making of an expert

8/6/2019 Making of an Expert

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... . .. .. . .

le they. are t.o identitY 1Inusual·diseases of the lungs or

eart Because they encounter these ·ill~esses so rarely, doc

rs quickly forget their characteristiC featl,lres and have dif

culty dia~osing them. Performance picks l;lPonly after tbe

octors underg<?·arefresher course. , ...

.How;then,.can you tell when you're dealing with a genuine

pert? Real expertise must pass three tests; First,it must lead

performance that is consistently superior to that ofthe ex

rt's peers. Second, real expertise produces concrete results ..

ain surgeons, for example; not only must be skillful.with

eir scalpels but also must have successful outcomes with

eir patients. A chess player must be able to win· matches·

tournaments. Finally,true expertise can be replicated and

asured in the lab. A5 the British scientist LordKelvinstated,

f you can not measure it, you can not impmve it:'

.Skill in some fields, such as sports, is easy to measure, Com~

etitions are standardized so that everyone competes ·in a

imilar environment. All competitors have the same .start

nd finish lines, s()that everyoce can agree on who came in

irst. That standardization permits comparisons among inividuals over time, and it's certamly possible in business as

ell. In the early days ofWaI-Mart, for instance, Sam Walton

rranged competitions among store managers to identify

hose whose stores had the highest profitability. Each store

.Things to Look Out for

When·J udging '~xpertise

in the Nordstrom clothing chai~ posts rankings o( its sal.es-.

. people, based on their saJesper hour,for each pay pe~od ...

Nonetheless, it often can be difficult to qteasure ew~rt.

perforn1ance - for example, in projects that take.mo~ths or

e~en years to complete and to which dozens of individuaJ.s

.m~y contribute. Expert· leadership is similarly ·difficult to

assess. Most leaciership challenges are hig)J.lycomplex and

specificto a given conipany, which makes it hard to compare

per[ormance across companies and situations. That doesn't

meah, thoug)J.,that scientists snould throw up their hands

and stop trying to measure-performance. One riidllu.uu.lugy

we use to deal with these challenges is to take.a representa;

tive situation and reproduce it in ~he laboratory. For exam

ple, we present emergency room nurses with scenarios that

simulate life-threatening situations. Afterward, we compare .

the nurses' responses in the lab with actual outcomes in thereal world. We have found that performance in simulations

in medicine·, chess, and sports closely correlates With objec

tive measurements of expert performance, such as.a chess

playds track record in winning matches.

Testing methodoloiies can be devised for creative profes

sions such as art and writing, too. Researchers have studied

differences among individual visual artists, for instance, byhaving them produce .drawings of the same set of objects.

With the artists' identities concealed, these drawings were

evaluated by art judges, whose ratings clearly agreed on the

artists' pyoflciency, especially in regai'd "::0 tcchnic~ ~spcct~

,, ,

Individual accounts of

expertise are often unreli" .

able. Anecdotes, selective

recall,. and one~ff events

all can present insuff.icient,

oft~n misleading, examples

of expertise. There is a

huge body of li terature

on false memories, self

serving biases, and recollec

tions altered as a result

of current beliefs or the

passage of t ime. Reporting

is not the same thing as

research.

Many people are wrongly

believed to possess exper

tise. Bear in mind that true

expertise is demonstrated

by measurable. consistently

superior performance.

Some supposed experts

are superior only when it

comes to explaining why

they made errors. After the

1976 Judgment of Paris, for

example, when California

I wines beSted French wines

in a blind tasting, the French

wine "experts" argued that

the results were an aberra-.

tion and th.i,ltthe California

reds in particular wo'uld never·

age as well as the famous

French reds. (In 2006, the

tasting of the reds was reen

acted, and California came

out on top again.) Had it not

been for the objective results

from the blind tastings. the

French wine experts may

never have been convinced

of the quality of the Ameri

can wines.

Intuition can lead you

down the garden path.

The idea that you can.

improve your performance·

by relaxing and" just trusting

your gut" is popular. While it

may be true that intuition is

valuable in routine or familiar

situ.ations, informed intuition

is the result of deliberate

practice. You cannot consis

tently impJove your abil ity to

make decisions (or your in

tuition) without considerable

practice, reflection, and

analysis.

