Why do you have 10 years of experience, but you can't become an expert?

How to become an expert in a field?

Some people say that relying mainly on experience, some people say that relying on talent, but a lot of research found that whether it is experience or talent, is not a key factor to become an expert.
Experience doesn't make you an expert.
Anyone who has worked for 10 years is very experienced, but most of them are not experts in the field.
A study by the Nsead School of Business found that, in general, more experienced managers did not produce effective results than people with only a few experiences.
Talent doesn't make you an expert.
Even in "high-mental activity" such as chess, the study found that some of the world's top masters were even less gifted than ordinary people.

So what determines that a person can become a top expert and make a great achievement in the field?

Why can't most people manage businesses like Jack Welch, can't design ads like David, can't play like Lionel Messi, and can't be like Junjiro sushi?

Why is it that most of us can't do things that most people can't do, and some master figures can do it effortlessly? whether it's a strategy for big companies with hundreds of billions of market capitalisation, an ad copy that affects the public, a population, or a top-back in the Champions League, or a 85-year-old sushi that makes the President wonder?

Or look at the majority of people around, they work hard, also often read books, and some even have 10 years of work experience, but why not become a better person? What is more brutal is that they are almost never able to reach or close to a great level within their own field.

Psychologist Ericsson's study found that the key factors that determine the level of greatness and the general level are neither talent nor experience, but the degree of "deliberate practice".

Deliberate practice is a deliberate practice designed to improve performance, requiring a person to leave his or her own area of proficiency and comfort, and constantly practice and improve on the basis of methods.

Football enthusiasts, for example, simply enjoy playing, while regular football players train and compete on a routine basis, while top footballers constantly discover the inadequacy of existing abilities and constantly challenge and practice difficult movements in their uncomfortable ways.

The degree of deliberate practice, rather than mere work experience, really determines the gap between the top masters and the General Staff.

Some people have 10 years of work experience, but most of the time are unconsciously repeating what they have done, the actual deliberate practice time may be less than 10 hours.
Some people have only 2 years of work experience, but spend a lot of extra time every day to do deliberate practice, and constantly challenge themselves to complete the limits of the task level, for deliberate practice time may be 1000 hours.

So why do some people work 10 years, still not experts, and some people 2 years of time, enough to perform excellence?

On the surface, the gap between 10 and 2 is actually a 10-hour and 1000-hour gap-because it is not the working time that really determines the level, but the time that is really used for deliberate practice.

This led to the unconscious growth of some people's experience, the 35-year-old after the sigh of inadequacy, while the other people through a lot of deliberate practice, gradually faster speed to reach the top level.

More frightening, as the business environment changes (such as the mobile internet economy), the entire society is rapidly opening the gap between the top level and the second level.

In the past, if you envy the neighbor company has a first-class salesman, can take 100W of orders each month; Don't worry, you just have to hire 10 second-tier salespeople--anyway, the quality gap can be offset by the number gap.

Now, if through the Internet copy to marketing, 1 first-class copy of the value created, 1000 second-rate copy can not be remedied.

Another example of business strategy, the value that a top strategic expert has created in 1 days, may be that a person with a strategic paradox cannot create it for a lifetime.

When the numbers become more and more difficult to compensate for the gap in quality, "top-level experts" will become increasingly scarce resources.
Therefore, by deliberately practicing to become the top level of experts, it becomes more and more important.

So how to practice deliberately?

Suppose you are in any field now, and you find a series of teaching materials and tasks, how do you start?

1. Avoid automatic completion

Self-Test issues : Do you work today consciously or deliberately, or are you doing it automatically?

For example, when you start learning to drive, you will deliberately remember how to change gears, how to brake, when the situation needs to brake, you will recall the essentials of the brakes (such as the need to step on the clutch, but also on the brakes), and in the mind to carry out the essentials.

Then, as the practice increases, you will become more proficient in doing these things.

