Coyle, Daniel. The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How.
Bantam Dell, 2009 (Chapter 1 – The Sweet Spot) Effort and Persistence Key in Search of The Elusive G (Greatness) Spot People nowadays, competing for jobs and opportunities not only with fellow classmates and colleagues, but with workers all over our globalized world, are more than ever in need of cheat sheets, shortcuts and roadmaps to success. A glut of research and publications tries to address that need: some popular offerings being Daniel Pink’s Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us or virtually anything by Maxwell Gladwell. Daniel Coyle, a journalist with the interest high achieving individuals as evident by his two books on Lance Armstrong, too believes it is possible to peer close enough into the history and science of human achievements to spot actionable and repeatable strategies to be shared and implemented by those hoping to accomplish great things. In the first chapter of his book, The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How, Coyle begins to break the titular code by focusing on a counter-intuitive finding that despite thinking “...of effortless performance as desirable…”(p.18) , it is “...experiences that where you’re forced to slow down, make errors, and correct them…” that help find and utilize the ‘sweet spot’ of effort; a mental state that resembles Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s description of flow: an immersion “... a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity”, which is also often referred as a deep practice. He illustrates the principle with a simple test showing that it is easier to remember words when one has to exert some additional mental effort on top of just trying to remember them, and follows with the stories of amateurs utilizing an airplane flying tester and fusbol, a soccer training technique in order to improve and reach new levels of expertise. To excel, Coyle finds, one has to be engaged in a practice with “...an optimal gap between what you know and what you are trying to do…” The author further explains that the expertise based on an seemingly endless failure-win loop of feedback benefits from the deep practice because our memory is less of an recording, and more of “...a scaffold of nearly infinitive size. The more we generate impulses, encountering and overcoming difficulties, the more [memory] scaffolding we build. The more scaffolding we build, the faster we learn.” Coyle’s emphasis on smart hard work isn’t without flaws. He fails to consider and address research showing that “some significant amount of practice is necessary, but not sufficient for expert/elite performance”(Scott Barry Kaufman, p.10), along with the discussion of innate factors, especially relevant in sports. His research, however, unlike more deterministic studies, offers an actual strategy that can be potentially used as a tool by any motivated individual, regardless of genetic endowment, or lack thereof. It’s also backed by a growing body of research that shows that exerting additional effort, such as taking handwritten notes instead typing on a laptop in the classroom, significantly helps with the knowledge acquisition and recall. To learn that working hard and overcoming obstacles might be at the core of talent and greatness is definitely reassuring. Despite the facts that Coyle’s work can be viewed as a simple and open endorsement of meritocracy and persistence, or as described by one of the book’s Amazon reviewers a “...democratic idealism(...)coupled [with] a naive Horatio-Alger-style capitalist mythology…” can regardless explain the paradox of individuals with so called high potential, those often nominated in high school as “Most Likely to…” who eventually fail to capitalize on their apparent talents, while others, often not the school leading quarterbacks, singers or class clowns, seemingly flying under radar, all the way to the top. Piers Steel, an expert on procrastination, the very opposite of hard work and deep practice, concurs: “Even if you weren't born with genius in your genes, you can outperform the smartest of individuals as long as you work hard and the latter doesn't.(...) people who are exceptionally talented are also exceptionally rare. But from what we know about the prevalence of procrastination, people who work hard are also pretty rare too.” With working hard comes an unavoidable possibility of failing (often as hard). The biographies of any successful entrepreneurs show over and over again that their career paths rarely resembled the smooth sailing, but just like Coyle’s example of Mr. Link (“...a natural born tinkerer…”) or the fusbal practice, mistakes can be a steering tool of guidance, with pain points re-calibrating the learning process. In the end, Coyle’s research should be considered just that: one of many guiding points that will lead one to arrive at his/her level of expertise in a specific endeavor. Working hard, relaying on both external (determination) and internal (genetic makeup) elements, to eventually find your greatness spot is worth it. References Scott Shane, Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Genes Affect Your Work Life Albert L. Rossi (Amazon reviewer) Ackerman, P.L., Nonsense, common sense, and science of expert performance: Talent and individual differences, Intelligence (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2013.04.009 Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking Psychological Science 0956797614524581, first published on April 23, 2014 doi:10.1177/0956797614524581 Hard Work Beats Talent (but Only If Talent Doesn't Work Hard: Hard work vs Talent: Who Wins? Published on October 8, 2011 by Piers Steel, Ph.D. in The Procrastination Equation(PsychologyToday.com) Flow (definition) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29
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In Spike Jonze's newest movie Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who writes personal love letters for others - a highly challenging meaningful job for white collar creatives out there.
