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so I'd like to talk about the
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development of human potential and I'd
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like to start with maybe the most
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impactful modern story of development
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many of you here have probably heard of
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the 10,000 hours rule maybe you even
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model your own life after it basically
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it's the idea that to become great in
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anything takes 10,000 hours of focused
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practice so you'd better get started as
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early as possible the poster child for
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this story is Tiger Woods his father
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famously gave him a putter when he was 7
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months old at 10 months he started
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imitating his father's swing at 2 you
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can go on YouTube and see him on
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national television fast-forward to the
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age of 21 he's the greatest golfer in
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the world quintessential $10,000 story
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another that features a number of
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best-selling books is that of the three
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polgár sisters whose father decided to
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teach them chess in a very technical
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manner from a very early age and really
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he wanted to show that with a head start
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and focused practice any child could
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become a genius in anything and in fact
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two of his daughters went on to become
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Grandmaster chess players so when I
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became the science writer at Sports
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Illustrated magazine I got curious if
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there's 10,000 hours rules correct then
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we should see that elite athletes get a
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head start in so-called deliberate
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practice this is coached
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error-correction focused practice not
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just playing around and in fact when
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scientists study elite athletes they see
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that they spend more time in deliberate
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practice not a big surprise but they
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actually when they actually track
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athletes over the course of their
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development the pattern looks like this
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the future elites actually spend less
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time early on in deliberate practice in
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their eventual sport they tend to have
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what scientists call a sampling period
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where they try a variety of physical
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activities they gain broad general
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skills they learn about their interests
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and abilities and delay specializing
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until later than peers who plateau at
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lower levels and so when I saw that I
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said gosh that doesn't really comport
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with the 10,000 hours rule does it so I
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started to wonder about other domains
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that we associate with obligatory early
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specialization like music turns out the
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patterns often similar this is research
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from a world-class music
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of me and what I want to draw your
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attention to is this the exceptional
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musicians didn't start spending more
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time into the practice than the average
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musicians until their third instrument
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they too tended to have a sampling
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period even musicians we think of as
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famously precocious like yo-yo ma
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he had a sampling period he just went
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through it more rapidly than most
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musicians do nonetheless this research
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is almost entirely ignored and much more
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impactful is the first page of the book
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Battle Hymn of the tiger mother where
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the author recounts assigning her
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daughter violin nobody seems to remember
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the part later in the book where her
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daughter turns to her and says you
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picked it not me and largely quits
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so having seen this sort of surprising
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pattern in sports and music I started to
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wonder about domains that affect even
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more people like education an economist
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found a natural experiment in the higher
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ed systems of England and Scotland in
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the period he studied the systems were
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very similar except in England students
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had to specialize in their mid teen
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years to pick a specific course of study
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to apply to ORS in Scotland they could
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keep trying things in university if they
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wanted to and his question was who wins
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the trade-off the early or the late
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specialized errs and what he saw was
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that the early specialized jump out to
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an income lead because they have more
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domain-specific skills the late
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specialized errs get to try more
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different things and when they do pick
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they have better fit or what economists
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call match quality and so their growth
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rates are faster by six years out they
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erased that income gap meanwhile the
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early specialized errs start quitting
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their career tracks in much higher
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numbers essentially because they were
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made to choose so early that they more
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often made poor choices so the late
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specialized errs losing the short term
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and win in the long run I think if we
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thought about career choice like dating
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we might not pressure people to settle
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down quite so quickly so this got me
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interested seeing this pattern again in
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exploring the developmental backgrounds
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of people whose work I had long admired
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like Duke Ellington who shunned music
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lessons as a kid to focus on baseball
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and painting and drawing or Maruyama
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Mirza Connie who wasn't interested in
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math as a girl dreamed of becoming a
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novelist and went on to become the first
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and so far only woman to win the Fields
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Medal the most prestigious prize in the
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world in math Vincent van Gogh had five
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different careers each of which he
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deemed his true calling
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before flaming out spectacularly
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and in his late 20s picked up a book
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called the guide to the ABCs of drawing
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that worked out okay Claude Shannon was
