My parents constantly encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone. I have consciously applied that philosophy to my professional life. Ravi Aranke’s excellent comment a few days back has helped me construct a more cogent argument for following this strategy.
The basic argument is simple and has two parts.
- Clayton Christensen has shown us that when comparing two technologies, what matters more is the trajectory and pace of improvement, not relative capabilities today. I believe that what is true of technologies is also true of individuals.
- Recent evidence indicates that the pace of individual’s improvement in any field is a result of effortful learning. Effortful learning comes from going for challenges that just lie beyond your competence. In other words, constantly forcing yourself outside your comfort zone is the key to having a good improvement trajectory.
Put these two pieces together and you have a formula to become better than your current peers.
Alas, it’s not that straightforward. We know that expert chess players are really better than amateurs. But expert stock pickers are no better than ordinary folks. Same is the case with wine connoisseurs or highly credentialed psychiatric therapists. With teaching or business managers - where expertise certainly exists - it’s hard to measure how an expert is distinctly better than the non-expert.
Nevertheless, the preponderance of psychological evidence (as described in Philip Ross’ article, The Expert Mind, in Scientific American) indicates that experts are made, not born. Laszlo Polgar, an educator in Hungary, home schooled is three daughters in chess, assigning as much as six hours of work a day, producing one international master and two grandmasters - the strongest playing chess siblings in history. The youngest Polgar, 30-year old Judit, is now ranked 14th in the world.
In the case of chess researchers they have found that grandmasters rely on a vast store of game positions which they seem to organize in chunks. This helps with quick retrieval from the long-term memory for manipulation in the working memory. To accumulate this body of structured knowledge that they use intuitively, it takes years of effortful study, i.e. constantly stepping outside your comfort zone. Top performers in music, mathematics and sports appear to gain their expertise in the same way. Software engineering also appears to work the same way; at least that’s what the concept of design patterns seems to indicate. Is business management also similar? I am assuming that it is.
The other interesting finding the Scientific American article points to is that the motivation comes from the competition and joy of victory. This completely resonates with me.
I have learnt as a manager that nothing motivates a team like success. Success builds on success and each accomplishment refuels the motivation engine.
As you can see I am mighty pleased that I have found a way to rationalize a belief that hold dear. Don’t you think I am like those tea drinkers who get all excited when they see a study that touts the medical benefits of tea drinking.
Building a mental library of design patterns which you can call upon and combine with ease seems to be the hallmark of expertise.
Here is Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner, on design patterns in investing which he calls ‘mental models’.
What is elementary, worldly wisdom? Well, the first rule is that you can’t really know anything if you just remember isolated facts and try and bang ‘em back. If the facts don’t hang together on a latticework of theory, you don’t have them in a usable form.
You’ve got to have models in your head. And you’ve got to array your experience both vicarious and direct on this latticework of models.
Complete article
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I have found mind maps one of the most useful tools for creating mental model. It is especially effective when the mind map of the subject is integrated into your super-mind map.
Requires reflection to find the common patterns. But once you do, you find the knowledge is quickly integrated into your perspectives.