

Don't become an expert - dmytton
http://blog.asmartbear.com/expert-distraction.html

======
oostevo
I think he's missing the point.

So many people (Gladwell, Cohen, and apparently the Brazen Careerist person)
have referenced this 10,000 hours claim, but no one has cited the actual
research paper that came up with this notion. The paper actually addresses
almost all of his points.[1]

"There are more high school swimmers than ever, therefore more opportunities
to find and train great swimmers. They have access to diet, training,
technology, and facilities that didn't exist years ago. That's all." Yes!
That's the point! The authors of the research point out that "the fastest time
for the marathon in the 1896 Olympic Games was just a minute faster than the
required entry time in ... races such as the Boston Marathon," _because_
people now know the proper way to focus their efforts at practice.[2]
'Practice,' here, being training and diet. But it still takes 10 years or so
of _deliberate practice_ to become world class. It's just that the bar for
world class has been moved.

"I'm a case in point: I practiced the piano for an hour a day for more than
ten years. I became good, but there were others who practiced twice as much
who were worse, and still others who practiced less and are much better."
Again, he is unwittingly supporting the 10,000 hours claim. The study points
out that "the view that merely engaging in a sufficient amount of practice,
regardless of the structure of that practice leads to maximal performance has
a long and contested history."[3] It is not just 'putting in the hours' that
matters (because then one falls into the trap of assembly-line-worker
syndrome, where "improvement of performance was often arrested at less than
maximal levels"), but rather what it calls "deliberate practice," which takes
quite a bit of very hard work and practice tasks that are defined in a very
specific way. (There's a good description of the characteristics of deliberate
practice on p. 367 of the study). That is, people who just practice for hours
without much thought as to what that practice should be and how it will
challenge them in new ways are doomed to be less successful than those who are
coached through a process of deliberate practice. It's quality, not quantity.

All that being said, I don't think being an entrepreneur actually has anything
to do with being an expert. It's much more luck and hard work. Cohen gets
around to saying this too. I agree with him. I'm just not sure why he felt the
need to try to refute the current literature on becoming a domain expert to
say, "Hey, becoming a domain expert probably isn't your goal. Your goal is to
become an innovative entrepreneur."

[1]
[http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)

[2] Ibid, p.366

[3] Ibid, p.365

\--> Edit 1: matrix cited a more recent text by the same author I was
describing: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1142983>

\--> Edit 2: Oops. The Harvard Business Review article that Penelope Trunk
talks about was actually written by the same person who wrote the paper that I
cited and the book that matrix referenced, so my "but no one has cited the
actual research" claim was inaccurate:
[http://www.coachingmanagement.nl/The%20Making%20of%20an%20Ex...](http://www.coachingmanagement.nl/The%20Making%20of%20an%20Expert.pdf)

~~~
smartbear
Thanks for the excellent critique of my article!

You're right, the point I'm making is that becoming THAT KIND of so-called
"expert" isn't the point of a company.

Actually I'm not refuting arguments about how to become an expert in the first
place, I'm refuting the idea that you NEED to do that. I believe that theme is
pretty clear throughout.

Finally, if it really does take 10k hours and ONLY if it's a special kind of
dedication, then it's almost a tautology, and an irrelevant activity for
almost anyone on Earth.

~~~
skmurphy
I think Jason is ignoring is the core of Ericsson's insight, the value of
deliberate practice.

Jason highlights the value of getting started, that startups are a "come are
you are party" but seems to suggest that passion can substitute for learning
from your mistakes. This sounds like the "Little Engine That Could" model (see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Engine_That_Could> ) of repeating "I
think I can, I think I can,..." which is no substitute for learning from your
mistakes.

What's the best way to learn from your mistakes? What Ericsson calls
"deliberate practice." Here is a simple example that I think most
entrepreneurs would find readily applicable, taken from an interview with
Anders in Fast Company (see <http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/110/final-
word.html> ):

"Medical diagnosticians see a patient once or twice, make an assessment in an
effort to solve a particularly difficult case, and then they move on. They may
never see him or her again. I recently interviewed a highly successful
diagnostician who works very differently. He spends a lot of his own time
checking up on his patients, taking extensive notes on what he's thinking at
the time of diagnosis, and checking back to see how accurate he is. This extra
step he created gives him a significant advantage compared with his peers. It
lets him better understand how and when he's improving. In general, elite
performers utilize some technique that typically isn't well known or widely
practiced."

