Talent Is Overrated (28 page)

Before long, the multiplier effect was clearly developing the drive of these students: “As they began to receive recognition for the talent in the early years of instruction, the children's investment in the talent became greater. No longer was the prime motivation to please parents and teachers. It now became the individual's special field of interest.”

The concept of the multiplier effect is embedded in the fundamental theory of deliberate practice. Part of the way it works, as first explained by Anders Ericsson and his colleagues, is that a beginner's skills are so modest that he or she can manage only a little bit of deliberate practice, since it's highly demanding. But that little bit of practice increases the person's skills, making it possible to do more practice, which increases the person's skill level more. Thus, “In our framework we expect that increased level of acquired skill and performance would increase the maximal level of deliberate practice that can be sustained.” The theory fits the evidence reported by others. In virtually every field, beginners can't manage more than an hour of practice per day, and sometimes much less. But by the time they become top performers, they've built themselves up to handling four to five hours a day. It isn't quite right to say only that the practice caused the performance or that the performance helped support the practice. Over time, each contributed to the other.

The evidence for the multiplier effect is powerful, in addition to which it makes sense and explains quite a bit. It then raises a very large question: What triggers the effect? If it all begins with some small advantage—a little difference that somehow tips a balance and starts a self-fueling cycle of increasing motivation and performance—where does that difference originate?

Ceci and his colleagues, in first describing the effect, assumed the difference was genetic; the reason that kid had better than average eye-hand coordination and other traits that gave him a small advantage in baseball is that he was born with them. Obviously this possibility cannot be denied, especially with regard to body traits that are heavily influenced by genes. In addition, it's easy to imagine how intelligence and other traits with a genetic component might trigger a multiplier effect, even if the significance of the genetic component is in dispute. After all, a small advantage is all it takes. We saw in chapter 3 that intelligence and other general abilities play a much smaller role in top-level performance than most of us believe, but even if intelligence isn't the critical performance factor in many fields, a small intelligence advantage at an early age could still trigger a multiplier effect that would produce exceptional performance many years later. Clearly these traits would not be guaranteed to set off multiplier effects in every case. If the kid with the baseball advantage lived in a time or place where baseball was unheard of, he'd be out of luck, and we can easily imagine endless other scenarios in which some trait that could conceivably trigger a multiplier effect in one setting would produce no effect in another.

The much more intriguing possibility is that events or situations having nothing to do with innate traits could also set off multiplier effects. An example that seems to occur quite often is what happens when someone begins training at an earlier age than others in the field. Many researchers have observed that as people start learning skills in virtually any field, they're typically compared not against the world's greatest performers in that field but against others their own age. Nobody considered whether the ten-year-old Tiger Woods was a threat to the top professionals; what mattered was that he was much better than other ten-year-olds. One way to get a very good shot at performing better than others of the same age is to start training earlier than they do (as Woods did), thus accumulating more deliberate practice. Standing out at any given age is an excellent way to attract attention and praise, fueling the multiplier, and it can be done without relying on any innate ability. It's worth noting that studies of swimmers, gymnasts, chess players, violinists, and pianists show that the more accomplished performers started training at earlier ages.

A similar way to ignite the multiplier effect is to begin learning skills in a place where competition is sparse. It's a lot easier to stand out as a math whiz when your town has only a hundred other kids your age than when it has a hundred thousand. Many of the young achievers in Bloom's study reported the same experience: being local celebrities, only to move on to a higher level of competition and find that plenty of others are at least as good as they are. As one of the pianists recalled about his arrival at an elite music school, “It was a shock. It's not easy to find out that there are other people who really play very well when you've been isolated and made to think you're something.” But it's okay; by this time, these performers had developed the drive to keep going. Would they have developed that drive in a setting where they received an early message that they were nothing special? Howard Gardner, in his study of Einstein, Stravinsky, and other exceptional creators, observed that they generally didn't come from major cities. Instead, they developed their skills in smaller environments and then moved on to the big time.

Could the multiplier effect even be triggered in what we might call the opposite way? It seems plausible that mildly superior performance at an early age or in a small milieu, no matter how attained, could attract the extra praise that builds motivation for more intense practice, and so on. But since the process is circular, could we start it spinning not with superior performance but with extra praise? That is, could simply telling someone that he or she is especially good, regardless of actual performance, motivate the extra practice that leads to improved performance, attracting more praise, and so on? This also seems plausible. Recall that, even though Bloom had no evidence that his research subjects were fast learners, their teachers saw them that way. He reported that, in general, “The teacher soon regarded and treated them as ‘special' learners, and the students came to prize this very much.” In addition, many of these students had parents who told them they were special, as parents so often do, regardless of actual evidence. Here again, it seems possible that a factor quite independent of any innate ability could start the multiplier effect turning, or at least give it a good shove.

It seems possible, and even likely based on available evidence—but it isn't proven. The rigorous research that would nail down this possibility hasn't been done. It could be and perhaps will be. Stephen Ceci and his colleagues believe “it is a testable empirical question” whether “environmental factors”—such things as earlier deliberate practice, extra praise, or others—could “jump start the dynamic multiplier effect.” But they conclude that so far “this has not been tested in an empirically adequate manner.” So we just don't know for sure.

