SignalRT

Or put another way, talent is not enough.

Why is being hardworking and intelligent not enough to become someone with excellent performance?. We do not usually pay attention to things like this, but if we look around at work, family, friends circle… we are surrounded by capable people, but not by extraordinarily capable people.

If we sum the hours dedicated to work and study in our lives we would probably be surprised by the very high amount it represents. However, most studies suggest that, for many years that you have been doing something, you will not achieve excellence and it is even possible that there is no improvement compared to the second and subsequent years. These studies reach conclusions that differ from what we normally think.

The factor that seems to explain extraordinary performance is something researchers call deliberate practice. The deliberate practice is hard, uncomfortable, annoying, but it works. The more deliberate practice, the greater the performance.

Deliberate practice

It is an activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with the help of a coach, teacher, mentor or whatever you want to call it. Those who have studied a musical instrument or have practiced sports more or less seriously, you know what I mean.

However, this type of practice is not usually taken to the professional field and is one of the reasons why there is no increase in performance. Giving three quick readings to a PowerPoint, will not produce an excellent presentation; If there is no real practice of the presentation with a review of the weak points with the help of other people and taking actions to improve and repeat the loop several times you will not improve (in note 1 you can see the description of Ken Kocienda of how Steve Jobs was preparing for his presentations).

It is the same in any process that we do, only the analysis of the weak points and the work on these points generates improvement. Not doing it does not generate improvement; As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

When something does not work, we must be able to attribute the error to concrete elements of our performance that may have failed. Do not attribute mistakes to bad luck, external elements, etc, but to go into the specific detail of what I have done wrong or what can be improved. It is the only way to ask yourself a little more and improve yourself.

Retrospectives

Retrospectives in any activity will point out the weakest points in which we have to improve. It can be uncomfortable, it can take us out of our comfort zone, but it is the only way to improve.

If I direct the retrospective to look for the “external” problems, our performance will not improve. If there is never anything to change or improve because everything is done well, our performance will not improve. If all the changes and opportunities to do different jobs, see the perspective of others (customers, other departments) are a problem for us, our performance will not improve.

The retrospectives should serve to analyze the weak points and work on them (even if it is uncomfortable).

Notes

1.- Kocienda, Ken. Creative Selection: Inside Apple’s Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs . Pan Macmillan.

In later years, I would learn more about how Steve prepared for these big-splash product announcements. Three weeks or a month before the keynote itself, Steve would start rehearsing with portions of his slide deck in some venue at Apple, often in Town Hall, the auditorium on the Infinite Loop campus. Slowly, day by day, he would build the show by stepping through it as he wanted to present it at the keynote. This was one of Steve’s great secrets of success as a presenter. He practiced. A lot. He went over and over the material until he had the presentation honed, and he knew it cold. Up on stage in Moscone, Steve rehearsed in a way that was new to me, and once I saw his technique, it seemed so right to me that I’ve used it myself for my own presentation rehearsals ever since. When Steve spoke to a slide, he went fully into his keynote persona. His tone of voice, his stance, his gestures, everything was exactly as if he were presenting to a packed house. For as long as everything  proceeded to his satisfaction, he kept going. As needed, he stopped, stepped out of character, reduced the volume of his voice, and asked executives seated in the front row, like Phil Schiller, the company’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing, what they thought of some turn of phrase or whether they believed ideas flowed together smoothly. Feedback received, Steve would pause quite deliberately for a second or two, go back into character, and resume his keynote persona. If a phrase still didn’t run right, he would pause, back up, and try again. Sometimes he did this three or four times, each time with an absolutely clear separation between attempts, like takes on a movie set. He never truly bungled a line— his presentation was already polished by this point— but he was committed to making every slide and every phrase better if he could. Steve ran through his entire presentation, from start to finish, twice each on the Saturday and Sunday preceding the keynote itself, which was planned for Tuesday, January 7, 2003. …