October 2014 Management Minute
“10,000 Hours”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
In his best-selling book Outliers, author and brilliant chronicler of cultural and economic trends Malcolm Gladwell observes that excellence in any field of endeavor, requires three critical elements: ability, opportunity, and 10,000 hours.
Examples from the book include The Beatles and Bill Gates who each had obvious natural ability, but they also had special opportunity. The Beatles were honing and perfecting their craft of writing and performing music at a critical time in history when the world was craving that exact form of music. Gates’ mother bought him a personal computer for his 13th birthday so that he could practice writing code in 1968 at the very dawn of the modern digital age. Had either come 5 years earlier or later, they would have most certainly been successful to some extent, but we likely would not have heard of them.
In addition to their native abilities and special opportunity, both achieved excellence through the principal of “10,000 hours”. The Beatles played something over 1,200 shows in Hamburg, Germany before they returned to England and then took America by storm. Between countless hours of practice in private and performing for audiences, sometimes three times daily, The Beatles honed their songs and their abilities to a fine polish before the greater world ever saw them perform. Because of his mother’s gift, Gates harnessed his intellect and passion for computing to develop his ability and understanding of the potential of personal computing.
Think of someone you know personally within the agricultural industry who is truly excellent at what they do. The person most certainly was born with exceptional native ability, intellect, and passion; circumstance likely placed that person in a position to perform; and through perseverance, the person put in the 10,000 hours of focused practice to achieve excellence.
The reason the 10,000 hour rule is important is that as we initially learn a skill, we build the foundation using “big stones” and make great strides daily; after a while the major concepts become second nature and we enhance these philosophies with more subtle nuances of the trade; finally, after 10,000 hours, we are essentially sanding away the rough edges of our craft with very fine grit emory paper, to the point where the person and the job form a seamless union.
People who work within our teams and organizations, if they have the appropriate native skills, can become brilliant and lead our organization to excellence, if we (a) place them in the best possible situation to succeed, and (b) give them the opportunity to specialize so that they can rapidly accumulate the 10,000 hours of practice and experience required to achieve excellence.