That conclusion is highly significant for our purposes because it means that, research-wise, we've reached the end of the line. It's the end of the line not just on the question of motivation, but also in a much larger sense.

Our quest for the source of great performance has taken us past many wrong turns and through a great deal of useful knowledge, and has led us finally to the issue of where the drive to persevere comes from. We've learned a lot even about that. Most significant, we've seen that the passion develops, rather than emerging suddenly and fully formed. We've also seen hints that childhood may be especially important in how the drive's development gets started. Anders Ericsson goes so far as to say, “The research frontier is parenting. Push children too hard and they respond with anger. You have to develop an independent individual who has chosen to be involved in this activity. It's how you as a parent can make individuals feel freed to reach these levels and aware that this is going to be a long process.” Yes, maybe that is what it's all about. But as he says, that's the research frontier. The work hasn't been done yet.

Ultimately, we cannot get to the very heart of this matter; we cannot explain fully and generally why certain people put themselves through the years or decades of punishing, intensive daily work that eventually makes them world-class great. We've reached the point where we are left without guidance from the scientists and must proceed by looking in the only place we have left, which is within ourselves.

What would cause you to do the enormous work necessary to be a top-performing CEO, Wall Street trader, jazz pianist, courtroom lawyer, or anything else? Would anything? The answers depend on your answers to two basic questions: What do you really want? And what do you really believe?

What you want—really, deeply want—is fundamental because deliberate practice is a heavy investment. Becoming a great performer demands the largest investment you will ever make—many years of your life devoted utterly to your goal—and only someone who wants to reach that goal with extraordinary power can make it. We often see the price people pay in their rise to the top of any field; even if their marriages or other relationships survive, their interests outside their field typically cannot. Howard Gardner, after studying his seven exceptional achievers, noted that “usually, as a means of being able to continue work, the creator sacrificed normal relationships in the personal sphere.” Such people are “committed obsessively to their work. Social life or hobbies are almost immaterial.” That may sound like admirable self-sacrifice and direction of purpose, but it often goes much further, and it can be ugly. As Gardner notes, “the self-confidence merges with egotism, egocentrism, and narcissism: each of the creators seems highly self-absorbed, not only wholly involved in his or her own projects, but likely to pursue them at the cost of other individuals.” The story of the great achiever who leaves a wake of anger and betrayal is a common one.

So what would it take for you to accept all of that in pursuit of a goal? What would you want so much that you'd commit yourself to the necessary hard, endless work, giving up relationships and other interests, so that you might eventually get it? Whatever it is that the greatest performers want, that's how much they must want it.

The second question is more profound. What do you really believe? Do you believe that you have a choice in this matter? Do you believe that if you do the work, properly designed, with intense focus for hours a day and years on end, your performance will grow dramatically better and eventually reach the highest levels? If you believe that, then there's at least a chance you will do the work and achieve great performance.

But if you believe that your performance is forever limited by your lack of a specific innate gift, or by a lack of general abilities at a level that you think must be necessary, then there's no chance at all that you will do the work.

That's why this belief is tragically constraining. Everyone who has achieved exceptional performance has encountered terrible difficulties along the way. There are no exceptions. If you believe that doing the right kind of work can overcome the problems, then you have at least a chance of moving on to ever better performance. But those who see the setbacks as evidence that they lack the necessary gift will give up—quite logically, in light of their beliefs. They will never achieve what they might have.

What you really believe about the source of great performance thus becomes the foundation of all you will ever achieve. As we noted much earlier, such beliefs can be extremely deep-seated. Regardless of where our beliefs in this matter originated, however, we all have the opportunity to base them on the evidence of reality.

The evidence offers no easy assurances. It shows that the price of top-level achievement is extraordinarily high. Perhaps it's inevitable that not many people will choose to pay it. But the evidence shows also that by understanding how a few become great, anyone can become better. Above all, what the evidence shouts most loudly is striking, liberating news: that great performance is not reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been written if my
Fortune
colleague Jerry Useem hadn't walked into my office and asked if I wanted to write something for a special issue on great performance in business. It turned out I'd been waiting a long time for that question. I held strong views and had considerable curiosity about the topic, far more than I realized.

The resulting article provoked a more intense response than anything else I've written. It was certainly e-mailed a lot, but beyond that, it seemed to reach readers in a deeper way. Several people told me they had read it aloud to their kids, which is not a reaction we often get to an article in a business magazine. People thanked me for writing it, even many months after it appeared. I suspected there was more to be said.

So thank you, Jerry, and thank you to Hank Gilman, Eric Pooley, and the other
Fortune
editors who helped bring the article to publication.

Professor K. Anders Ericsson, Conradi Eminent Scholar at Florida State University, whom we met several times in this book, was extremely generous with his time and thoughts. As I hope is clear, his work over the past thirty years, on his own and with colleagues, formed the foundation of many of the ideas presented here. He deserves special thanks because this book could not have been written without him.

Adrian Zackheim, Adrienne Schultz, and the team at Penguin Group (USA) were encouraging and supportive at every turn, which makes a difference to an author.

Bob Barnett and Dineen Howell of Williams & Connolly represented me superbly, as always.

Most of all I must thank my family for their understanding and support during a project that I should have known would be more work than I thought.