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an electrical engineer at the University
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of Michigan who took a philosophy course
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just to fulfill a requirement and in it
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he learned about a near century-old
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system of logic by which true and false
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statements could be coded as ones and
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zeros and solved like math problems this
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led to the development of binary code
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which underlies all of our digital
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computers today for finally my own sort
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of role model Frances Hesselbein this is
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me with her she took her first
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professional job at the age of 54 it
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went on to become the CEO of the Girl
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Scouts which she saved she tripled
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minority membership added a hundred and
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thirty thousand volunteers and this is
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one of the proficiency badges that came
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out of her tenure it's binary code for
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girls learning about computers today
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Frances runs a Leadership Institute
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where she works every weekday in
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Manhattan and she's only a hundred and
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four so who knows what's next we never
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really hear developmental stories like
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this do we we don't hear about the
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research that found a Nobel laureate
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scientists are 22 times more likely to
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have a hobby outside of work as our
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typical scientists we never hear that
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even when the performers of the work is
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very famous we don't hear these
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developmental stories for example here's
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an athlete I've followed here he is at
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age six wearing a Scottish rugby kid now
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he tried some tennis some skiing
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wrestling his mother was actually a
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tennis coach but she declined to coach
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him because he wouldn't return balls
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normally he did some basketball table
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tennis swimming when his coaches wanted
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to move him up a level to play with
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older boys he declined because he just
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wanted to talk about pro wrestling after
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practice with his friends and he kept
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trying more sports handball volleyball
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soccer badminton skateboarding so who is
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this dabbler
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this is Roger Federer every bit as
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famous as an adult as Tiger Woods and
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yet even tennis enthusiasts don't
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usually know anything about his
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developmental story why is that even
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though it's the norm I think it's partly
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because the Tiger story is very dramatic
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but also because it seems like this tidy
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narrative that we can extrapolate to
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anything that we want to be good at in
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our own lives but that I think is a
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problem because it turns out that many
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Golf is a uniquely horrible model of
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almost everything that humans want to
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learn Golf is the epitome of what the
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psychologist Robin Hogarth called a kind
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learning environment kind learning
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environments have next steps and goals
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that are clear rules that are clear and
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never change when you do something to
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get feedback that is quick and accurate
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work next year will look like work last
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year chess also a kind learning
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environment the grandmasters advantage
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is largely based on knowledge of
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recurring patterns which is also why
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it's so easy to automate on the other
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end of the spectrum are wicked learning
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environments where next steps and goals
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may not be clear rules may change you
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may or may not get feedback when you do
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something it may be delayed it may be
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inaccurate and work next year may not
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look like work last year so which one of
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these sounds like the world we're
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increasingly living in in fact our need
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to think in an adaptable manner and to
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keep track of interconnecting parts has
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fundamentally changed our perception so
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that when you look at this diagram the
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central circle on the right probably
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looks larger to you because your brain
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is drawn to the relationship of the
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parts in the whole whereas someone who
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hasn't been exposed to modern work with
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its requirement for adaptable conceptual
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thought will see correctly that the
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central circles are the same size so
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here we are in the wicked work world and
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they're sometimes hyper specialization
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can backfire badly for example in
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research in a dozen countries that
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matched people for their parents years
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of education their test scores their own
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years of Education the difference was
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some got career focused education and
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some got broader general education the
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pattern was those who got the career
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focused education are more likely to be
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hired right out of training more likely
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to make more money right away but so
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much less adaptable in a changing work
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world that they spend so much less time
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in the workforce over all that they win
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in the short term and lose in the long
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run or consider a famous 20-year study
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of experts making geopolitical and
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economic predictions the worst
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forecasters were the most specialized
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experts those who'd spent their entire
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careers studying one or two problems and
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came to see the whole world through one
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lens or mental model some of them
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actually got worse as the accumulated
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experience and credentials the best
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forecasters were simply
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right people with wide-ranging interests
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now in some domains like medicine
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increasing specialization has been both
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inevitable and beneficial no question
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about it and yet it's been a
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double-edged sword a few years ago one
