Friday, January 20, 2012

Experience Doesn't Guarantee Expertise

Just because someone has been performing a job or hobby for a long time doesn't mean that they are improving their skills. Ask any weekend golfer who has played for 20 years and barely improved at all over that time. Don't make fun of those weekend golfers (or any other group for that matter), the research evidence is VERY clear --length of time spent on a hobby or occupation does not necessarily improve performance. I don't want to scare you, but here are just a few of the occupations where length of experience is not necessarily related to performance -- physicans, clinical psychologists, computer programmers, financial advisors, physics professors and auditors.

I know you are thinking "That's not true, I have improved dramatically at my job over the years." Yes, you probably have. But, if you are typical, you have only improved for about the first two years in a new job and then plateaued at an acceptable, but not prodigious, level of performance. And that is not because you stopped trying. There is a quirk of brain development that stops our improvement. The best performers know how to overcome this natural ceiling on improvment. So what is related to performance? The best predictor of performance is the amount of time spent in deliberate practice.