The Talent Code - Daniel Coyle

I started out looking for book on talent management in general, but stumbled upon this book by chance. The key theme is in line with Malcolm Gladwell's stories about the 10,000 hr mark and Colvin's "Talent is overrated" book. In gist, this is the idea that deliberate practice creates talent, which gives a glimmer of hope to all those who are aspiring towards goals much bigger than themselves.

There are some new learning points from Daniel's book, which are critical and will be incorporated into my learning methods. These are:

1. Deliberate practice is also about chunking. Talents perform at a very high and complex plane, much like the complexity of a symphonic band. To achieve this, aspiring people need to break the complex outcome into a series of small chunks and master each one, until they become subconscious and automatic. The way of practicing is much like breaking down a complex musical piece and trying to learn it line by line. The implication, I suspect, is that if one aspires to be a great CEO, one must first identify what are the ranges of skills needed to perform at that level, and work hard at each manageable sub-components of those skills, until one can execute them flawlessly. Colvin had suggested that the workplace is a great place to build these skills.
   
2. Failing and operating at the edge. To be able to improve quickly, the zone at which one needs to practice deliberate is the area that lies just outside your field of competency - where one is expected to fail, and fail often, but yet is within reasonable reach such that one can get there with repeated practice. I think this is the zone that has the most potential for creating flow-experiences and also gives the greatest satisfaction.
3. Long-term outcome focus. The fuel to enable people to keep plugging at a task in this zone comes from a strong desire that is targeted at the long-term outcome, e.g. becoming a world tennis champion, rather than short-term ones. It is a deeply felt desire to be able to belong to this esteemed group of people who are performing at a very high level.
4. Praising people for their struggles. Interestingly, Daniel's work showed that given the significance and sheer immensity of the effort that is needed to sustain these achievements, praise from external sources should target at the effort and the struggle, rather than the innate intelligence. In fact, praises targeted at people's intelligence (or some innate talent) diminishes their motivation and courage to test themselves further.

All in all, this is a very inspiring read, for people like me whose goals are often so far away and so hard to see that the affirmation of the very effort itself (according to a set of practice methods) as the surest way to reaching these goals feels very assuring.