born with this extraordinary capability; however, Dr. Ericsson’s research demonstrates that Armstrong’s intense training modified his physiology by pushing his body beyond its limits. Therefore one could argue for the case that the great cyclist was made, not born, even those expanded lungs of his.

Tiger Woods is another example of an individual who others feel is “gifted.” Having started working at his expert domain at the age of three, being supported by an extraordinary father and perfect environment for achieving excellence, and using deliberate practice are three “secrets” to Woods’s success in golf that are much more significant than any innate talent.

To excel in your field, seek out training situations that give you immediate valid feedback so that you can constantly innovate your expertise and improve your performance. Ericsson cites the example of the radiologist who studies and makes diagnoses of hundreds of old X-rays that can then be compared to the documented outcome from surgery or other medical history in the file.[vi]

Gladwell is highly popular, a brilliant thinker, and a great idea guy. To go deeper in the field of expert performance, the body of work to pour over for high payback superpower pearls is K. Anders Ericsson’s at Florida State University http://www.psy.fsu.edu/faculty/ericsson.dp.html.

What miracles can deliberate practice enable in your brain? Send us your questions, comments, or workplace stories.

[i] K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness. (1994). “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” American Psychologist, 49:8, 725-747.
[ii] Christopher Percy Collier interviewing K. Anders Ericsson. (2006). “The Expert on Experts.” Fast Company, Issue 110, November 2006.
[iii] Ericsson, K. Anders and Ward, Paul. (2007). “Capturing the Naturally Occurring Superior Performance of Experts in the Laboratory,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16:9, 346-350.
[iv] K. Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness. (1994). “Expert Performance: Its Structure and Acquisition,” American Psychologist, 49:8, 725-747.
[v] Ericsson, K.A. (2007). “Deliberate practice and the modifiability of body and mind: Toward a science of the structure and acquisition of expert and elite performance.” International Journal of Sport Psychology, 38, 4-34.
[vi] Ericsson, K. Anders and Ward, Paul. (2007). “Capturing the Naturally Occurring Superior Performance of Experts in the Laboratory,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16:9, 346-350.