You don·'t n.eed a different

putter. Many managers

hope that they wil l suddenly

improve performance by

adopting new and bet-

ter methods - just as golf

players may think that they

can lower their scores with

a new and better club. But

changing to a different 'putter

may increase the variability

of a golfer's shot and thus

hinder his or her ability to

play well. In reality, the key

to.improving ~xpert ise is

consistency and carefully

controlled efforts.

Expertise is not captured

by knowledge manage

ment systems. Knowledgemanagement systems

rarely, i f ever, deal with what

psychologists call knowl

edge. They are repositories

of images, documents, and

routines: external data

that people can view and

interpret "Is they try toolve a pr~blem or make

a decision. There are ho

shortcuts to gaining true..expertise.~

hbr.org I July-August 2007 I Harvard Business Review 117



more charismatic, especially aver time. In fact, warkingwith

a leading drama schaal, we have develaped a set of acting

exercises far managers and leaders that are designed to. in

crease their pawers af charm and persuasion. Executives

who. do. these exercises have shawn remarkable improve

ment. So. charisma can be learned through deliberate prac

tice. Bear in mind that even Winston Churchill, ane af the

mast charismatic figures af the twentieth century, practiced

his aratary style in frant af a mirrar.

Genuine experts nat arily practice deliberately but. also.

. think deliberately. The galfer Ben Hagan once explained,

"While I am practicing I am alSo.trying to. develap my paw

ers af concentratian. I never just walk up and hit the ball?'

Hagan wauld decide in advance where he wanted the ball

to. go. and haw to. get it there. We actually track this kind

af thaught process in aur research. We present expert per

farmers with a scenario. and ask them to. think alaud as they

wark their way through it. Chess players, far example, will

describe haw they spend five to. te\nminutes explaring all the

passibilities far their next m~ve, th~nking through the can-~ "\

, ,

This kind of deliberate practice can be adapted to. develap,:.

ing business and ~eadership expertise. Tbe classic exampl~

is the caseJnethad taught by many business schaals, which

. presents. students with reaHife situations that require ac-:, tian. Because the eveiJ.tual'autcomes af thase..situatians are... ' .,

known, the students can imrriec,iiatelyjudge the merits' af' .

their'propased salutians. In this way,they can:practice mak~

ing decisions' ten to. :20.' tImes a week. War games .serve·a .similar training functian at miiitary academies. Officerscan

analyze the trainees' respanses in simulated cambat and pra

vide· an instant evaluatian. Such mack military aperatians

sharpen leadership skills With deliberate practice that lets

trainees explare uncharted areas.

Let'slake-a-claser-look at haw deliberate practice mighL

wark ror leadership. Yau aften hear that a key element af

leadership and management is charisma, which is true. Be-

, ing a leader frequently requires standing in frant af yaur em

playees, yaur peers, or yaur baard af directars and attempt~

ing to. convince them af one thing 0.1' ahather;especially in

times af crisis. A surprising number af executives believe

that charisma is innate and cannat be learned. Yet if they

were acting in a play with the help af a director and a coach,

mast af them wauld be able to. come across as cansiderably

118 Harvard Business Review I July-August 2007 I hbr.org

a surprisingly shart time (perhaps 50. haurs), yau will de

velap better cantrol and yaur game will improve. From then

an, yau will work on yaur skills by driving and putting more

balls and engaging in mare games, until yau ',"strokes become

automatic: Yau'll think less abaut each shct and play mare

fram intuition. Yaur golf game naw is a saci,l auting, in

which 'Yauaccasianally concentrate an yaur shat. 'From this

paint an, additianal time an the course willnat substantially

improve yaur perfarmance, which may remain at the samelevel far decades .

Why daes this happen? Yau dan't improve because when

yau are playing a game, yau get orlly a single chance to.

make a shat fram any given lacatian. Yau dan't get to. figure

aut how yau can correct mistakes. If yau were allawed to.

take five to. ten shats from the exact same lacatian an the

caurse, yau waul<jlget mare feedback an yaur technique andtart to. adjust yaGr playing style to. improve yaur cantrol. In

fact, professianals aften take multiple shats fram the samelacatian when they train and when they check aut a course

befare a taurnament.

