Forget talent, embrace deliberate practice

Managements believe that people’s talents are what turns them into world-class performers. But, in fact, talent has virtually nothing to do with performance. True world-class performance is built over a long period of time using deliberate practice, i.e., practicing the critical routines of what is necessary to develop a skill with laser-sharp focus repeatedly and getting quality feedback. Toyota recruits ordinary people and turns them into world-class performers, while many others recruit from best of colleges who end up delivering average results. Why and where lies the difference? Read on to find out …

**Unparalleled greatness or

mediocrity**

With rapidly rising standards in virtually every industry, it is important to understand where great performance comes from. In order to get ahead of the competition, it’s essential to know how to refine skills in the best possible way. The first step in that process is to abandon the belief that greatness is something that people are either born with or it comes with their college degrees.

**What determines extraordinary achievement? **

Most people spend the bulk of their waking time at work, performing work without being world-class at it. For example, if you’re a hard working person, you may not rank among the very best at your job even ifyou’ve been crunching eight hours or more a day for the past twenty years. So if we devote most of our awake time to our jobs, why aren’t most of us amazing at what we do?****

The reason is extraordinary achievement isn’t determined by experience! Many people don’t improve at their work even after many years of experience; in fact, some actually get worse with time. The graveyard of lean failures is littered with companies who have refused to engage in the right practice due to being stuck in old ways of thinking and habits. Great achievement seldom comes just from inborn talent, or college degrees. Great athletes, sportspersons, dancers, artists, or musicians don’t start with any prequalification for success. The secret to their success therefore lies in the discipline of their daily routine

• their dedicated, deliberate, passionate, committed and persistent daily practice. AND in their ability to change from what does not lead to world class performance.

Intelligence and performance

Our education system has taught us to give credence to intelligence. So who is an “intelligent” person? Is it someone who can solve complex math problems, someone with many college degrees or someone good at synthesizing information? There are different ways of being intelligent, the popular technique used for measuring general intelligence is the intelligence quotient (IQ) test.

People believe that a high IQ score correlates with greater success in life. The average performance of employees increases with the complexity of their jobs. One explanation for it may lie in complex jobs being generally better rewarded. But do IQ scores really account for great performance? Let’s look at the conclusions of some published research studies:

Sales heads believed that a more intelligent salesman will procure more orders. When researchers measured intelligence against actual sales results, they found that there was no correlation, thus making intelligence useless as a predictor of sales performance. In the world of horse racing, researchers found that handicappers with lower IQ called better predictions than those with higher IQ. In chess for example, where people often associate greatness with genius-level IQs, researchers found grandmasters to have below-average IQs. Most great innovators spent years in preparation and practice before making a breakthrough. Hence, world class performance is independent of or has different components other than intelligence for success.

**Intensive

preparations **

Archimedes realized after settling into his bath that he could measure the volume of an irregular object by measuring how it displaces water. Examples like these tell us the notion that creative ideas can ostensibly strike us out of the blue, or as Dr. Schuller writes ‘great ideas come when God gives them to you.’Yet researchers say that creative breakthroughs almost never appear out of nowhere; rather, they come most readily to those who already practice and exhibit mastery in their field.

Research documented studies show that it takes about ten years of rigorous, dedicated, persistence and consistent practice before being able to produce anything noteworthy. Researchers find this ten year rule holds good for outstanding performance in many domains. I recently heard that Tiger Woods in his preparation for the European Masters tournament in Ireland would wake up and go to practice in Florida at 0300 hours in order to set his body clock in tune with Ireland time. Intensive preparations and deliberate practice are critical to world class success.

**Deliberate practice **

We all know the saying “practice makes perfect.” If we want to improve at something, we have to practice, and practice regularly – whether we’re working on our sport or trying to implement lean manufacturing. There is a powerful correlation between the time spent practicing and increased performance. Practice is the only differentiating factor between world class and pathetic performance. When I tell people that in those early years I spent twelve to sixteen hours every day working on the Gemba to embed lean thinking and practices – from marketing to all vendors, many look at me in disbelief or something that is not possible. I had virtually taken a sabbatical from my family for a cause that was important at that time. Great success comes with great sacrifice.

