Why Talent is Overrated Part V by By Geoff Colvin

Most fundamentally, what we generally do at work is directly opposed to the first principle: It isn't designed by anyone to make us better at anything. Usually it isn't designed at all: We are just given an objective that's necessary to meeting the employer's goals and then expected to get on with it.

From the limited, short-term perspective of many employers, this is completely justified. We weren't hired so we could spend time improving our own abilities; we were hired to produce results. While deliberate practice demands that we push ourselves to the point where we break down and then develop a solution, in our business lives the cost of mistakes is often high. Every incentive urges us to stick with what's safe and reliable - which ensures that we won't improve.

Continuous feedback? At most companies that is a travesty, consisting of an annual performance review dreaded by the person delivering it and the one receiving it. Even if it's well done, it cannot be very effective. Telling someone what he did well or poorly on a task he completed 11 months ago is just not helpful.

Most fundamentally, what we generally do at work is directly opposed to the first principle: It isn't designed by anyone to make us better at anything. Usually it isn't designed at all: We are just given an objective that's necessary to meeting the employer's goals and then expected to get on with it.

From the limited, short-term perspective of many employers, this is completely justified. We weren't hired so we could spend time improving our own abilities; we were hired to produce results. While deliberate practice demands that we push ourselves to the point where we break down and then develop a solution, in our business lives the cost of mistakes is often high. Every incentive urges us to stick with what's safe and reliable - which ensures that we won't improve.

Continuous feedback? At most companies that is a travesty, consisting of an annual performance review dreaded by the person delivering it and the one receiving it. Even if it's well done, it cannot be very effective. Telling someone what he did well or poorly on a task he completed 11 months ago is just not helpful.
You could say that work, like deliberate practice, is often mentally demanding and tiring. But that's typically not because of the intense focus and concentration involved. Rather, it's more often a result of long hours cranking out what we already know how to do. And if we're exhausted from that, the prospect of spending additional hours on genuine deliberate practice activities may seem too miserable to contemplate.

Check back next week for the final chapter of this interesting article.