MANAGING FORTHE LONG TERM I T he Making of an Expert

It takes time to become an expert. Even the most gifted performers

need a minimum of ten years of intense training before they vvin

international competitions.

Practice Deliberately, , ,

To. people who. have never reached a natianal ar irtterna"

tianal 'level af campetitian, it may appear that excellence isf .•.•.

. siriJ.p~yhe result of practicing daily far years ar even decades.

Hawever, living in a cavedaes nat make .yaua gealagist. Nat

all practice inakes perfect. Yau need a particular kind af..

practice - deliberate practice - to. develap expertise. When

mast peaple practice, they focuS qil the ttings they already

knaw how to. do..Deliberate practice is different: It entails'

cansiderable, specific, and sustained effarts to.do.samething

yau can't do.well- ar even at all. Research across domains

shaws that it is anly by warking at what yau can't do.that yau

.turn into. the expert you want to.become.

To. illustrate this paint, let's imagine yau are learning.

,to. play galf for the first time. In the early phases, yau try to.

understand the basic strokes and facus an avaiding grass

mistakes (like driving the ball into.anather player). Yau prac

tice an the putting green, hit balls at a driving range, and play,

raunds with athers who.are mast likely navices like yau. In

.. " ..

af drawing. Other researcQers have designed abjective tasks

to. measUre the superiarperceptual skills af artist.s withaut

, the help af judges .

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sequences Of each and planning out the sequence of moves

that might follow it. We've obseI:Vedthat when a course of

action doesn't work out as expected, the expert players will

go back to their prior analysis to assess where they went

wrong and how to avoid future errors. They continually workto eliminate their weaknesses.

Deliberate practice involves two kinds oflearning: improv

ing the skills you already have and extending the reach and

range of your skills.The enormous concentration reql,lired

to undertake these twin tasks limits the amount of time you

- can spend doing them. The faI?0us violinist Nathan Milsteinwrote: "Practice asmuch asyou feel you can accomplish withconcentration. Once when I became concerned because oth

ers around me practiced all day long, I asked[my mentor]Professor Auer how many hours I should practice, and he

said, 'It really doesn't matter how long. If you practice with

your fingers, no amount isenough. If you practice with your

head, two hours is plenty:"

It is interesting to note that across a wide range of ex

perts, including athletes, novelists, and musicians, very

few appear to be able to engage in more than four or

five hours of high concentration and deliberate praetice

at a time. In fact, most expert teachers and scientists set

aside only a couple bf hours a day, typically in the morn

ing, for their most den:randing mental activities, suct as\.

writing about new ideas. While.this mays~efu 'like a relativ~ly small inve~tment,

it is two hours a day more than' most ex

ecutives and managers devote to build-.

ing their skills;since the majority of their

· time is consumed by meetings. and day- •

·to·day concerns. This.differ~nce adds up'

to some 700 hours more a year, or about

7,000 hours more a decade. Think about

what you could acC;)ri1p:~shf you devoted

two hours a day to deliberate practice.

It's very. easy to neglect deliberate

practice. Experts who reach a high level

of pert"ormailce often find themselves re

sponding automatically to specific situa-·tions and may come to rely exclusively on

tneit intuition. This leads to difficulties

when they deal with atypical or rare c<.:ses,

because they've lost the ability to analyze

a situation and work through the ri~htresponse: Experts may not recognize ,this

creeping intuition bias, of course, because

there is no penalty until they encounter

a situation in which a habitual response

fails and maybe even causes damage.

Older professionals With a great deal of

experience are particularly prone to fall-ing into this traj); but it's certainly not

in~vitable. Research has shown that musicians over 60 years

old who continue deliberate practice for about ten hours a

week cM match the speed and technical skills of 2o-year~0ld

expert musicians when tested on their ability to playa pieceof unfamiliar music.

Moving outside your traditional comfort zone of achieve

ment requires substantial motivation and saCrifice,.but ~t's

a necessary discipline. Asthe golf champion Sam Snead once

put it,"It is only human nature to want to practice }Vhatyou

can already do well, since it's a hell of a lot less work and

a hell of a lot more fun:' Only when you can see that de

liberate practice is the most effective means to the desired

end - becoming the best in your field - will you commit to

excellence. Snead, who died in 2002, held the record for win

ning the most PGA Tour events and was famous for having

one .of the most beautiful swings in the sport. Deliberatepractice was a key to his success."Practice puts brains in your

muscles;' he said.

