Improving Performance: Anders Ericsson’s “Deliberate Practice”

In my last post concerning the research of performance expert Anders Ericsson, I unpacked the concept of “mental representation.” Ericsson argues that an effective mental representation is the foundation upon which effective practice is built. In this post, I’ll describe the four parts of “deliberate practice” and give examples from my personal and professional life. As a hockey player, musician, corporate training manager and amateur race car driver, the components of effective practice really resonate with me. I trust they’ll resonate with you.?

According to Ericsson, deliberate practice…

• has specific goals
• is focused
• involves feedback
• requires getting out of your comfort zone?

Deliberate practice has specific goals. As a high-performance driver, it’s not enough for me to wish that I could shave three seconds off my lap time at the local track. That’s essentially saying, “I need to get way faster,” which is true, but not helpful. I need to break that larger goal (shave three seconds off my lap time) into smaller chunks. So here’s what I’m doing: focusing on a small section of the race track (consisting of three turns) that offers a real possibility to increase my speed. You might call it the low-hanging fruit.?

Here’s the turn one small chunk and its specific goals. Turn one comes after the second-longest straightaway. At the end of the straight, I should position the car at the far right edge of the track and turn into corner one at 72 mph (or higher). Turn two chunk: take the medium racing line through the corner keeping the back-end of the car from sliding too much (and thus scrubbing speed) and allowing for a late corner exit. Turn three chunk: matting the throttle, position the car at the far left of the race track, and with a snap of the steering wheel, jerk the car into the corner at 58 mph. If I perform these small chunks well, I’ll burn between 1 and 1.2 seconds off my time – a significant achievement.

And now I turn toward a corporate learning example – one from the teaching software realm, since that’s my day job. When you’re teaching a group of professionals a software platform, your overarching goals are for learners to navigate the software fluidly and perform core tasks within a reasonable amount of time. Let’s say you are running a session in which you’re giving HR Specialists the opportunity to practice creating a job requisition in one of the big HR platforms – e.g., Workday. Here are a few ways you could create specific goals and make the practice more effective:

1. Create a specific practice goal around speed/fluidity. After learners have completed the create job requisition task once, have them repeat it within a shorter time frame, say three minutes. This will help them see their stumbling blocks.
2. Create a goal around accuracy. After they’ve run the task once, have them run through it again trying to make two or fewer system-generated errors or alerts.
3. Create a navigational challenge. Have them start the task from some place other than the HR widget – e.g., searching for the task in the search pane.
4. Before they run the task, have learners pull up the supporting documentation (or enable the in-application guidance). Knowing how to access and use supporting documentation will aid their performance in future tasks.

Ericsson states that the small goals or chunks we create should be capable of being achieved with focused practice. They’ll be challenging for sure, yet we expect that we’ll achieve them if we focus. Which is where we are going next.

Deliberate practice is focused. Your golf game won’t improve if you do a beer-infused round with your buddies, as much fun as that is. Your piano chops won’t improve if you run those pieces you learned 15 years ago in the same old way, as comfortable as that is. I won’t shave any time off my laps if I go to the track with my car buddies and we revel in the machines we’re privileged to own. Your corporate learners won’t maximize their learning if you don’t design practice activities that demand their full attention. In short, getting better requires 100% focus. And because of that – as I’ll touch on a bit later – effective practice isn’t exactly “fun.”

Deliberate practice involves feedback. To improve, you need to see where you are falling short against the ideal performance. Feedback can come from ourselves (and in this case an effective mental representation is key); from other people (a trainer or coach); from “measuring” elements such as stop watch, yard stick, or assessment of some kind; and finally, from the system we’re practicing in. For an instance of visible feedback, my track car’s data acquisition system blinks me a green screen and time saved when I execute a corner quicker than I did on a previous lap, a red screen when I’m slower.?

How do corporate learners receive feedback as they practice? As most training is self-guided these days, most feedback emanates from themselves. I believe learners have a “fluidity meter” that gives them a sense of how well they’re performing and the things tripping them up. Of course, trainers and coaches provide feedback when they see opportunities for improvement. The stopwatch provides feedback. Did they get through the task in the allotted time? Engagement activities – such as scenarios, case studies, and assessments – provide opportunities for improvement. And finally, if they are working in a system, say a software platform, the system itself gives feedback on the number of errors and alerts it throws. (As an aside, have you ever wondered why software programs only give you errors and never an atta-boy? Done tastefully this might set software programs apart.)???

The big idea here, of course, is that learners need feedback to improve. And it’s our job to construct feedback experiences.?

Deliberate practice forces you out of your comfort zone. According to Ericsson, “this is the most important part of purposeful practice.” To improve at anything, you have to be at the limit of your capability, and do something you haven’t done before. The focus required to break past your limit doesn’t leave much room for fun. Watch the serious athletes practicing on the field. The accomplished musicians. They’re often too focused to smile.

If I’m being honest, I’m frequently too easy on my learners. I’m more concerned with their liking the training than pushing them out of their comfort zone so they can significantly improve. But… inspired by the research of Ericsson, I’m going to start doing a few new things:?

1. Frame training to my learners as a challenging and rewarding journey, informing them of the focus required to improve.?

2. Create more specific goals for my learners as they practice in-class – for instance, adding a time component or a navigational challenge to their practice.?

3. Create more challenging assessments.

Thanks for reading, and I recommend putting Ericsson’s Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise on your bookshelf. –Daniel