Tag Archive for 'expert performance'

High achievers do this…

Published on 6 February, 2009 in High Performance and Purpose. Closed Tags: .

As I looked a little further into motivation, I came across Greissman’s interviews of highly successful people. He found the following commonalities:

  1. They love their work.
  2. They become highly competent in a speciality.
  3. They commit themselves to their work, giving it their time and even their life.
  4. They meet most of their needs through work.
  5. They long for recognition and self-fulfillment.
  6. They focus on their work to the point that they ‘flow’ with it, loosing themselves in the work.
  7. They have few regrets.

This is a post-hoc analysis, rather than being proscriptive, but I have to wonder how long it would take you to become highly successful if you were demonstrating these behaviours.

Talent matters… but not as much as determination.


Interesting note on Lincoln… whereas most Presidents since have chosen their supporters to be on their cabinet, Lincoln chose his rivals. Seward became Secretary of State, and had been governor and Senator for New York; Chase later became Treasury Secretary and had been governor of Ohio; Bates became Attorney General and was an accomplished judge. But to do this, he had to keep his ego out of the situations by focusing on the real goals…

Daniel Smith

Lose Yourself… or Lose this Day Loitering?

Published on 19 December, 2008 in Change, High Performance and Personal Growth. Closed Tags: , , , .

Lose this day loitering – ’twill be the same story
Each indecision brings its own delays,
To-morrow – and the next more dilatory;
And days are lost lamenting o’er lost days.
Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute -
Begin it, and then the work will be completed!
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated -
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.

While The Secret is riding its wave of popularity it is easy to forget that things change when we change. Not just when we think, but when we do. Not think about doing, but actually do.

Von Goethe wrote about a tendency towards activity with such precision that his words continue to be repeated and contemplated perhaps two hundred years after he wrote this piece. While he was one of the creative giants of history – and a polymath, having attained world-class status as a dramatist, novelist, poet, journalist, painter, statesman, educator and natural philosopher – it is clear that as creative as he might have been, he made things happen and got stuff done.

Intellectualisation, rationalisation and introspection are some of my favourite hobbies. I like to think that many of the mistakes that I have made shall not be repeated as many times because I took the time to notice and amend the cause. But there is nothing quite as powerful as doing stuff! A bit of science helps us understand this – it seems that eminent performance comes after about a decade of disciplined and focused practice within a domain (from Ericsson originally, but more accessible here). Instrumentality – believing that what you do will make a difference – has a big impact in results too (kids who believe that they can get smarter if they work harder do get smarter!)…

But once you’re done intellectualising, the only way that you get somewhere is to get on the phone or the internet and buy the plane ticket… or buy your own plane of course.

Oh yeah… and a huge thanks to Daniel Lewis for his photographic work. You’ll see it here soon!

Daniel Smith

“Genius at birth” basically a myth

Published on 17 November, 2008 in Change and High Performance. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

One of the first things that we have to get out of our heads when we start looking at the formation of genius is the idea that people are born brilliant, or born average, or whatever the case may be (illnesses aside, of course).  Physically, we may be big or small, but the genetics of size don’t apply in anything like the same way as it might to any ‘genetics of the brain’.

In fact, we have very little basis on which that belief may rest.  Even in the human body, there is certainly a canvas, but the way each person lives will dictate where the canvas goes – a person can get a tan, for example, or can bleach their hair or work out at the gym.  The same principle applies to thinking – if anything, moreso.

Ericsson, Prietula and Cokely stated exactly this in their 2007 article, The Making of an Expert .  There, they provided support for the claim that expertise comes primarily through years of intense practice and dedicated coaching, through constant performance above and beyond what is currently possible – even comfortable – for that person.  This is something that is beyond a particular sport – managers, surgeons and musicians all had the common trait of deliberate, long-term focus on not-yet possible tasks and changing what was faulty in technique.  Ericsson (et al) makes clear that this takes at least a decade to reach expert performance, requiring another expert to give (often unpleasant) feedback.

K Anders Ericsson , Michael J Prietula, Edward T Cokely. 2007. The Making of an Expert. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 7,8 (July 1): 114-121.  Accessible through proquest.com .

This means something very particular for us: we cannot throw up our hands in despair whenever we hit a problem in our lives, whenever what we are doing just isn’t good enough.  If we want to be experts in a particular area, we must understand from the outset that it will take a lot of work, often painful work, and that it will be over a long time – about a decade’s worth of work, for starters.

That’s really hard.  It’s really daunting.  But, in my understanding, the most daunting part is that it’s all our choice .  We are able to choose to be experts in a given field, to be operating at that level.  As any expert can tell you – such as dancer-choreographer Twyla Tharp – it’s not through personal talent and innate genius alone.

Tharp’s interview was in: Diane Coutu 2008. Creativity Step by Step. Harvard Business Review 86, no. 4 (April 1).  Accessible through proquest.com .

It’s all about our choice – what we choose to do with our lives.  The one thing that we can change, no matter what stage or status of life we are in, is our selves.

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