Take the Time You Need

Bynow it will be clear that it takes time to become an expert.

Our research shows that even the most gifted performersneed a minimum of ten years (or 10,000 hours) of intense

training before they win international competitions. In some

fields the apprenticeship is.,longer: It now takes most 'elite



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IIIII

MANAGING FORTHELON(3TERl\1 IThe Making aLan Expert

musiCians 15 to 25 years of ste~dy practice,:on average, before'

they succeed ~t the int~rnationalleve];' .

. Though there are historieal examples.of p~ople .who at- .

tained an international level of expei:tise at an earlyag~, it's: .

also true that, inthe nineteenth "andearly twentieth 'centurks, people could reach world-class levels more quickly; In

most fields, the bar of pe:-formance has "risensteadily since

that time. For instance, amateur marathon runners' and high

school swimmers today frequently better the times of OIyrrJ.

pic gold medalists from the .::arlj ~wentieth century. Increas- .

ingly stiff competition now makes it almost impossible to .beat the ten-year rule. One notable exception, Bobby Fischer,

did manage to become a chess grand master in just nine

years, but it is likely that he did so by spending more time

practicing each year.

Many people are naive about how long it.takes to becOine

an expert. Leo Tolstoy once observed that people afte'n told

. him they didIi't know whether or no.t they rould write anovel because they hadn't tried - as if they only had to make

a single attempt to discover their natural ability to write.

Similarly, the authors of many self-help bo.oks appear to

assume that their readers are essentially ready for success

and simply need to take a few more easy steps to overcome

great hurdles. Popular lore is full of stories about unknown

athletes, writers, and artists who beCOmefamous overnight,

seemingly because of innate talent - they're "naturals: ' peo

ple say. However, when examining the devel

opmental histories of experts, we unfailingly

discover that they spent a lot of time in traiIi

ing and preparation. Sam Snead, who'd been '

called "the best natural player ever:' told Golf

Digest, "People 'always said I had a natural

swing. They thought I wasn't·a hard worker.

But when I was young, I'd play and practice

all day,then practice more at night bymy car's

headlights. My hands bled. Nobody worked

harder at golf than I did!'

Not only do you have tobe prepared to in

vest time in becoming an expert, but you have

to start early - at least in some fields.Your abil

ity to attain expert performance is clearly,con

strained ifyou have fewer opportunities to en

gage in deliberate practice, and this isfar from

a trivial constraint. Once, after giving a talk,

K.Anders Ericsson was asked by a member ofthe audience whether he or any other person

could win an Olympic medal if he began train

ing at a mature age. Nowadays, Ericssonreplied,

it would be virtually impossible for anyone to

win an individual medal without a training

history comparable .with that of today's eliteperformers, nearly all of whom started very

early. Many children simply do not get th~ op-

120 HarvardBusiness Review I July-August 2007 I hbr.arg

,.

portunity, for whate~er reason, to ~ork ~ith t.heb~st.teach~

·ers and to engage in the sort ofdelibe'rate practice that they

need.to reach the Qlympic level in a sport .

Find Coaches and Mlmto:rs . '.' .Arguably the m05t famous 'violin teacher of all time, Ivan .Galamian,. made the point that buciding maestros do not"

engage in deliberate practice spontaheou'sly: "If we analyze

. the developmen~ ofthe well-known 'artists, we see that in al

most every case the success o~theire~tire career was depen

denton the quality of their practicing. In practically every

case, the practicing. was constantly supervised either by theteacher or an' assistant to the teacher?'

Research on world-class performers has confirmed Galami

an's observation. It also has shown that future experts need

different kinds ofteachers at different stages of their develop

merit. In the beginnirig, most ate' coached by local teachers,

people who can givegenerously oftheir time and praise. Later·on, however, it is essential that performers seek out more;

advanced teachers to keep improving their skills. Eventually,

all top performerswor~ closelywith teachers who have them- ,selvesreached intemationallevels of achievement.