This model is certainly directly applicable to both engineering and sales &
marketing problems.

~~~
smartbear
To me, "deliberate practice" is a cop-out. If you practice like crazy and
still aren't good, it's because it wasn't the RIGHT practice?

It's like the horoscope saying "keep your eyes open for an opportunity today."
If an opportunity doesn't appear, it's because I wasn't open enough.

You can't tell me Michael Phelps is fastest because no one else practiced as
deliberately.

It sounds like an excuse to avoid admitting that there are also innate
differences between people, and luck.

~~~
lief79
Well, it's rather obvious that 10,000 hours of practicing golfing strokes
without spending any time learning how to aim would be a waste of time.

From what I can see, this doesn't inherently conflict with your claims about
innate differences or luck, but it does indicate that there is value in
practicing things correctly and potentially little value in practicing things
incorrectly. Obviously a fully grown 4 foot individual won't become center for
the basketball team, but only practicing 3 point shots won't help someone who
is 7 feet tall do much better in the pocket (under the net).

Can you please explain what I am missing?

~~~
smartbear
What you're missing: That many people do "deliberate practice" and yet there
are large differences in skill.

Of course flailing around isn't practice. The notion that "perfect practice
makes perfect" or "practices doesn't make perfect, it makes permanent" has
been around forever, no need for special studies to explain that.

But everyone at the Olympics, for example, has done extreme, deliberate
practice, and yet most of the competitors are so bad they don't even televise
it.

Finally, the point of the article IS NOT about HOW to become an expert, it's
questioning the notion that becoming an expert is necessarily the goal.

Or, saying that you become successful at [anything] as a by-product of your
work, not because you become "an expert" and THEN do interesting work.

And further, that people (like Penelope) shouldn't get hung up on being "an
expert" by some arbitrary definition when she's in fact quite successful and
could be just focussed on what to do next.

~~~
lief79
I agree with the last 3 points, I was only responding to your previous post.

Take a look at the original studies, or the Scientific American article for a
quicker read. (I read it in paper form, so you can probably find it as easily
as I can).

As for deliberate practice, the idea sheds some light onto the right and wrong
ways to do it. It seems to come back to the theme of "Zen and the Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance". Deliberate practice is paying attention to the
quality of the practice, and continuing to improve the quality. If this is
accurate, then it should increase the differences in skill, as the individuals
address their own various physical limits. It seems that the difference in the
quality of the practice is one of the reasons people pay more for experts to
teach them. I think the Olympics can just as easily be used to support the
idea, as everyone's practice routines will vary.

Furthermore, studies of conventional wisdom often reveal conventional wisdom
to be wrong, so I can't dismiss them. If the results make it easier for people
to successfully perform "deliberate practice", then they will probably be well
worth the money spent.

------
Davertron
I think what Jason is saying is don't FOCUS on being an expert, and don't
obsess over it. I know that I personally feel like I never know enough, and
often think things like "well, I'd like to do x or y, but I should probably
learn more about z first". I think the important thing to realize is that
there is always more to learn, and you shouldn't be killing yourself over not
feeling like an expert. Of course there's lots you don't know; there always
will be. You just have to accept that and realize that there's plenty you DO
know, and taking on challenges that seem just a bit above where you're at is
one of the greatest ways to grow and continue learning.

As a semi-related side note, when I first started reading HN (almost a year
ago), I felt like 95% of the stuff that was on the front page didn't even MAKE
SENSE to me (some would probably argue that HN has changed over the last year,
and I think I came in to HN during one of those "let's push Erlang articles to
the top to scare off the incoming swarm of n00bs" phases...didn't work on this
n00b though :) ). Over the last year, I find that I at least have a general
idea what most of the posts are about, even if I still don't totally grok
everything that gets posted, and I've learned a ton. I'm happy with that,
since I still feel like I learn something new everyday.

------
matrix
If you'd like to skip all the pundits (Gladwell included) and go straight to
source of all this discussion about developing expertise, look no further than
this book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-
Handbo...](http://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-
Psychology/dp/0521600812/)

It's a compilation of academic papers and was the basis for Gladwell's book.
It is not lightweight entertainment reading, but it's the real deal.

------
barnaby
I think he's arguing that you shouldn't wait until you have 10,000 hours
before you go out to be successful, rather go out and pursue the thing you
want to be successful at and that will give you the 10,000 hours.