A perfect marriage of high (being basically a poet) and low (he still is able to pay bills and buy himself a smartphone) culture . March 2014 - Since I've just completed the online course College Writing 2.2x, Principles of Written English (Berkeley), the decision to write about MOOCs is both ironic and a bit meta. Any shortcomings of this thesis are not a reflection on the class; as an ESL writer, I consider this essay to be more of a writing exercise than an comprehensive overview.
Literature maps out the zeitgeist landmarks of human spirit, and in turn, offers people means to navigate the world around them. Each story, each theme is a Rorschach GPS on-the-road- of- li-e companion.
Right now it appears that writers are focusing on guiding readers to the Vampire Valleys, preparing them for Zombie Zones and the translation difficulties when interacting with Teen Werewolves in Paris (and other places). The tourists of the literary world seem to have a never ending appetite to explore those formerly dangerous areas, because the lands have been sanitized, and yet retained their attractive past branding. In other words, monster lands have been gentrified. For many institutions now is the time for performance evaluations, an interaction few look forward to. Any yearly check up can be a source of anxiety and unpleasantness (before, during and after), but what turns an HR evaluation into a corporate equivalent of going to a dentist, only apparently more painful, is the discomfort related to the performance feedback. The conversations that are meant to be beneficial to all parties involved and result in a better self guidance, self calibration, enthusiasm for learning and working smarter, too often do not produce all these desired outcomes, leaving employees unable to improve or build on the past success. To think about ways to improve those discussions, is to compare two completely different evaluation processes and see how the judge's involvement, empathy and trust can produce the kind of critique that leads most to participants' implementing suggestions and investing in a continuous improvement, using the examples of omnipresent TV singing competitions. American Idol' initially and immediately became famous for one of its original judges, Simon Cowell, and his entertaining mix of put downs, metaphors and straightforward slums. The audience often booed his critiques, not only for their intrinsic meanness, but also because Cowell seemed to play into a role of an non invested outsider judging from the sidelines; a relatively easy feat for the British expat with experience in record promotion, not the actual music creation. Touting his UK work with record company assembled boy bands, he appeared to be looking down at the amateurs who the 'AI' contenders indeed were. Lacking familiarity with the U.S. culture, he also failed to empathize with a typical American small town sheltered from critique and/or not exposed to a wide range of singing competition contender, and adjust his suggestions accordingly. His job as a reviewer was, after all, not to support or guide these participants, but to deliver barbs, often hard to refute or act upon, that, in turn, would attract more viewers, drawn to the public humiliation that followed his clever criticisms. He received further help in forms of his complete opposites, Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson, coaches who had always something positive to say, even if only about the contestant's clothes or marketing appeal. Similarly to Cowell, Abdul and Jackson did not contribute anything based on their (significant in Randy's case) industry experience, settling for being likable and not knowledgeable. s 'witter than thou' comments and (often unearned) praise from other judges turned stale and the rankings suffered. A new contender appeared, offering a different approach to evaluating performance: by actively and conscientiously mentoring them. 'The Voice' debuted in 2011, aiming to find its unique place in a crowded space of singing competitions with a twist on the initial auditions. Not able to see the auditioning participants, 'The Voice' judges have to concentrate then on the skill only, assured however, by the show producers that the blind audition participants are pre-screened for general ability to perform. Other guideposts for the evaluation is audience's reaction, making it less about the judge's personal taste and more about the listeners'/potential iTunes customers', along with a growth potential as perceived by judges, who can empathize with the semi professional participants who are where the judges were at some point. Using their significant experience as recording and performing artists, the judges can then really deliver on the biggest component of their jobs: mentoring the chosen participants to victory. Since the judges choose which singers to mentor, each misstep on a side of the protegees is a (partial) comment on their abilities as coaches. Even if they have to send some of their 'pupils' home at some point, they have invested enough time and support to prove to the participants and the audience alike that they really believe in the contestants' abilities. It's less of 'Go Away' and more 'Go Ahead and Try Now Everything You've Learned Out There.'Performance feedback, whether negative or positive, should be after all actionable (by the virtue of the reviewer actually being personally familiar with areas/skills/factors that are being evaluated and the participant trusted to be be competent enough to implement the suggestions). The magnifying lenses of HR/managers shouldn't be used to search for mistakes, but for opportunities to engage, embrace and educate the employees, if they were ever to say that they'd rather go to an HR evaluation than to a dentist (especially is the said denstis was Simon Cowell). |