I've been reading the book "Talent Is Overrated" by Geoff Colvin, a senior editor at Fortune, which aims to debunk the myth that the world's top performers - whether in sports or business or chess - possess some type of innate ability that the rest of us don't.
Some interesting points:
Mozart, I've always heard, was reputed to be able to compose symphonies in his head. Not so, says Colvin. That belief can be traced back to a letter that was later proven to be a forgery. The truth: Mozart's manuscripts are as marked up with revisions as Beethoven or any other composer. Further, Mozart's early works were simply rearranged compositions of other composers, of little note, and he didn't compose anything exceptional until his 9th symphony, at the age of 21. That's 18 years after he began his rigorous training.
Apparently Mozart starting learning at a young age from his father, who was also a composer. The presence of a driven, skilled parent is a common story for those with "innate talent" regardless of the profession. Tiger Woods in golf, Andy Roddick in tennis, and Warren Buffett in investing each had one, and began their training at an exceptionally young age.
The point Colvin makes is that disciplined practice is what distinguishes top performers from the rest, not innate skills. The early start of Tiger and Roddick meant they had practiced more hours than anyone else in their age group, and that gave them an edge. And by practice, Colvin emphasizes long periods of specific skill-improving repetition, not just "hitting the ball around" or "jamming". Coaching is almost always required, even when they are at the top. Malcolm Gladwell makes similar points in "Outliers."
Colvin also spent a great deal of time talking about memory and how exceptional memory is learned, not innate, and generally specific to a single area of expertise. Example: chess experts can memorize where the pieces are on a board much faster than non-experts, but only when its a real game. If the pieces are placed randomly, experts tested the same as nonexperts.
While I haven't finished the book, his punchline seems to be that there is no replacement for experience, in particular the type of self-improving experience that is hard work and few people want to do.
What does that experience give top performers? Colvin mentions a few things:
1. They develop ways to access more information in a shorter amount of time than average, and gain an edge that way. Conversely, they develop the judgment required to read situations with less information and fill in the blanks.
2. They also develop intricate mental models of how their domain works, and use them to predict likely outcomes of any given action, filter important information from the noise, and know which buttons to push on whatever machine they are operating, and when to push them. It's interesting to note that Johnson O'Connor had a "structural visualization" aptitude test that sounds similar, but again Colvin asserts this is not innate, its something people learn to do.
3. Another common trait is they have a highly tuned process for achieving excellence. Before Chris Rock does his stand-up act for 20,000 people in Madison Square Garden, he has refined his material over a large number of sessions in front of small forums. He refines what works and drops what doesn't work.
It is, in the end, a book about succeeding in business. Colvin draws many parallels between business managment and the more visible sports and entertainment examples. He rebukes the theory, born of MBA programs and consulting groups like McKinsey, that great general managers could be plopped into any business situation, apply a set of standard rules, and be successful. Not so. More and more companies are looking for managers with deep domain expertise, because it is the foundation of sound judgment and good decisions. Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric since 2001, points to their aircraft division as a place where long tenure of management has resulted in 4-5 key decisions that won them 50 years of industry leadership. By contrast, in their reinsurance business, where they've churned people, he says they've basically failed.
A final note: Colvin doesn't think intelligence, measured by IQ or any other measure, is necessarily an advantage. Why is that? Because smart people often decide, for whatever reason, they don't want to do the work.
4 comments:
Coincidentally, I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal today regarding playing video games...
A growing body of university research suggests that gaming improves creativity, decision-making and perception. The specific benefits are wide ranging, from improved hand-eye coordination in surgeons to vision changes that boost night driving ability.
People who played action-based video and computer games made decisions 25% faster than others without sacrificing accuracy, according to a study. Indeed, the most adept gamers can make choices and act on them up to six times a second—four times faster than most people, other researchers found. Moreover, practiced game players can pay attention to more than six things at once without getting confused, compared with the four that someone can normally keep in mind, said University of Rochester researchers. The studies were conducted independently of the companies that sell video and computer games.
Turns out John posted about this same book back in 2009. I could have saved time and money and just read his summary. Good stuff!
That's funny. And Dad posted about a similar book a ways back. Definitely a family theme going here.
You noted that "smart people" generally decide not to do the work. I wonder if that's because intelligence engenders laziness or because their intelligence has led them to believe that being like Tiger Woods isn't worth all the work?
By the way, I've turned on email notifications for comments - so you get comments by email too - not just new blog postings. Blogger only allows up to 10 names so I used the same 10 as for new blog postings.
If you don't want the comment email notifications let me know.
Post a Comment