Until a certain moment, you will be braked immediately when you meet the situation-this action is done automatically, and you cannot realize how you are braking.
Once we have entered this "auto-complete" state, our improvement in driving technology will continue to decrease and eventually stop.

drivers who really want to reach the level of expertise never allow themselves to get into this "auto-complete" state --every turn, he will deliberately think about what skills have just been bent, how they behaved, and how they should be promoted.

For each job, the majority of people with the improvement of proficiency, will gradually enter the "auto-complete" state. and those who really want to be high-level experts are trying to avoid it.

For example, with customers on the telephone communication and cooperation, most people's practice is: Pick up the phone, tell the customer our needs and quotations. After all, this thing has been done countless times, before the OK, has entered the "auto-complete" state.

But good people will deliberately avoid this "auto-complete", their biggest worry is that they "unconscious" to complete the work.

Before picking up the phone, they may ask themselves:

The

last time I did something like that, what did I do that was not good enough?
Oh, by the way, I have a problem with the logic, so that customers don't know what I'm talking about for half a day.
Also, I remember that I missed out on the details after the last communication and forgot to discuss it with the client.

What do we do? Logical question, I first practice the principle of "conclusion in advance" (remember the last time Li called the Beast to train), this time to practice first.

Missing the details of the problem, remember the last time I saw a "manifest revolution", I started this time to practice the forefront of each communication task list, so that will not be missed.

In the process of making a phone call, he may make a phone call to consciously train his skills (such as training "conclusion first").

end the phone, he might think about it. : Did you just train the communication skills effectively? What else can we continue to promote? What other tricks do I have?

For most people, the daily work of all things, whether it is to communicate customers, change a PR manuscript or write a copy, we always lack the motivation to go beyond their own limits, to do things better.

With the accumulation of experience, we are only more and more proficient in what we can achieve 60 points, more and more can automatically maintain the past level, but it will never be a real top expert.

That's why most people fall into the bottleneck of capacity growth after 5 years in a job -because he has done 60-80 points, has done better than anyone around him, and has been able to meet the requirements of the job.

They send e-mails, phone calls, and manage files on a daily basis in an "automated mode", rarely further improving their daily work.

But some people are not satisfied with this point, they are in the field of things to achieve 95 points, also do not allow themselves into the "auto-complete" state , not to deliberately learn all kinds of new abilities, to do it 96 points, 97 points, 98 points ... Even though, the position demanded only 80 points for him.

In fact, even the most simple "e-mail" "Communication phone" in the workplace has many skills, there are many places to improve.

For example, the last time in a conversation with autumn leaf teacher to this topic, found that autumn leaves on the development of a basic workplace skills curriculum, aimed at those who have already been used as "automatic completion" of the basic workplace tasks-such as e-mail, communication phone, file management.

These basic task owners can do 60 points, but if you want to become an expert, then after the other 60 points into the "auto-complete" mode, your opportunity to come-you have to do is to strive for excellence, use the task to deliberately practice learning knowledge, avoid yourself into the "AutoComplete" mode.
2. leave the comfort zone
Self-Test issues : What are you doing now that leaves your comfort zone and makes you feel that you need to pay extra to learn and work hard to do well?

In the face of the task, people psychologically have 3 areas:
Comfort zone--doing things within the capacity;
Learning area-slightly above the ability range, panic zone-far beyond the existing capacity.

and deliberately practice, is to find ways to stay in the "learning area", to find ways to work harder than the existing level, or use their still unskilled skills.


As far as football is concerned, this is why a very talented football enthusiast, The level on the pitch is never the same as a professionally trained footballer (even if he is mediocre)-they stay in comfort for a long time.

Football enthusiasts play purely for fun, they enjoy the process of playing football, they want to go to the football field after work clear sight rage, Resolve depressed. So they stay in the comfort zone and play the football that makes them comfortable in the way they know it.

and good football players are not, they often play in uncomfortable places kicking ball, They were asked by the coach to increase the amount of training (for example, yesterday was 10 times 50 meters accelerated sprint shot, today to 30 times 50 meters accelerated sprint shot), they were asked to specialize in training the left foot to play today ...

