Post 16: Motivational School Leadership: Geoff Colvin "Talent is Overrated" Part 1

                This blog has always been about taking the research and literature on motivation, influence, and improvement and applying it to principals and their schools.  The more I read about this subject, the more I realize that these authors all read the same research and put their own twists on it in their books.  The book covered in this post is no different.  It’s a great combination of Outliers and Mindset.  The book is “Talent is Overrated: What really separates World-Class Performers from Everyone Else” by Geoff Colvin.

                The overriding theme of the book is that there is no such thing as talent, there are those who have deliberately practiced for a sufficient amount of time and there are those who have not.  Once people realize this, they see that high performance isn’t born, it is borne out of deliberate practice.  The first idea, that sufficient deliberate practice is necessary to be great is similar to the 10,000 hours idea in Outliers.  Colvin uses 10 years as his time period, which at 20 hours per week would add up to 10,000 hours.  The second idea, that some people think that performance is born and others think it’s developed, is very similar to Dweck’s Fixed and Growth mindsets (blogged about here, here, and here).

                In this post, I’ll write about Colvin’s “Seven Principles of Great Performers.”  Here’s the list:

1) Well-designed practice activities

2) Coaching

3) Repetition

4) Feedback

5) Self-regulation

6) Building knowledge

7) Mental models

                Much of the book is about the well-designed practice activities.  My first a-ha was that just doing the activity over and over is not deliberate practice.  Basketball players do not just play pickup games every day to practice basketball.  They break the game into tiny skills and deliberately practice those individual skills over and over and over with coaching and feedback from an expert.  Musicians don’t just play songs over and over.  They play scales, do breathing exercises, and play portions of songs many times over with an expert coach providing immediate and focused feedback.

                The most difficult part for the principal trying to apply this book to their school is that most of the examples are in sports and music.  Deliberately practicing lesson delivery, classroom management, or parent phone calls isn’t as straight forward as practicing a tennis serve.  BUT IT IS POSSIBLE!

                After I read “Talent is Overrated,” I asked my colleagues in my office, “How do we deliberately practice what we do?”  At a county office, we coach, provide professional development, evaluate data, support collaboration amongst teachers, etc.  I also asked, “In the limited amount of time that we have in our lives, which of the things that we do are important enough to dedicate time to deliberate practice?”  Some of my colleagues pointed out books that address these questions more focused on schools and, of course, I’ll blog about them in the future.  FYI, the books are “Practice Perfect: 42 Rules for Getting Better at Getting Better” and “Mastery: the Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment.” 

                In the next post, I’ll talk about how Colvin suggests that leaders can set up a culture of innovation in their organizations.  Turns out that it’s very similar to Daniel Pink’s “Drive” combined with Connors and Smith’s “How did That Happen?”

                How do you set up a climate where teachers deliberately practice their craft?  Please give examples in the comments section.

Interview of Geoff Colvin on Youtube: