Success = Talent + Practice + Luck… Are you sure?!?
Our time on this planet is finite, as is our energy and our focus. Given the increasingly boundless options open to each of us, we live in an age where although many local hurdles might hinder us, the fundamental tramlines are mostly to do with our time and energy. So where is best to focus this time? If you concentrate on doing one thing and one thing only, it is commonly believed that you will succeed. If you spread yourself thinly across many different domains, the chances are that you will become general mediocrity. But how true is this?
The subjects of two highly regarded book; Bounce by Mathew Syed and Range by David Epstein seem to perfectly oppose one another in their analysis and their prescriptions.
Bounce says that being a ‘natural born talent’ is a myth, and although he believes genetics can play some part, it is our resilience and dedication which will either make us succeed or fail in our endeavours,. Therefore focusing on one particular subject or skill gives you the best chance of achieving your ambitions.
In Range, it is exactly the opposite, where going down any single rabbit hole to the exclusion of everything else in life, means you become unable to see beyond their own field. Being a lifelong learner, expansive experiences and knowledge in different fields means one has a greater chance of making those creative connections and innovative problem-solving as you draw on your wide experiences.
The topic is nothing new; specialising vs. generalising. We have it in Darwin’s evolution and survival of the fittest. It is not to do with your equipment, but about your adaptability in learning to grow and develop quickest.
We get athletes like Tiger Woods who has been practicing his specific craft since he could talk, while Roger Federer only picked up a racket at age eight and did not specialise until his teenage years. Artists like Van Gogh vs. Miyazaki, Frances Hesselbein who took her first professional job at 54, but still became CEO of the Girl Scouts of America vs the 3 Polgar sisters who all became chess champions through study and practice. But is there a pattern to success?
Syed believes that to become an expert you need the following:
- Mindset
- Motive
- Practice
- Opportunity
He thinks that genetics are simply not as important as we first thought and our most basic abilities can be developed to extraordinary levels through dedication and hard work. It is an interesting idea that Syed proposes, where to be good at something you only need to practice and will. It is why specific experience when applying to a new job is fundamental, because the natural train of thought is when you’ve done it before, you are more likely to be good at it again. The logic behind Syed’s reasoning is sound and I am not sure there is much ground for opposition.
But when you delve into complex environments of multiple moving parts and different aspects to the game of life, specific experience might not always be the silver bullet. Take medicine for example; doctors train for a decade and more in general studies, to then finally specialise later down the line for a good reason. What happens if a heart surgeon with no general knowledge or medical experience finds out her patient is dying from a blood clot in the lung and not a heart attack as suspected? The same can be applied to almost everything, where experience does count, but a breadth of actionable knowledge and problem-solving capabilities serves as the antidote to many of the complexities and problems.
In Range, Epstein cites a study of nearly 300 Soviet & Russian affairs experts over 20 years on how good or bad they were at forecasting events. The results; the so-called experts “were bad at short-term forecasting, bad at long-term forecasting, and bad at forecasting in every domain” and “roughly as accurate as a dart-throwing chimpanzee.” However the experts “who were not vested in a single approach,” were found to be of tangibly higher quality in their estimates.
How does this play out in reality?
So to crystallise this into reality, how can a wide array of experiences be an action for success? Surely we all want wide experiences but is not feasible given career choices and paths. I would argue this is not strictly the case; and would instead say that I subscribe to the idea of searching out becoming an amateur in any field you can. Going from novice to mediocrity is much more efficient than going from mediocre to expert, right? So if we become an amateur throughout our early careers, we would arrive into our 30’s as an excellent generalist, primed with the tools to prosper and harness our wide array of tools.
This idea lies central to the way to combat plateauing. When one runs out of motivation, mindset or opportunity, as with Syed’s list to become an expert, we plateau and become stuck in the mud. If we are continually pushing the boundaries in each direction and furthering our desires in many avenues then we have much more space to move around in. Within one career and job, there are a huge amount of complexities to become amateur and thus expert in. As a product owner myself, I try as much as I can to be involved in both the development process, development logic, UX design theory and design implementation as a principle of preventing plateauing.
But this all revolves around risk. I believe we can find a new equation for success in the risks that you are willing to take in seeking out becoming an amateur, where pushing boundaries takes a certain amount of desire and ambition in furthering your growth. But the risk of plateauing is surely greater than the risk in growing.
Success = Ambition + Speed of Growth + Risk + Opportunity
As this above shows, I find it hard to argue against this generalist approach and although learning quantum mechanics, learning to dance ballet and then trying to become a firefighter might not be setting you up for success in any discipline, focusing on a wide range of expertise and making sure you are exposing yourself to varied views, opinions, ideas and launching into arenas which feel a relative distance from the present might be a risk worth taking.
