Deliberate Practice

I’m currently reading a book titled Peak: Secrets From the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool.  It is primarily focused on how experts in any field come to be that way.  What sets the best apart from the rest is a repeated refrain throughout the book.

They hone in on the idea of deliberate practice.  We’ve all been instructed in the importance of practice by teachers and coaches along the way.  The difference lies in the type of practice that an individual engages in.  There is naive practice, purposeful practice and deliberate practice.

Naive practice is the kind of practice most common to us.  Practice makes perfect is simply untrue if it’s of the naive kind.  The example given to best illustrate it is one of a band director.  His pupil scores poorly on a music tests and the director asks the pupil as to why.  He responds by saying he practiced the piece 20 times the previous night so he doesn’t know what went wrong.  Mr. Director then asks the all important question, “How many times did you perform it without mistakes?”  The pupil of course doesn’t know the exact number, maybe one or two.  It is possible to practice a piece or anything else the wrong way and come away worse than if you had not practiced at all.

Purposeful practice is when you practice with a specific goal in mind.  It is not sufficient to say, “I want to get better at writing.”  Rather one should say, “I’d like to improve my ability to engage a reader from the very beginning of my piece.”  This is truly a novel concept for me in regards to writing.  I often encourage my wife to write more because she wants to write a book someday.  I say almost verbatim the idea of naive practice, “You’re only going to get better at writing if you practice writing.”  In one sense it’s true, but it must be purposeful practice.  I need to work at this myself.

Deliberate practice is where you’re almost hyper-focused on a certain aspect of whatever skill you’re trying to learn.  This often requires a coach or teacher who can help you pinpoint where you’re struggling the most.  Feedback is very important for this type of practice.  If you don’t get feedback, how do you expect to improve?  

Feedback was terrifying when I was a teacher in an elementary school.  I can remember not wanting a principal to walk in unannounced and I can remember being very relieved when I was only observed once a year for the first several years.  However, looking back, I would have become a much better teacher had I been observed more and received more frequent feedback.  I should have sought out feedback rather than fear it.  

It also reminds me of a friend I met in Myanmar.  He was teaching me about how to manage employees and was emphatic about the importance of feedback.  It frustrated him to think a lot of people only received yearly reviews.  How is one supposed to know what to improve if they only receive a yearly review?  Obviously it doesn’t have to be in depth feedback and constant reviews, but the frequency should be greater than yearly or even quarterly.

Feedback is necessary in all areas of our lives if we want to improve in any of them.  Otherwise we stagnate in certain areas.  Those discussions are not always fun and can even invite conflict, but they are ideally effective in helping us improve.  I will add that feedback is not effective when it is unsolicited.  No one likes to be lectured and unwanted feedback is rarely if ever effective at getting someone else to change.  I’m more talking about work situations here by the way, parenting is most likely a completely different situation where feedback is necessary whether sought out or not.  I encourage you to seek out feedback in areas of your life where you want to improve, whether that be professionally or relationally.  One of the toughest but best conversations I’ve had with Steffani so far is when I asked her how I could love her better.