In other words, don't set preconditions to your success, including the
precondition of "being an expert"

------
contagionhealth
Anyone I've seen advertise _themselves_ as an expert in something (as opposed
to being named or termed an expert by someone who's hired them to work/speak
etc) seems to be a generalist with ego or confidence issues.

Developing expert-level skills in an area requires focus, talent, and time.
These three variables are all present but vary in concentration in 'expert'
folks I've met operating within various disciplines and niche sectors. Some
are initially more talented, so their 'expertise' development takes less time.
Some have less native talent so spend more time developing skills.

Unless you're a prodigy, the development of expert level skills requires
persistence most of all, but persistence is not necessarily equivalent to time
spent practicing.

To barnaby's point, everyone I consider an 'expert' doesn't feel like they're
done learning - they remain voracious.

~~~
jrwoodruff
They remain voracious - and will probably never consider themselves experts -
because they are passionate about what they are doing. They are passionate
enough to not just 'practice' but to also know who the experts in their field
are, know what those experts accomplished, and know what they themselves don't
know. This 10,000 hours thing is an effect of expertise, not a cause.

Focused passion * (time+talent) = expertise

------
runT1ME
So, his two examples of people who weren't experts but succeeded were Larry
and Sergey, two _PhD_ students from _Stanford_ studying search algorithms, and
that doesn't qualify them as experts?

Or Joel, who was a program manager at one of the most successful and selective
Software companies on the planet?

~~~
smartbear
No, it DOES NOT qualify them as experts by the definition given by this latest
10k hours craze.

And no being a program manager at Excel DOES NOT qualify Joel as an expert on
blogging or bug tracking.

My point is: Neither of those matter.

~~~
Locke1689
_No, it DOES NOT qualify them as experts by the definition given by this
latest 10k hours craze._

Sure it does. The computer science curriculum at top schools like Stanford
probably requires about 30 hours a week of time devoted to computer science.
At 52 weeks per year, this puts the number around 6.5 years. After 4 years
undergraduate computer science and his master's degree and Page's statement
that he got into programming/CS at around 12 years old, we can deduce that
10,000 hours is probably a completely reasonable amount of time.

~~~
donaq
You miss the OP's point that none of these hours were spent at advertising,
the core of Google's business success.

~~~
snitko
I think the point is we should be questioning the field of expertise which
lead a company to success. Google has become a success not because it
introduced advertising, but because it was a a great and simple search engine
(with ads at first, btw). Thus Larry and Sergey were experts and their example
in the article is bad.

On the other hand there are probably other examples out there that may prove
the point. So, like Forrest Gump said, I think maybe it's both.

------
skolor
What? After reading that, all I got was "You can't be an expert when
innovating". Ok, I can buy that. I don't, however, understand where on Earth
he got the idea that the blogger is any different from the other people he
listed at the end. Unless there's something I'm missing, no one ever said you
should wait until you were an "expert" in something before you tried to be
successful at it. The focus of this "expert" movement, if you can call it
that, is to strive to become an expert in something, rather than being a jack
of all trades, so to speak.

------
andywood
It's trivially true that being an expert and being successful are different
things. Being successful generally means being a key part of a value chain
that comes together at a certain time/place in society. Some experts do this.
Some non-experts do this. Some non-experts become experts in the course of
doing this. So what? A lot of people naturally put in 10,000+ hours doing the
things they love the most anyway, and I'd bet they like being successful
experts. This looks suspiciously like trying to console yourself, saying
"there, there. you done alright in your own way". That's perfectly valid, but
doesn't require rejecting other conceptions of what's desirable for personal
growth. Certainly not publicly.

------
10ren
A minor aside: I don't know anything about the person Penelope, but one key to
popular characters is to be relatable. This also applies to the persona one
projects. A person with a very popular blog is likely an expert at being
relatable - part of that is being an everyman/woman, and sharing the trials
and difficulties, the foolishnesses and mistakes that many people can relate
to and feel comfortable around. i.e. _not_ being an "expert".

A blog might also include explicit expertise, in the form of a secondary
character: a mentor. But that's not the entry point for the reader; it's not
who you relate to.

------
seanos
I think the 10,000 hour rule is more applicable to skills that are somewhat
stationary. Technology is a moving target, as new technologies are introduced
some of the skills in which you were an expert become obsolete. On the other
hand, something like playing Piano is a stationary target - if an expert in
playing Piano travelled 30 years into the future, they would still be an
expert in playing the Piano. So I think you have to be constantly learning and
the most important skills of all are learning how to learn efficiently and
having the ability to teach yourself.