All these tasks will not make us comfortable, because it is difficult to do easily. But this is indeed a necessary condition for long-term empowerment-leaving the comfort zone and into the learning zone.
you may be interested in your field (like you love copywriting or love business analysis), but believe me, there is no interest in deliberate practice in any field. -because it means that you often have to do things you can't, and often encounter failures and setbacks.

For example, interested in copywriting, time to read a copy book, look at the creative copy collection, see Lee called the Beast to write articles, this is very relaxed and interesting, but this and professional writing practice is not the same thing.

In deliberate copywriting, you find a task that is difficult to accomplish (such as explaining what the product is in 20 words, solving consumer biases, giving the reader a memory, being able to strengthen the brand, differentiating the competitor ...). ）

In order to complete this "leave the Comfort zone" task, you need to use almost all the copywriting skills, such as "Smart use of the basic model", "point to the interests of the reader", "build Contrast", "adhesion to the public sentiment", "strategic weaknesses", "looking for extreme and high-frequency use scenarios" ...

Then after a lot of modification, reflection, and then against the excellent copy ...

There is absolutely no comfort to enjoy and easy fun.

Similarly, interested in business analysis, read a few interesting books on business analysis (such as the "Good strategy bad strategy" I often recommend), and I put the "weaknesses" and "action Synergy," and other basic principles to vomit, and forcing themselves to diagnose 3 difficult business cases a day is two different.

Likewise, amateur singers practise songs with great pleasure and relaxation, as a way to relieve stress, which is a different thing from a professional singer who is very nervous and difficult to challenge a treble.

The deliberate practice of any profession means leaving the comfort zone-learning a lot of knowledge, finding difficult tasks, and training in a way that you don't get used to.
3. sacrificing short-term benefits

self-Test question: How long have you not sacrificed short-term performance for training?

The vast majority of deliberate practice implies a decline in short-term effects-because you are doing things in a way that you are unfamiliar with and uncomfortable with.

For example, you could have switched from pen to keyboard to typing, and at first it must have been a slow performance--it's estimated that you can only play 5 words a minute at first.

But after a constant workout, you can end up with 80 words a minute, and this is the speed at which writing will never catch up.

Therefore, if the pursuit of short-term performance, always pursue this can be done as soon as possible, it is difficult to have deliberate practice opportunities.

For example, the time I was practicing the logical expression of the pyramid principle (remember it was a sophomore), I needed to send a simple meeting notice, and the result was an hour before I finished.

I was asked why I was so slow.

I said I was practicing the logic of the expression, and then I will write a super Cow meeting notice.

then people around are puzzled:This is too much trouble, according to the previous issued to do it.

but I think, even this time I use a very unfamiliar way (pyramid principle), spend a lot of time to write a simple meeting notice (sacrificing short-term benefits), but in the future I trained, will be faster and higher quality to complete.

It's like learning keyboard typing.

The result of this training is that now I can express complex ideas in a clear and logical way, at a much faster pace than normal.

A lot of people who work on a particular skill as an add-on, in the quickest to do the work at the same time while learning some experience, skills.

But if you want to keep improving your ability to become a top expert, you need to take your skills at some point as a goal, not just a supplement.

"Since today's work is not so urgent, my main goal today is to use this work to train my skills, not to pursue the quickest way to get the job done." "

After last week's "Call to the Beast Roundtable", I asked one of the team members to sort out the main content of the Roundtable (for the customer), and then he finished it and sent it to me soon.

As a result, I found that the overall content is much more space-lacking in hierarchy, logic, and not clearly written. And this is actually the key ability of the copywriting people.

So I let him use the time of the next week, to organize this content to the best, as his training.

from a business point of view, this is not economic, because this is the free content of customers, should be the quickest to finish the work.

