What It Takes to Be an Expert

Lately we’ve been thinking a lot about the question of mastery: what it takes to become an expert — in terms of managing difficult conversations, or any other type of skilled activity. The issue came up last week in a phone seminar with an organizational group that has received a great deal of SAVI training. We spent much of our time discussing a recent meeting where two participants had encountered some difficulty in their roles as meeting facilitators. Together as a group, we analyzed what had gone wrong, how these individuals had responded, and what they might do differently in the future.

At the end of our discussion, one of the other participants expressed concern about the state of meeting facilitation in the organization. Nobody on the staff was an expert, she said. Despite a couple of years of experience, they still sometimes ran into problems they didn’t know how to solve. What could they do about this?

Our answer: Exactly what they had just been doing.

The latest research on mastery gives clear guidance about what it takes to become an expert — whether you’re a meeting facilitator or a ballplayer, violinist, salesperson, or surgeon. Perhaps the most striking finding is what does not separate masters from others in their field: innate talent. In his book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else, Geoff Colvin challenges the concept of the “natural,” the idea that top performers are born with something special that enables them to excel. Scott Miller and colleagues at the Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change came to the same conclusion in their research on outstanding psychotherapists, or “supershrinks.” It turns out that there is wide variation in the effectiveness of clinicians, with some dramatically and consistently outperforming others. However, extensive analyses failed to identify any characteristics — either inherited or acquired — that could account for this difference.

If talent alone doesn’t do the trick, we might think that what matters is experience; maybe the key to excellence is just seeing more clients, attempting more free throws, or running more meetings. In fact, that alone is no guarantee of improvement. Experience does tend to make us feel as though we’ve improved. For instance, as people progress in their careers, their confidence typically continues to grow — even if their rate of success shows no growth at all. That doesn’t mean that experience is not important. Practice is absolutely critical, but not just any practice. The practice must be deliberate.

The term “deliberate practice” comes from psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and his colleagues, whose work inspired both Geoff Colvin and Scott Miller’s group. The keys to deliberate practice are:

1. an explicit intention to improve performance
2. aiming for objectives just beyond your level of proficiency
3. getting feedback on your results
4. repeating the activity with high frequency and high regularity

Colvin explains how this applies to golf: “Simply hitting a bucket of balls is not deliberate practice, which is why most golfers don't get better. Hitting an eight-iron 300 times with a goal of leaving the ball within 20 feet of the pin 80 percent of the time, continually observing results and making appropriate adjustments, and doing that for hours every day — that's deliberate practice.”

Let’s consider how we might apply these principles to develop mastery of meeting facilitation:

1. Intention to improve: Adjust your mind-set to view each meeting not just as an end in itself, but also as a learning opportunity. Keep an eye out for possible areas of improvement, with the goal of making each meeting better than the last.
2. Aim beyond your level of proficiency: Take the initiative to seek new challenges, working on specific behaviors and interventions that are challenging for you. For instance, if you have a difficult time managing time boundaries, stopping people when they go off on tangents, or intervening when someone interrupts or Yes-buts others, set an explicit intention to practice those skills whenever an opportunity arises.
3. Getting feedback: End every meeting with a Force field, asking the group for Driving forces (what helped them move toward the goals of the meeting) and Restraining forces (what made it more difficult to reach those goals). Work together to come up with strategies for reducing the Restraining forces over time. If you’re co-facilitating with another colleague, we recommend taking some time to debrief together privately, at a deeper level, after the meeting is over. And if you run into situations you don’t know how to handle, it can be very helpful to get outside coaching (as happened in our phone seminar).
4. Repeating the activity: Just keep doing it. Volunteer to facilitate meetings whenever you can — with large groups or small groups, within your team or in other departments. You might also find chances to work with groups in other contexts, such as community meetings or even contentious family discussions.

The data on mastery confirm the difficulty of becoming an expert, in any field. Sustained, deliberate practice is challenging work. However, there is also an inspiring message for those who wish to improve their professional capabilities — whether they aspire to reach the top levels or merely inch up a notch or two. In Geoff Colvin’s words, “what the evidence shouts most loudly is striking, liberating news: that great performance is not reserved for a preordained few. It is available to you and to everyone.” The road to excellence may not be easy, but the path is clearer than ever before, and any one of us can choose to embark on the journey.

Online Resources:
“What It Takes to be Great,” by Geoff Colvin (Fortune Magazine)

“The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance,” by K. Anders Ericsson et al. (Psychological Review)

“Supershrinks,” by Scott Miller et al. (Psychotherapy Networker)