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New Research Casts Doubt On the "10,000 Hour Rule" of Expertise
First time accepted submitter Scroatzilla writes What makes someone rise to the top in music, games, sports, business, or science? This question is the subject of one of psychology's oldest debates. Malcolm Gladwell's '10,000 hours' rule probably isn't the answer. Recent research has demonstrated that deliberate practice, while undeniably important, is only one piece of the expertise puzzle—and not necessarily the biggest piece.
Gladwell sets off on an argument that, no, if you spend enough time practicing you can be great.
The problem is that this is nonsense. Unless you have a LOT of innate talent, you are unlikely to be "great" at anything. When I was in 7th grade, I joined the school band, and I practiced and practiced and practiced. One day the school music teacher took me aside, and advised me to quit. She explained that I basically sucked at music, and no amount of practice was going to make much difference. She suggested that I go join the computer club instead. That was the best advice I ever had, and it changed my life.
I hate hearing described this supposed "10,000 hour Malcom Gladwell rule". There's no such thing. Gladwell has long been trying to explain that the 10,000 hour rule was not a recipe for success, only a requirement for mastery. The fact is that mastery is no guarantee of success.
And lately, Gladwell has been giving a much greater emphasis to the notion of love for what you're doing being a more direct quality of those who are successful. And it's more than really just "love". There's an element of intent and desire and yes, love. What made Michael Jordan shoot free throws for hours and hours after it had gotten dark when he was 12 years old? And continue to do so when he was 27 and already a world champion? Why did Charlie Parker disappear for three years and practice 13 hours every day after he had been so badly embarrassed on the bandstand for not knowing how to play in more than one key? Part of it was his desire to "show those guys" after his earlier failure. And part of Michael Jordan's incentive was his famous (or infamous) almost pathological competitiveness. But those things are never enough. Because spite and desire can only take you so far, and they both have negative effects. They'll eventually eat you up (as may have been the case in Bird's example, because clearly his drug use and self-destructiveness would seem to indicate that something was eating him up). But to put the time in requires love. Doing something because it's something you can't imagine not doing. Because that's how you see yourself - that's who you are. The possible financial rewards are not nearly certain enough for that to be the sole motivation. I will bet that Michael saw himself as a basketball player and Bird as a jazz man well before they were on their way to success.
There's no guarantee for success, but there are recipes and the ingredients are often kind of specific. The good news, is that if you really love doing something, it improves the chances the recipe will be successful. Kind of like garlic and butter. There's no guarantee that a dish will be delicious, but if you start with garlic and butter, the odds improve, you know?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Perhaps 10,000 hours is what it takes to reach your personal level of mastery. The average or the genius - once you've put in your 10,000 (or 6000 or 14,000; 10,000 is only one significant digit), you've essentially gotten as good as you will every get, down to some number far to the right of the decimal.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Actually the article is trying to discredit the notion that "you can take anybody, let them practice 10k h and you get an expert." What they are basically stating is what everybody knows intuitively, some people pick up a skill easier than others (up 22x) and they affirm that is is genetic in nature. (if one twin can draw well, so can it's sibling.) What remains is, no mater what talent you have you still need to invest much time (e.g. 10k h) until you will master the craft.
Oddly, I think few people believed the original formulation, that you could take anybody and make a master. Nevertheless the 10k hour rule is in essence correct, even if the actual number may differ. You need to practice much to master a craft. The thing that distorts the picture is that only people with a minimum level of talent and passion will actually be willing to invest the time. You can not really compare someone with 10k practice with someone with 2k practice, since both probably have above average talent.
So you say that everybody can pick up a skill equally? Look around you, talent is not equally distributed. Some people are good at math, some people good at writing, some are good at music. Some just pick up a skill intuitively and others struggle with it. The article hints that it is strongly based on genetics and why should it not be? You can see this very well with primary school children. Some pick up math easily and some don't, for example.
But the point you are making is not fully off either. The different talents are distributed more or less evenly in the populace. But to convert that talent into a skill you need practice and tutoring. Your social class will be a strong indicator if you will get the tutoring, mentoring and practice required to convert it into a skill. If you can barely make rent, you will not pay your children around 100 bucks for violin lessons.
In addition you social class will also determine the amount of tutoring you get despite of your lack talent. Not good in math, extra lessons, because we can. As a result your parent's income is the strongest indicator, if you will graduate for the university or not. Partially because you get all the additional training required to even out your difficulties, partially because it is expected of you.
Claiming that genetics has nothing to do with it is nonsense. But there is much untapped talent, simply because of social economic circumstances. It remains that you need a lot of practice to make your talent into a skill.