Practice like you are in a War; Go to war as if it’s a Practice.
Professionals do not get better with experience. How can you fix this?
Professionals do not get better with experience. Practice does not make perfect.
“Practice makes perfect” is the most misunderstood and durably-abused concept. Relax, I will explain. Today being 20th January of 2020, the aura of the new-year is still around, and most people are still gung-ho, about their new year resolutions. Let’s take the practice of new-year resolutions itself. Has the practice of new-year resolutions worked for anyone? In every sphere from losing weight and becoming fit, to becoming more disciplined, to managing professional-time more wisely, etc, etc., we try to practice better methods every year. Why do we keep revisiting the same resolutions, if practice already made it perfect? Most people experientially know, practicing resolutions don’t work, isn’t it? Well, now there is scientific backing too, that, in general, most practices do not make perfect.
Fallacy of the Will-power and its panacea, the Mechanized Practice.
The universal way most people beat themselves up is, NO, Practice would have worked, but I lack, will-power or grit, to sustain the practice. Clearly wrong again, so please ditch both the insensitive judge in you, and stop binge-working compulsive long hours, just to improve your will-power. Power of grit/will-power, is the 2nd most misunderstood and abused concept. Ask Scott Adams (Dilbert guy), and he will explain, why its not really about will-power, its about being Systematic in our approach.
So, in short, if you have a system, you can practice religiously. To move this discussion forward, let’s assume for now, there is a systematic-way to sustain your practice. It leads us back to the original question of, why does “Practice not make Perfect”. Putting in place a systematic practice, will only help you in the mechanization of your practice, especially for people who think they don’t have grit, passion or will-power. Mechanized Practice still, does not make perfect.
Deliberate Practice is what makes Perfect
Forget making perfect, Practice does not help professionals to even get better with Experience. Yes, there is enough scientific evidence and research today, which clearly corroborates, that even daily practicing clinical surgeons or cab-drivers, don’t get better with experience. Daily work-practices become naive-practices. Yes, especially mechanized and naive practices do not make perfect. In fact, with all that mechanized daily practice, experts (doctors/cab-drivers/professionals) become worse than novices, there is research data to support this, as indicated in the same flourish-clinic link as above. So, daily clinical-practice or on-job practices, clearly do not get better with Experience. What you need is, in addition to your work-practices, a particular kind of practice — deliberate practice — to become better. Andres Ericsson, has spent 3 decades and has co-authored PEAK, with Robert Pool, in which they explore in much greater depth, what deliberate practice is.
What does deliberate practice mean to us, in our day-to-day lives? Well for starters, have you seen cricketers, daily doing Net-Practice, in addition to their on-field Match-Practices? That is a clear example of deliberate-practice.
Insights don’t heal and Naive Practices don’t perfect.
Deliberate practice does not mean only insights. The 3rd myth is the over-glorification of insights, for practice. Just insights-by-themselves, are benign and powerless. We all have the insight, that being overweight is not good, sugary-diet is not good, sedentary life-style is not good, etc. I ask you, if you just hold-the-insight, without practicing to change those, will it work? NOPE. Yet, most Tech and Startup Events today boast of round-tables, and un-conferences, and seminars, laden with insights, spending loads of money, they do not even touch upon practices. You hear great stories and plenty of inspirational platitudes, that may feel-good and look harmless, but have you seen any Net-practice type space for you? Don’t get me wrong, insights are necessary, but even insightful naive-practices don’t cure anything. It will work wonders if fellow successful founders, play with you in the nets, won’t it? You will be able to integrate all of these, as an Intentional beginner, have a deliberate practice, with a clear insight-to-change.
Going back to cricketers, what they do is, glean through recorded matches, gain daily-match insights, go outside of their playing-field and comfort-zones, in their nets, along with their trusted team-mates and coaches, and there, they conduct deliberate Net-Practice to change and improve their game.
Do you have a Deliberate Practice a.k.a Net-Practice for your particular business/profession?
Mechanized practices don’t make it better. Thank God for that, which means no matter how good AI/ML robots are, they will not get-better, they may become consistent and might be prone to lesser number of errors, compared to humans, and hence might help in marginal improvement via automation, but they don’t become better. To become better, you need to be Deliberate, that means, conscious attention is required. Machines can never become deliberate and conscious. Yet, whole industries are chasing these marginal improvements of automation, by throwing billions of dollars and hoping for quick returns. Don’t follow that herd, you are a smart entrepreneur/business-person and a better professional. If you are wise, you know marginal-improvements don’t promise longevity. As addressed in my previous post, business-and-career longevity is an important issue today. Start investing in Deliberate practices right now. India in fact, has a clear cultural and spiritual history of being a land of consciousness and deliberate pursuits. So, stop only looking at failed Western models for your betterment. If you are still wasting time with naive daily practices, lip-service events, and insight-laden seminars, you need to change. Become more deliberate and choose a net-practice for your particular business/profession, and accelerate your inner-practices first.
Further Exploration — Blending Deliberate Practice and Daily Practice is the path forward.
Whatever profession or business you are in, you cannot suddenly stop your daily work-practice. Its your daily war-zone. In fact, your daily war-zone might be taking advantage of automation. We are glad and understand that. But, if you do not blend your daily-practice with a deliberate practice, like cricketers, who do both Match-practice (War-zone) and Net-practice (Deliberate-practice), you will soon be outmoded and outdated. Automation is accessible to everybody, isn’t it? However, only human’s can be diverse with their consciousness and deliberate in their intent. Deliberate practice is an intentional approach to disconfirm our beliefs and becoming right a lot, as Jeff Bezos would say it. Becoming right a lot, is the essence of becoming perfect isn’t it? What deliberate-practices are available for your profession or business? Are you even aware of the Net-practices for your domain/expertise?
Maker’s Practice is a Deliberate Practice, similar to Net-Practice, but for business persons and professionals. It has been designed to nudge people away from naive-practices and to take up, Deliberate-Practices as part of their business/professional daily-practices. Maker’s practice helps you conduct your deliberate-practice like a Net-practice, with a psychological safety-net amidst expert business counselors and fellow co-travellers, with their own skin-in-the-game, in the technology and digital business ecosystem. Maker’s practice facilitates real-world feedback, with several empathetic coaches like the bowling coach, fielding coach, batting coach, and provides a fertile ground for you to approach your Deliberate-Practice, as a real-war-zone, so that your daily-battles, can look like a practice. Practice like you are in a War, and Go to War as if it’s a Practice.
Register and attend the next upcoming Maker’s Practice experiential and practical workshop, called Shubh-Labh, and establish your Deliberate Practice.
My dear business fellows and tech-professionals, your business-and-career longevity can be impacted severely, if you are not consciously striving to seek and suss out groups-and-communities which are deliberate and intentional. Maker’s practice is your ground for Net-practice, and Shubh-Labh workshop has 8 net-practice sessions, spanning over 3 days, designed for your business wellbeing and success. Shubh-Labh symbolizes the daily-practice of Labh (profit-making) and the deliberate-practice of Shubh (well-being). Its hence a community which clearly places equal emphasis on the experiential-coupling of both daily-practices and deliberate-practices.
Gain membership to a community of deliberate-practitioners, and be a part of a network of lasting fellowships. The next Shubh-Labh workshop is around 7th, Feb 2020. Please register for the Shubh-Labh workshop by clicking on this and hurry, limited seats available!
