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Mon, May 28, 2007 1:50 EDT

Obsessive Excellence

Topic: Applications

Blog: CIO Knowledge Space

Current Rating: 5 Comments: 4

The difference between being obsessive and excellent can be quite thin.

 

I’ve been spending time reading some of the research on expertise. Some things stood out. One can work in a field for 20 years and not be an expert. Experts are not backseat drivers or armchair critics. Experts make different and better decisions in complex settings. Experts can be overconfident. We also assume, wrongly, that experts became experts because they are smarter. And Lord knows, over the next few decades we’re going to need more of them.

 

According to the research, experts become experts because they are more persistent. They often take greater risks, practice longer and do so for extended periods of time, 10-20 years depending on the discipline. In fact, the one thing that experts seem to have in common is the motivation that enables them to persist in more difficult terrain than the non-experts do.

 

Becoming an expert involves turning information in the external world we sense into a form that we can keep in our brains, long-term, recall at will and combine with related information in new ways. All experts need to go through extended training periods, typically early in their lives (teens and twenties), which is when we are at our smartest in terms of processing novel information. As we age, we lose the edge on our working-memory capabilities which are crucial for converting information in the world to stored information in our brains.

 

But as we age, we have the advantage of using all that stuff we’ve stored in our brains. Provided, of course, we actually did try to store things in our brain. This is why youth doesn’t uniformly overcome the guile of experience.

 

I have a hypothesis. Some computer people, especially those who write software, tend to get a bit addicted to the work, doing it at night and weekends. For many, it’s downright fun, especially early in their career. This sounds like an expert in the making.

 

Now for the rub.

 

As managers, do we do things that inadvertently stunt expertise development? Like promote people to leadership too young? Like churn and burn them with repetitive work that no longer challenges them? Like give them so many interruptions and meetings to attend that they cannot devote the required “practice” time to become an expert?

 

Do the young people

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Tue, May 29, 2007 12:21 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Don Freeman
Rating:

Great insight and it brought back some memories for me. I remember a job I had in my past when I was involved in learning a new industry. The V.P. continually called unplanned meetings. Often I was working on projects that had little to do with learning the industry. We would spend hours in project meetings. There were so many projects on the table and time meeting it was actually difficult to learn the core business. I have had positions where involvement in projects actually helped in learning the business. This time, meetings were every other day, often unscheduled and would last two or three hours. After more than three years in the position and providing feedback on my concern about meetings, I found myself unable to become an expert in the field I was managing and moved on.

 
Sat, Jun 2, 2007 19:13 EDT
Posted by: asengupta
Rating:

The only way to truly be an expert is to constantly be a student. If you are always looking for opportunities to learn, you will become an expert. Of course it helps if the organization you are working for makes learning easy. However, if you want to be an expert find ways to learn: volunteer in industry groups, read good books, spend time with your colleagues and ask for their advice, write a blog and learn from your readers’ comments. There are a thousand opportunities to learn every day even while retaining a work life balance.

 
Tue, Jun 5, 2007 8:15 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: Dharmesh Kumar Mehta
Rating: 90

Good article.I also think that to become a expert in particular field one thing that needed most is persistance.U get knowledge as U learn more in particular field then U have to expore more in particular field

 
Wed, Jun 13, 2007 9:59 EDT
Posted by: Bob Furniss
Rating:

Great insight to how we as leaders mold (or break) the people that report to us.

I believe that the passionate employee is also a better learner. We affect that passion by our daily actions - through our coaching, encouragement and assignments. My mistakes have taught me more than my successes - so it is important to allow employees to fail.

My dad always said, "Find something you love - an do it." I am not sure that he even knew what a consultant was when he said it - but there is truth in that for the people that work for us. We need to push them toward their passion. It is OK if that passion is not to move up or manage others. Sometimes it is allowing them to stay where they are, solve problems - and learn.

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