This two part blog entry will look into the fundamentals of success and the economic policy implications that result.
Too often we look at a high achiever and say “isn’t he talented” or “isn’t she clever”. But is this just an excuse we give ourselves for not fulfilling our potential? Is talent real?
The Myth of Talent
Two psychologists grouped a range of violinist’s into three groups based on their assessed ability level. The top group were soloists; many of them having had success with their own albums. The middle group were individuals who played in orchestras and were either professional or semi-professional and the last group were amateurs who played in local music groups and free concerts.
The psychologists were interested to find out what differences in their backgrounds may have affected their success. Was it their schooling, their social economic background or something else? To their surprise there was only one thing separating them, they all came from fairly well off backgrounds and they all had decent schooling. The only difference was the amount of time they had practised. The lower group had practiced just a few thousand hours over their lifetime, the middle group had practiced over 5,000 hours but the top group had spent over 10,000 hours practicing.
To an outsider, watching the violists perform, it would seem as if they had some natural ability. As they effortlessly play Vivaldi’s four seasons it appears as if they just have a gift. However they don’t, because talent is just a myth.
People are not born with innate abilities; they do not process knowledge or have a hereditary setup that gives them an advantage. It is hour and hours of practice that we don’t see, that makes someone appear talented.
Matthew Syed, a British champion at table tennis, wondered why it was, that three other people on his street were also champions of table tennis in some form or another. If talent really exists, shouldn’t its geographical location follow some form of random distribution? Matthew explored what it was that made him a champion and found that there were several things that contributed to his success. Crucially, at his local school the P.E. teacher was a keen table tennis coach and ran classes after school every day. Also, there was a 24hr table tennis club nearby. These factors ultimately gave him and the other champions on his street a massive advantage over other players his age. At a young age he had already accumulated thousands of hours more practice than other players. He believed that this early start gave him the advantage and lead to a sequence of events that eventually saw him crowned champion.
Fortunate Training
So if you have two individuals that have trained the exact same length of time how could there be a winner and why would the other person win? Isn’t their some fundamental talent that makes someone that bit better?
The type of training you do is not going to be homogenous, even in tennis if you play against the same person all the time, there will be random development of strengths and weaknesses. For example you might have a slightly stronger forehand than your opponent, but he might have a slightly stronger backhand. At the crucial moment when a shot will determine the outcome of the game, a stronger forehand might just make the difference between winning and losing. This would not be talent, you just happen to play more forehands in training than your opponent.
Matthew Syed experienced this training fortune firsthand when a group of table tennis players had their reflexes tested. Amongst the group was Desmond Douglas, the greatest ever UK table tennis player. He was renowned worldwide for his speed and reflexes, so when he stepped up to have them tested there was a quiet a bit of excitement in the room. Surely his reflexes must be off the scale! They were not; in fact they were the slowest in the room.
Confused by this result the other players probed his training history. One particular training method stood out; instead of playing against other people Desmond would often lift up the other side of the table and just play against the upside. By doing this he had began to learn how to return the ball at an incredibly quick speed. Even though his reflexes were naturally slow, his brain had learnt to cope and pre-empt the way the ball would travel. He practiced so much that it soon became second nature to him; he didn’t even have to think about it. Desmond was not talented; he just practiced for tens-of-thousands of hours in a way that gave him an advantage over his competitors.
If this is true, and talent really doesn’t exist then it has profound implications on what we think we are capable of. No mater what card we are dealt in life, if we work hard and practice hard, we can become seemingly brilliant at whatever we apply ourselves to. We really are the champions of our own destinies.
Or are we?….Part 2 to follow next week.
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