Talent is
Overrated
Geoff
Colvin
Notable ideas of the Book
Geoff Colvin, in this book, describes how crucial great
performance in today’s fast paced world. It is important to know how improve
our skills in the smartest way possible. And the first step needed is to let go
of the belief that greatness is something people are born with.
As opposed to popular belief, extraordinary achievements are not
alone determined by inborn abilities or experiences.
Just because we spent our waking hours doing a particular job,
doesn’t mean we necessarily excel at it.
Research shows that, experience doesn’t always mean improvement;
on the contrary, it can worsen the performance too. A highly experienced person
doesn’t work any better than a relatively less experienced one.
In many fields, the correlation between intelligence and
performance is weak or nonexistent, as per Geoff.
But the question arises, who is an ‘intelligent’ person? A
popular method of measuring general intelligence is the IQ test. It is widely
believed that, the more the IQ, the higher are the chances of success in life.
One reason for this could be that as complexity of tasks increase, the IQ also
increases.
But, IQ doesn’t define success either. In chess, the
grandmasters often have less than average IQ. Most great innovators, before
their breakthroughs spent years in rigorous preparation.
It is a popular belief that most of the geniuses made their
breakthrough moments after having sudden stroke of creativity. However, it is
not true. These breakthroughs don’t come this naturally; they come to those who
are already the master of their fields. To produce noteworthy innovations, one
requires intension immersion in a field over a period of time.
Practicing is one way of achieving world class performance. The
link between practicing and improved performance is very strong. And it is only
not about practice, but deliberate practice which is done especially to improve
performance.
Deliberate practice means identifying specific parts of
performance that need improvement and then focusing on those areas, and getting
constant feedbacks about how to better them. Deliberate practice often makes
some acrobats or ballerinas to look like super humans with their extraordinary
performances to us. They indeed are great performers, but what makes them
greater is the deliberate practice.
Deliberate practice makes one different in many ways. For once,
it helps one to perceive relevant details in the field of their expertise. It
also helps them to absorb and remember more knowledge about their field.
Deliberate practice not only improves our mental skills, but
also they make us physically more competent.
It can drastically alter us physically.
Starting deliberate practice from a young age is very useful. It
has several advantages. Firstly, children and adolescents are free from
responsibility of adulthood. This way they can concentrate more on practicing.
Secondly, starting early in many cases, offers advantage of
support from family. Families help in providing and stimulating an environment
which is very important for improving and achieving.
Lastly, as we grow up our mental faculties slow down. As we grow
old, it takes more time to understand and solve problems as compared to when
we’re young.
Motivation and passion are chief forces which stimulate one to
practice deliberately. To understand their origin, we examine a mechanism by
the name of multiplier effect. The idea is that a small initiative advantage in
some field will multiply that advantage more.
The multiplier effect explains how being better at something can
provide sufficient motivation to practice and improve more, thus, multiplying
that advantage.
Though strong motivation is important, it is not an inborn
trait. Most of us have to be pushed in that direction. Many times lessons which
are forced upon children end up becoming their achievements.
To be a great performer, first we need to know exactly what our
goals are and second, we need to know what skills we actually need to improve
and achieve these goals. Deliberate practice is a great tool to achieve
success, given one knows how to practice and benefit from feedback of others.
Ruchika
Verma
If you like these ideas you ought to read the interesting book
which you can purchase from Amazon
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