Creating Expert Performers

While waiting in Denver’s lovely international airport for my morning flight to Atlanta today, I rushed through the Sunday New York Times. This is no easy feat; I suspect today’s paper weighed several pounds and included not one, but two, magazines. If you missed it, search out this week’s New York Times Magazine and flip to “A Star is Born, Where Does Talent Really Come From?” by Stephen Dubner and Steven D. Levitt (May 7, 2006, page 24).

The authors report on the research of Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor, who has committed his professional life to answering the question: “When someone is very good at a given thing, what is it that actually makes him/her so good?” It turns out that expert performers are nearly always made, not born. They choose work that they actually love, and they work hard at it. Mom was righta??practice does make perfect.

However, practice doesn’t merely entail repeating the same action over and over. Instead, Dubner and Levitt write, “deliberate practice” involves “setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating on technique as much as outcome.”

So why am I hell bent on you grabbing and reading this article now? Seems to me this may be the perfect fast read to share with those in your firm who will soon supervise your summer associates. Suggest to these supervisors that they urge your summer associates to seek out practice areas where they’ll have the opportunity to do work that evokes some passion. Then encourage them to spend time with each summer associate identifying specific goals, providing feedback and concentrating on how a project was undertaken as much as on the final work product.

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