The Secret of Success in a Failing Economy

It goes to show that timing isn't everything. Here we are, amidst the greatest economic failure since the Great Depression, and two high-profile writers are out with big new books on the surprising secrets of what makes people successful. What's more, both of these students of success are enamored of the same secret--a lesson drawn from research on super-successful violinists at Berlin's Academy of Music.

One of the stars of Outliers, the bestseller from Malcolm Gladwell, staff writer for The New Yorker, is a psychologist named K. Anders Ericsson, who did an investigation of three different groups of violin students: the unquestioned stars, those who were good but not great, and those who had no hope of becoming professional musicians. What separated the stars from everyone else? It wasn't raw talent, Ericsson concluded. (Every student had huge talent.) It was sheer persistence--those who practiced harder did better, and those who practiced insanely hard became wildly successful.

Gladwell dubs this phenomenon the "10,000-hour rule." Becoming great at anything--sports, science, business--requires ten years of practice and 1,000 hours of practice per year. "Ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness," he argues.

Geoffrey Colvin, a high-profile editor at Fortune magazine, is equally smitten by Ericsson's research. In his new book, Talent is Overrated, Colvin doesn't just embrace the importance of ten years of practice. He explains just what sort of practice is required--a regimen that he calls "deliberate practice."

What are the elements of deliberate practice? It's designed explicitly to improve performance--the little adjustments that make a big difference. It's repetitive, which means that when it's time to perform for real (sinking a putt, pitching a product), you don't feel the pressure. It's informed by continuous feedback; practice only works if you can see how you're improving. And it isn't much fun, which isn't all bad. "It means that most people won't do it," Colvin says.

So what does this thinking about success tell us about how to succeed in perilous times? For individuals, one message is that practice does make perfect. So if you're a computer programmer who's spending fewer hours writing code, or a product designer whose portfolio of projects is shrinking, or a customer-service specialist with fewer customers to serve, don't let down time become wasted time. Turn it into practice time--find ways to work intensely and deliberately on your technical and business skills, confident that hard work will pay off in the long run.

The more jarring message comes for companies and their leaders. We're still early into the downturn, but already big companies are reacting the way they always do. They are encouraging their highest-paid, most-experienced performers--that is, those with the most practice--to be the first to leave. Last year, in perhaps the most famous example of this brain-dead, knee-jerk policy , Circuit City, the giant electronics retailer, announced its so-called "wage management initiative." The plan: fire its most talented and experienced employees in favor of younger workers making less money. Of course, customers who visited the stores looking for advice got much less of it, which meant they took their business elsewhere. The result? Last month, Circuit City filed for bankruptcy.

It would be funny were it not so common--and so wrong-headed. Indeed, New York Times media columnist David Carr recently looked at the Circuit City fiasco and asked an uncomfortable question: How is what the widely derided leadership of Circuit City did any different from what the leaders of our most respected media companies are doing?

The media business--print, national TV, local news--isn't just downsizing. It is inviting its best-known, most-experienced (and thus, highest-priced) talent to be the first out the door. Legendary sportswriters, iconic anchormen and anchorwomen, influential columnists and pundits--all are heading for the exits with the blessing of management, replaced (if at all) by inexperienced newcomers who can't hope to meet the standards of their predecessors.

How's this for a secret of success? You don't survive a downturn by encouraging your most experienced people to leave. Perhaps more business leaders can resist this wrong-headed practice--and hold on to those employees who have had the most practice in their careers


Ref : Harvard Business Review