Excellence – A Result of Effort or Talent?

This morning I listened to the ABC’s Life Matters programme and caught an interview with Matthew Sayed who has written a book called Bounce: How Champions are Made. The book asks the question: Are people who are held up as at the pinnacle of their fields there because of an inherent talent, or as a function of the amount of effort they put in? Sayed concedes that many sports people such as Roger Federer or Ricky Ponting do start out with an enhanced ability in their chosen area, but he argues that they become “excellent” due to hours and hours of practice, honing their reflexes and their ability to read the opponent’s body language rather than the ball. He argues that when it comes to a task characterised by complexity including but not exclusively motor skills, we can all become excellent at it (although not necessarily the best of the best as this does require that extra “wow” factor). Whether it be in art, music, sports, or business, we are not born with all the attributes we require, but we build them up through years of practice.

It’s not just any type of practice either, but practicing what you can’t quite do. This explains why someone whose been doing a job for several years might still have not attained that level of “excellence” at their work that you might expect. Research has shown that we tend to practice within our capabilities - what we can do - and thus we don’t challenge ourselves and consequently our brains and anatomy don't grow. The result is that many continue doing the same activity without improving.

Supporting this is research on how to encourage a "practicing" approach. A study that looked at whether the type of praise impacted on how people approached things had an interesting outcome. It found that when you praised someone’s talent for achieving a result, they were reluctant to attempt a harder challenge in case they failed, whereas praise for someone’s effort resulted in that person wanting to continue challenging themselves in order to do better. The study coordinators concluded that if you believe that talent is what makes success then when you fail at something you will give up because of you assume you lack talent to succeed. If you believe that effort results in success, then you keep striving to get better even if you fail at first. This has interesting implications for the way we parent and teach our children as it implies that we should encourage effort, rather than give praise for having a certain talent.

This sounds like an interesting book and I’m going to add it to my ever growing “to read” list.  If you want to listen to the interview, click here.