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of the most popular surgeries in the
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world for knee pain was tested in a
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placebo controlled trial some of the
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patients got sham surgery
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that means the surgeons make an incision
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they bang around like they're doing
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something then they sew the patient back
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up that performed just as well and yet
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surgeons who specialize in the procedure
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continue to do it by the millions
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so if hyperspecialization isn't always
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the trick in a wicked world what is that
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can be difficult to talk about because
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it doesn't always look like this path
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sometimes it looks like meandering or
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zigzagging or keeping a broader view it
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can look like getting behind but I want
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to talk about what some of those tricks
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might be if we look at research on
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technological innovation it shows that
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increasingly the most impactful patents
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are not authored by individuals who
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drill deeper deeper deeper into one area
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of technology as classified by the US
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Patent Office but rather by teams that
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include individuals who have worked
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across a large number of different
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technology classes and often merged
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things from different domains someone
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whose work I've admired who was sort of
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on the forefront of this a Japanese man
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named gunpei Yokoi Yokoi didn't score
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well in his electronics exams at school
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so he had to settle for a low tier job
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as a machine maintenance worker at a
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playing card company in Kyoto
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he realized he wasn't equipped to work
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on the cutting edge but that there was
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so much information easily available
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that maybe he could combine things that
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were already well-known in ways that
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specialists were too narrow to see so he
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combines some well-known technology from
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the calculator industry with some
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well-known technology from the
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credit-card industry and made handheld
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games and they were hit and it turned
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this playing card company which was
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founded in a wooden storefront in the
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19th century into a toy and game
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operation you may have heard of it it's
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called Nintendo yokoi's creative
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philosophy translated to lateral
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thinking with whithered technology
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taking well-known technology and using
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it in new ways and his magnum opus was
00:10:59
this the gameboy technological joke in
00:11:02
every way and it came out at the same
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time as color competitors from Sega and
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Atari
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and it blew them away because Yokoi knew
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what his customers cared about wasn't
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color it was durability portability
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affordability battery life game
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selection this is mine that I found in
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my parents basement seen better days but
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you can see the red light is on I
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flipped it on and played some Tetris
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which I thought was especially
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impressive because the batteries had
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expired in 2007 and 2013 so this breadth
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advantage holds in more subjective
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realms as well in a fascinating study of
00:11:39
what leads some comic book creators to
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be more likely to make blockbuster
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comics a pair of researchers found that
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it was neither the number of years of
00:11:47
experience in the field nor the
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resources of the publisher nor the
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number of previous comics made it was
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the number of different genres that a
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creator had worked across and
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interestingly abroad individual could
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not be entirely replaced by a team of
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specialists we probably don't make as
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many of those people as we could because
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early on they just look like they're
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behind and we don't tend to incentivize
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anything that doesn't look like a head
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start or specialization in fact I think
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in the well-meaning drive for a head
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start
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we often even counter productively short
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circuit even the way we learn new
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material at a fundamental level in study
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last year 7th grade math classrooms in
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the US were randomly assigned to
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different types of learning some got
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what's called blocked practice that's
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like you get problem type a aaaa
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bbbbb and so on progress is fast kids
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are happy everything's great other
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classrooms got assigned to what's called
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interleaved practice that's like if you
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took all the problem types and threw
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them in a hat and drew them out at
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random progress is slower kids are more
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frustrated but instead of learning how
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to execute procedures they're learning
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how to match a strategy to a type of
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problem and when the test comes around
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the interleaved group blew the block
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practice group away wasn't even close
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now I found a lot of this research
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deeply counterintuitive the idea that a
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head start whether in picking a career
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or a course of study or just in learning
00:13:18
new material
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sometimes undermine long-term
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development and naturally I think there
00:13:25
are as many ways to succeed as there are
00:13:26
people but I think we tend only to
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incentivize and encourage the tiger path
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when increasingly in a wicked world we
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need people who travel the roger path as
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well or is the eminent physicist and
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mathematician and wonderful writer
00:13:40
Freeman Dyson put it and he Dyson passed
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away yesterday so I hope I'm doing his
00:13:46
words honor here as he said for a
00:13:49
healthy ecosystem we need both birds and
00:13:51
frogs frogs are down in the mud seeing
00:13:54
all the granular details the birds are
00:13:57
soaring up above not seeing those
00:13:58
details but integrating the knowledge of
00:14:00
the frogs and we need both the problem
00:14:03
Dyson said is that we're telling
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everyone to become frogs and I think in
00:14:08
a wicked world that's increasingly
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short-sighted thank you very much
00:14:23
you
