Even the most successful athletes and artists must spend hours practicing. But it’s not just LeBron James, Yo-Yo Ma and Bruce Springsteen who benefit from regular, focused practice. A recent conversation with a leading researcher on peak performance highlighted how advisors benefit from some of the same principles of focused practice.
Anders Ericcson is the psychologist whose research underpins the “10,000 hour rule,” the principle popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. This principle states that it takes 10 years of practicing for 20 hours per week to become outstanding in any field. In a recent talk to a group of MBA students at the University of Toronto, Ericcson outlined why focused practice doesn’t only apply to mastering an instrument, excelling at a sport or becoming a chess grandmaster. Indeed, he outlined how these same principles can be useful to anyone – from a student looking for a job to an advisor hoping to get better results dealing with existing and prospective clients.
The 10,000-hour rule
In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell noted that natural ability, while important, is not enough to become world class in a field. After all, there are a great many tremendously gifted artists, musicians and athletes who are anonymous, having failed to turn their talent into success. Gladwell argues that, beyond ability, it’s many years of dedicated practice that set the most successful practitioners apart.
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As one example, many of us know the story of Bill Gates dropping out of Harvard in 1975 to co-found Microsoft with Paul Allen. What is less appreciated is the fact that Gates and Allen first spent many hours programming computers at a time when computers were relatively rare. Much of this happened while they attended a private prep school in Seattle, where in 1968 their “Mothers Club” used proceeds from a rummage sale to buy a terminal and computer time for the school’s students. From age 13, Gates and Allen began spending what would amount to thousands of hours during evenings, weekends and summers honing their programming skills, something that Gates continued to do when he started at Harvard.
In a Harvard Business Review article, The Making of an Expert, Ericcson pointed to research on the childhoods of 120 elite performers who had won international competitions in fields ranging from music and the arts to mathematics and neurology. He concluded that there were no early indications that could have predicted the success of these prize-winners. They did, however, have three things in common:
- They had strong support from their families
- They practiced intensively for many years
- They studied with highly proficient teachers
Why deliberate practice matters
In his new book, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise, Ericcson emphasizes that hours of practice are not sufficient; it’s what he refers to as deliberate practice that sets star performers apart. There are two aspects to deliberate practice – what you practice and how you practice it. In Ericcson’s words:
There are no shortcuts. It will take you at least a decade to achieve expertise, and you will need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice—practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort.
Ericcson maintained that most people fall into the trap of practicing what they’re already good at because that’s more comfortable. Research shows that it’s only by focusing on areas of weakness that people turn into experts. The second aspect to deliberate practice is sustained repetition. Ericcson explained why golfers are frustrated because their games are stalled despite years of regular play:
You don’t improve because when you are playing a game, you get only a single chance to make a shot from any given location. You don’t get to figure out how you can correct mistakes. If you were allowed to take five to ten shots from the exact same location on the course, you would get more feedback on your technique and start to adjust your playing style to improve your control. In fact, professionals often take multiple shots from the same location when they train and when they check out a course before a tournament.
The elements of a successful meeting
In his talk, Ericcson outlined the feedback loop that it takes to improve: First, identify an area on which you want to work. Second, get feedback on your progress, ideally from an observer who is an expert, although it’s possible to self-coach and get feedback on your own. Finally, continue to get feedback as you modify your performance until you are happy.
One key element is the frequency of feedback. If you take four lessons to improve your golf game, you should schedule lessons on four consecutive Fridays rather than spreading them over the golf season. And the same applies to giving or receiving coaching – while a quarterly check-in might be helpful, if you want to see change, regular coaching over a concentrated period of time will work much better.
The first step is picking the areas on which to focus. Below are some of the things that drive success when meeting with prospective clients. If you want to improve, choose two or three of these on which to concentrate:
- Make a positive initial impact, conveying energy and confidence when you greet prospects
- Manage the preliminary chitchat so that prospects relax
- Ask good questions to get prospects talking
- Listen for hidden meaning
- Communicate that you are listening by taking notes
- Ask follow up questions to get prospects to open up further
- Use relevant, memorable stories to describe how clients have benefited from your work
- Make a comfortable transition to discussing next steps to move forward.
Getting feedback on performance
Once you’ve picked the areas to work on, the best way to improve is to practice in a safe environment, getting feedback from a colleague or your branch manager by role playing in advance of meetings. Most advisors hate role playing, but it is the equivalent of practice for top athletes and musicians, allowing you to make mistakes in a safe environment. Role playing is instrumental in helping people from many walks of life excel. Experienced flight controllers and pilots practice on simulators rather than with planes in the air, and doctors learn new techniques on high-tech medical mannequins instead of on patients. For this same reason, Harvard and many other top business schools use the case method to simulate real-life business problems, Winston Churchill practiced his speeches in the mirror and army generals participate in war games to rehearse their responses when faced with real-life battles.
It’s not only starting advisors who can benefit from practice. A highly successful advisor with over $500 million under management told me that when he began using a coach to role play upcoming meetings with high-value prospects, he saw his success rate jump significantly. Even if you don’t have anyone to provide feedback, you can self-coach by recording simulated meetings on a voice recorder and listening to them afterwards, using a spouse or friend to play the role of the prospect.
A second approach is to do a post-meeting analysis, similar to what coaches and athletes do when they watch a game tape. Ericcson pointed to research that when surgeons do a short debrief with their team after each operation, over time they have reduced the failure rate on surgeries by 50%. You could ask your manager to sit in on key meetings, explaining that he or she is there to answer any questions about the firm. You could have a team member sit in with the aim of meeting immediately afterwards to discuss your performance. Whether it’s a manager, colleague or team member providing the feedback, the key is to focus on the areas that you are working on. In the absence of anyone to observe and provide feedback, do a three-minute reflection after each meeting while it’s fresh in your mind. List what went well and where you could improve in the future
Life is full of choices. It can take many hours over several years to secure meetings with important prospects. Once you’ve done that, you can keep doing what you’re doing and chances are you’ll maintain your current level of success. But by using the techniques of deliberate practice, you can develop new habits and dramatically improve your odds of successful meetings.
Dan Richards conducts programs to help advisors gain and retain clients and is an award winning faculty member in the MBA program at the University of Toronto. To see more of his written commentaries, go to www.danrichards.com or here for his videos.
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