~~~
oostevo
Well, you cited music performance, but so did the guy who did the research
everyone who talks about "10,000 hours" is referencing:

"Even in music there is evidence for improved skill. When Tchaikovsky asked
two of the greatest violinists of his day to play his violin concerto, they
refused, deeming the score unplayable (Platt, 1966). Today, elite violinists
consider this concerto part of the standard repertory. The improvement in
music training is so great that according to Roth (1982) the violin virtuoso
Paganini "would indeed cut a sorry figure is placed upon the modern concert
stage" (p. 23)." [1] There are no stationary targets.

He uses this as evidence that the notion that "a sufficient amount of
experience or practice leads to maximal performance appears to be incorrect"
[2]

[1]
[http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)
p.366

[2] Ibid.

~~~
seanos
But the actual task and skills haven't changed, just the elite performance
level.

------
jpablo
I'll only like to be an expert, like Asimov, in sounding like an expert.

Meaning that I could learn and understand the stuff I need very fast and be
able to explain it to others easily.

~~~
huherto
You chose an interesting example. And yet we can argue Asimov was expert at
writing, he probably had more practice at it than any other human being that I
know.(or heard of)

------
callmeed
I have to agree with the author.

In fact I'd go so far as to say luck has more to do with success than _being
an expert_ –especially with regards to financial success.

~~~
adg
I disagree. Luck may play a role in one's success, but it's not the deciding
factor. The problem is that people like to play off their success as just
"being lucky". Why? Because this answer is a lot quicker and sexier than
explaining to someone how they spent countless hours working their ass off to
get where they are.

Have you read Warren Buffett's biography, The Snowball? Sure, Buffett caught
some lucky breaks, but the man has essentially spent his entire life
completely engrossed in investing. Anyone who claims Buffett is just the
luckiest investor alive should really take a closer look at how the man has
accomplished what he has.

------
prosa
The nice thing about expertise is anticipating mistakes that would otherwise
cost time and energy. With emerging best practices in continuous deployment
and customer development, those costs are on the decline. Furthermore, with
the mentorship opportunities emerging from the wealth of angel networks and
seed funds, you can replicate some of those gains without the prohibitive time
investment.

------
IgorPartola
While Gladwell makes a compelling argument for the 10,000 hour rule, I just
can't buy that. It can't be that simple.

~~~
bscofield
Simple? It's not like you're sit around eating snacks and thinking about a
topic for 10,000 hours - that's 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, which is
_hard work_.

~~~
starkfist
Two people can play 10,000 hours of golf, and one of them becomes Tiger Woods,
and the other one becomes a course pro teaching lessons for $45/hr. Tiger
Woods was amazing at age 5 on "That's Incredible," long before his 10,000
hours.

Similarly it's obvious that Steve Jobs is expert at what he does, but what is
that, exactly? What did he practice for 10,000 hours?

Talent, expert level preparation, and success are related but the interaction
between them is still mysterious.

~~~
dagw
It's not just playing 10000 hours of golf, it's actively and effectively
practicing golf for 10000 hours. There is huge difference between the two.
Sure innate talent and physical attributes make a difference, but exactly how
you spend your 10000 hours probably makes a much bigger difference.

~~~
timwiseman
I couldn't agree more. To add slightly, I think the intensity and novelty of
what you are doing are probably the biggest factors in how you spend your
10000 hours.

I know I learn more from spending 1 hour trying to solve a new problem I have
never tackled before than spending 10 writing yet another CRUD procedure or
yeat another GUI for the database. Similarly, I improved my running faster
(back when I was still running regularly) with runs that challenged me and on
varied terrain more than I did from yet another tread mill run at a regular
pace.

------
diN0bot
the op points out one end of the spectrum. i'm far more concerned with the
other end, where people think that writing a program, or worse, achieving some
general credential, makes them an expert. it's refreshing to interact with
folks who see themselves and others making continuous progress towards
mastery. such folks tend to have a stable foundation of confidence and a more
open attitude when speaking with others. the thought that some people are
magically and suddenly experts is damaging to collaboration and progress.

------
rationalbeaver
You don't have to be an expert marksman to shoot yourself some food.