Having expert coaches makes a difference in a variety of

. ways.To start with, they can help you accelerate your learning'

·process. The thirteenth-century philosopher andscieritist

~oger Bacon argued that it would be impossible to master

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.Real experts seek out constructive, even painhd feedback. They're'

also skilled atunderstanding'when and if a coach's advice doesn't

work for them~

.mathematics in less than 30.years;.Arid yet today individuals can master framewprks as·complex as. calculus· in their·

teens. The difference is that scholars have since organized

the material in stich a way that 'it is much ·more accessible.

Students of mathematics no longer have to climb Everest by .

themselves; they can follow a guide up a well-trodden path,

The development of expertise .requires coaches who are

capable of giving/constructive, even painful, feedback. Real

experts are extrer:nely motivated students who seek out such

. feedback. They're also skilIed;'it understaIidingwhen and if.a coach's advice doesn't work for them~Th.eelite performers

we studied knew.what they were doing right and C0T'-cen

trated on what they were doing wrong. They deliberately

picked unsentimental coaches who would challenge them

and drive them to higher levels of performance. The best

coaches also identify aspects of your performance that wilI

need to be improved at yoW next levelof skill. If-a coach

pushes you too fast, too hard, you will only befrustrated and

may even be tempted to give up trying to improve at' all.

Relying on a coach has its limits, however. Statistics show

that radiologists correctly diagnose breast cancer from X-rays

about 70% onhe time.'JYpically,young radiologists learn theskill of interpreting X-rays.byworking alongside an "expert:'

So it's hardly surprising 'that the success rate has stuck at

70% for a long time: Imagine how.much better radiology

might get if radiologists practiced instead by making diag

nostic judgments using X-rays in a library of old verified

cases, where they could immediately determine their ac

curacy. We're seeing th,ese kinds of techniques used more

often in training. There is an emerging market in elaborate

simulations that can give professionals, especially in medi

cine and aviation, a safe way to deliberately practice withappropriate feedback.

So what happens when you become an Olympic gold

medalist, or an international chess master, or a CEO? ideally,

as your expertise increased, your coach will have helped you

become more and more independent, so that you are ableto set your own development plans. Like good parents who

encourage their children to leave the nest, 'good coaches

help their students learn how tq rely on an "inner coach:'

Self-coaching can be done in any 5eld. Exp~rt surgeons, for

example, are not concerned with a patient's postoperative

status alone. They will study any unanticipated events that

... . .. .

.. took pl<iceduring thesutgery, to try to figure out how mis-

. takes or misjudgments can be avoided in.the future ..

Benjamin Franklin provides one of the best examples of

motivated· self-coaching When he wanted to learn to wtite·

eloquentiy and PefSlla:sively,he began to study hi~ favoljte.

..articles from a popular Briti~h ·publication, the Sp~ctator.

Daysafter he'd' read an article he particularly. enjoyed, he·

would try to reconstruct it from memory in his own words.

Then he would compare it with the original, so he couid dis

.coverand correct his faults. He also worked to improve his

. sense of language .by translating the articles into rhyming

verse and then from verse back into prose. Similarly, farrious .

painters sometimes attempt to reproduce the paintings ofother masters .

Anyone can apply these same methods on the job. Say

you have someone in your company who is a masterly com

municator, and you learn that he is going to give a talk to aunit that will be laying off workers. Sit down and write your .

own speech, and then compare his actual speech with what

you -wrote. Observe the reactions to his talk and imagine

what th~ reactions would be to yours. Each time you can

gerierate by yourself decisions, interactions, or speeches that

match those of people who excel, you move one step closer

to reaching the level of an expert performer.

Before practice, opportunity, and luck can combine to cre

ate expertise, the would-be expert needs to demythologize'

the achievement of top-level performance, because the no-

. tion that genius is born, not made, is deeply. ingrained. It's

perhaps niost perfectly exemplified in the person of Wolf

gang Amadeus Mozart, who is typically presented as a child

prodigy with exceptional innate musical genius: Nobodyquestions that Mozart's achievements were extraordinary

compared with those of his contemporaries. What's often

forgotten, however, is that his development was equally ex

ceptional for his time. His musical tutebge started before

he was four years old, and his father, also a skilled composer,was a famous musicteacher and had written one of the first

books on violin instruction. Likeother world-classperformers,

Mozart was not born an expert - he became one. e

Reprint R0707J

To order. see page 195.

hbr.org I July-August 2007 I Harvard Business Review 121

making of an expert

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