In other words, such training will reduce short-term performance (too slow).

but from a competency-based perspective, this allows a team member to take advantage of a non-emergency job to maximize their learning skills and ability to ascend.

In this case, "training skills" become the whole goal of the work, not the work of the accessory. (Of course not all the work is done)
4, a large number of repetitive training
Self-test questions:To what extent do you have a large amount of repetitive training on a particular competency?

The biggest difference between practice and actual combat lies in the degree of repetitive training of special abilities.

in combat, we use all our abilities to fulfill a duty .-for example, if you are a market person, you may need to use more than 10 abilities such as ideation, checking strategy, communicating Party B and composing mail in one day.

deliberate practice, it is often in a period of time to concentrate on the training of minority abilities-for example, if you have just learned the strategic thinking skills of "weaknesses", try to exercise that ability in all tasks.

and the simple actual combat can not continuously improve a person's abilityNo football player is a daily content is to participate in the competition.

On the contrary, most of the time football players do things that have nothing to do with the game, such as a player may spend the whole day practicing a right-footed free kick 40 feet away, and the other player may just be doing calf strength training all week.

And if all the athletes each time the training content is a variety of games (the person who kicks the ball is so practiced), it will not be able to continuously and rapidly improve ability.

Therefore, in order to make a deliberate connection in some areas and eventually become an expert, some key skills need to be broken down, and a lot of repetitive training.

Instead of just going to combat.

For example, I recently trained to "point the pain with a copy of the" ability to find a large number of cases to repeat the training (including my own past to do the copy and the forthcoming copy).

Then I'll have a training session specifically for this content or a public number to reinforce my individual training.

5. Continuous access to feedback

self-Test question: What are some of the ways I can get feedback on the areas where I want to practice deliberately?

Feedback is any way to let you know how well you are doing now and how far away your ideal goal is.

For example, a free-kick soccer player, feedback is to see this foot down, can not hang dead.

the exercise without feedback is equivalent to no goal, the same as shooting a free kick on the day-it is impossible to correct and diagnose your own learning by the result.

So, in your deliberate practice plan, be sure to include continuous feedback.

For example, in order to train a team member's ability to write, I designed the "self-Test list" of writing, the list of dozens of copy of the basic principles-such as "whether to conform to the question", "whether the beginning of creating a gap", "whether it is sticky information" and so on.

then other people just need to write a copy, follow these principles to self-test, you can get basic feedback.

"I have forgotten the creation of a gap, no wonder it feels not attractive."

In addition to self-examination and other methods, there is feedback is to provide a certain external incentives.

For example, set up weekly team sharing, let everyone share their writing skills, share their favorite copy of the week, and so on. (Worried about not having a dry day this week?) Practice well! ）

As I said before, deliberate practice is not an easy and fun thing, and few people can stick to it for a long time without feedback and encouragement.
Conclusion
Why is the path to excellence and achievement very clear (e.g. using deliberate practice), but only a few choose to go on like this?

because most of the methods mentioned above are contrary to our instincts.-for example, the brain automatically puts the skilled work into "autocomplete" rather than continuing to deliberately improve.

Using "deliberate practice" means that you often can't easily finish your work and can't read easily, which means that you are highly focused, meaning you need to constantly think, summarize, feedback, and do things that you are not accustomed to, uncomfortable and counter-intuitive.

deliberate practice is a necessary condition for becoming a top expert, and if what you do is not related to what is said above, you will never become a top expert-no matter how gifted, how long you experience and how much you dream.

But once you have practiced deliberate practice in at least one area for a long time, the results you'll eventually achieve will be enormous, including:

• Crush and kill most of your peers in seconds;

• Far beyond the foresight of peers;

• The great achievements that keep approaching ...

That's why Jack Welch can manage businesses like Jack Welch; Messi can play like Messi, and the two can be like Junjiro sushi division.

Are you aware of your own problems?

Why do you have 10 years of experience, but you can't become an expert? Go