But to become a truly world-class performer, it is deliberate practice that makes the difference. Deliberate means identifying the essential ingredients in ones daily routine for improvement and then sharply focusing your efforts on those areas, practicing those activities extensively and getting continuous feedback on them to get better.

This is best demonstrated by Toyota where all employees relentlessly follow the philosophy, principles, training, routines, and behavior as required by the Toyota Production System. Resulting in Toyota becoming a world class company that rest of the world has been trying to emulate for many decades now. Deliberate practice is the key to achieving world-class performance. Toyota’s talent is developed through deliberate practice in relentless pursuit of perfection.

Perceive, know and remember

Watching an extraordinary performer like an acrobat, magician or ballerina, one may get the feeling that they are superhuman to be able to perform those acts or feats. They aren’t, but the feeling is true. It is their deliberate practice that exemplifies great performers and makes them different from other people in many ways. Chess masters beat computers because of many years of deliberate practice and remembering moves.

Deliberate practice helps to perceive more relevant information in any field of expertise and also helps to absorb and remember vast amounts of knowledge. Like developing expertise on Just in Time (JIT) techniques and practicing Jidoka, and remembering to recall the right problem solving tool or technique to achieve the target condition. Continuous improvement (CI) requires the habit of deliberate practice to keep improving continuously and not make CI a terminal goal as many companies seem to have done. Deliberate practice can physically alter a person’s body and even brain for the good.

Begin early

Have you ever wondered why the theory of relativity wasn’t conceived by a college physics student? Or why people win recognition of their work with a Nobel Prize at later ages in life? Because it takes longer to master growing knowledge and reach a point where discoveries can be made.

When we talk about “great achievements” in the realm of physics, we usually mean new discoveries. But to be able to make new discoveries, you first need to have an understanding of all the existing laws and theories (akin to philosophy and principles of lean thinking and lean manufacturing). In other words: you need a lot of knowledge. Similarly the leadership can succeed with lean transformation once they have acquired sound knowledge, understanding of the concepts of lean manufacturing and developed belief. Only then will they be able to produce groundbreaking achievements.

Companies that delay in making the decision to embark on their lean journey carry more fatigue in the form of antiquated thinking, wastes, old processes and ways of doing things, reluctance to unlearn and change etc.

Motivation

Developing a habit of deliberate practice to become a world-class performer might appear like a demanding task, so some motivation will help. Motivation can come from a goal, a vision, enthusiasm from seniors and peers, or can be pure necessity driven. The cause or purpose must be rewarding in its results. Receiving support and coaching from senior management can motivate one to practice more and accelerate the process.

Motivation for kick-starting the journey of lean manufacturing can be taken from the results already produced by lean organisations. Such as cost reductions, lead times and throughput time reductions, space-saving, high-velocity flow, flowing inventory, quality improvement, increased efficiency, motivated workforce, learning organisation, creating room for price reduction to customer after increasing profitability etc. Basically perceiving and achieving results that are otherwise believed to be impossible.

**Choose what you want to achieve and practice in the

areas necessary for getting there.**

Majority of the organisations that embark on the lean journey are usually those in existence rather than new ones. Since we can’t travel back in time to reap the benefits of an early start, we can apply the principles of deliberate practice to help us reach our lean goals.

Since achieving exceptional performance is demanding, you must know precisely what your goals are and be committed to reaching them even when the circumstances aren’t ideal. Stories of great successes tell us they were relentless in their practice and did it until their hands bled, bodies broke, or collapsed with fatigue. You will need rock-solid determination in order to put in the amount of practice necessary to become great. This determination can only come from knowing what you want: simply “liking” won’t drive you to put in the practice necessary to become a world-class player.

Achieving great performance requires you to identify the specific critical skills you need in order to improve, and then practice them, working over and over on those specific aspects that need improvement, instead of making only a few general drills on what you want to become better at.

With the proper motivation, anyone who uses deliberate practice to improve will succeed in any field including lean manufacturing. If you want to become successful with the implementation of the lean manufacturing system, remember to focus on ‘how’ you practice your daily routines. In order to make the biggest improvements, you need to design a method of deliberate practice that focuses on those areas that are critical to your field and that offers you immediate feedback.