Leadership By Numbers

Addendum:  Slashdot picked up the Scientific American article of The Expert Mind, so if you are interested in the topic, I thought I'd point out  another terrific resource: the Eide NeuroLearning Blog . My wife is an Occupational Therapist who specializes in pediatric education., so I come by it by osmosis.

Offshorer InfoSys has been selling the concept that they can train neophytes to become "top-notch software programmers" in only 18 weeks. Wouldn't that be great? The tantalizing possibility for rapidly skilling a workforce is an irresistible attraction to any IT employer, and it is just as likely to generate nothing but derision from their own IT employees. Learning is hard (at least, that one of the life lessons I picked up during school).

Now, before I write anything further, I should give full disclosure and admit that either I have a bias on this subject matter, or expertise (depending on how you view my perspective). Not only does my current job permit me the opportunity to train administrators and programmers (as well as consult), I sit on IBM's International Advisory Council for Education. I would love to be able to take some malleable student, and after 18 weeks of training, proudly pronounce the graduate an expert in the field. Is it possible? Interestingly enough, this month's Scientific American addresses the neurology in becoming an expert, but before turning to science, I'd like to call on your own experience.

Surely, you've seen a movie or heard a story about someone who mastered a difficult skill without any struggles. Didn't it seem a little silly? Or, maybe it's the touchstone of a sci-fi movie like The Matrix. A couple of years ago, I watched as Tom Cruise was able to master sword fighting after living in a country village of samurai for a few weeks. Amazing. I've been practicing Kumdo for over eight years, and I can assure you that even though I am a 2^nd degree black belt and have demonstrated at several events, I do not consider myself an expert. It's very difficult to master the sword. Come to think of it, it's demanding to acquire the skills for any expert status.

So, just how long does it take to master a subject? Probably ten years. Here's some of the highlights from the Scientific American article on “The Expert Mind.”

The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takes enormous effort to build these structures in the mind. Simon coined a psychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. Even child prodigies, such as Gauss in mathematics, Mozart in music and Bobby Fischer in chess, must have made an equivalent effort, perhaps by starting earlier and working harder than others.

At this point, many skeptics will finally lose patience. Surely, they will say, it takes more to get to Carnegie Hall than practice, practice, practice. Yet this belief in the importance of innate talent, strongest perhaps among the experts themselves and their trainers, is strangely lacking in hard evidence to substantiate it.

. . . motivation appears to be a more important factor than innate ability in the development of expertise. . . .

Learning is becoming so important in our society of knowledge-workers, that it does everyone a disservice to assume there are shortcuts. It might even make it harder to learn, if the challenge of learning is perceived as demotivating.

For the record, though, I'd be more than willing to star in an IT movie as the hero who masters J2EE portal technology on a cluster of mixed operating systems, doing so in 16 weeks while dramatically creating an award winning web site for the next Olympics. I just don't want to work with that Tom Cruise.