Canadian Government Executive - Volume 22 - Issue 8

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October 2016 // Canadian Government Executive / 25
The book is fascinating reading, covering a lot of research on
diverse performers and also looking at how these ideas might be
used in schools and universities. It also will offer clues on how
you might apply his thinking into the 2,000-plus hours you put in
at work each year.
requires a tremendous amount of effort exerted over many years.
It may not require exactly 10,000 hours but it will take a lot,” he
says.
But these advances don’t come from just any type of practice.
Effort isn’t enough. The gold standard is deliberate practice,
which involves a coach drawing from a highly-developed body
of knowledge about the best way to teach the skills, focused ef-
fort by you in the practice sessions, feedback, and long, grueling
work that pushes past your comfort zone. “In pretty much any
area of human endeavour, people have a tremendous capacity to
improve their performance, as long as they train in the right way,”
he insists.
Althoughmanagement is one of the exceptions you can still take
advantage of Ericsson’s research by trying purposeful practice,
applying as much of the formula as possible. This will usually in-
volve identifying expert performers and figuring out what makes
them so good, and then coming up with training techniques to
improve on those skills. But he stresses the importance of clar-
ity. Don’t guess at what you should be doing, as you may end up
fooling yourself. “Be careful when identifying expert performers.
Ideally you want some objective measure of performance with
which to compare other people’s abilities,” he warns.
To effectively practise a skill without a teacher he recommends
the three Fs: Focus, feedback, fix it. Break the skills you need
down into components that you can do repeatedly and analyze
effectively. As you practise, determine your weakness and figure
out how to improve.
Stories abound in the book of performers in music, the arts, and
sports. And while one person—commercial photographer Dan
McLaughlin—decided at age 30 to adopt the deliberate practice
notions to become a PGA golfer, despite never playing much golf,
and after 6,000 hours of practice has a decent handicap fluctuat-
ing between three and four, most of us would be more inclined to
apply the ideas to our duties at work. That starts with questioning
the consultants and coaches eager to come to your aid. “Of all the
myriad approaches out there, the ones most likely to succeed are
ones that most resemble deliberate practice,” he says.
Push past any beliefs that your abilities are limited in some
way. Growth is possible. You may believe you’re not creative. But
you can be, with deliberate practice. “Anyone can improve, but
it requires the right approach. If you are not improving, it’s not
because you lack innate talent; it’s because you’re not practising
the right way. Once you understand this, improvement becomes a
matter of figuring out what the ‘right way’ is,” he says.
You also need to push back the suspicion none of this has much
practical use to a government executive in his or her day job. Af-
ter all, practice seems impossible—not much time to practice and
how would you do it? But it is possible, in things as diverse as
presentations and interviewing job candidates, to treat the situ-
ation as a practice, setting out goals for improvement, pushing
beyond your comfort zone, and arranging for feedback to ensure
continuous improvement. He advises you to remember that im-
provement doesn’t come from gaining more knowledge—as tradi-
tional training implies—but from polishing your skills.
web
To effectively practise a skill without
a teacher he recommends the three
Fs: Focus, feedback, fix it.
The Leader’s Bookshelf