ジェフ・コルバンの「究極の鍛錬(Talent is Overrated)」 で引用されていた研究者 Anders Ericsson の一般人向け論文が Harvard Business Review に投稿されていたので読んでみた。
Ericsson KA, Prietula MJ, Cokely ET. “The making of an expert” Harv Bus Rev. 2007 Jul-Aug;85(7-8):114-21, 193.
http://hbr.org/product/making-of-an-expert/an/R0707J-PDF-ENG
天才の分野はチェス、ゴルフ、政治家、作家、音楽(作曲家、演奏家)まで様々。
共通していることは “experts are made” ということ。
どんな天才であっても、一夜にして天才になったわけではなく、子供時代からの長い下積みを経て「天才」とみなされる人物になる。Mozart も例外ではない。
そんな天才の作り方(deliberate practice)が7ページで見事に凝縮されている。
“究極の鍛錬(Talent is Overrated)” と異なり、文章の構成がしっかりしており、理論の展開が切れよく、出典は明記され、筆者が都合よく独自解釈することもないので、読みながらイライラされることもなく、非常に読みやすい。
本当は購入しないといけないのだろうけど、PDF ファイルが WEB 上で(あまりにもたくさん)転がっていたので、そいつを拝借。
以下は、同論文の抜粋。
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結論
- outstanding performance is the product of years of deliberate practice and coaching, not of any innate talent or skill.
- experts are always made, not born.
- Benjamin Bloom’s work(1985) found no early indicators that could have predicted the virtuosos’ success.
Benjamin Bloom, “Developing Talent in Young People”, 1985, Ballantine Books
天才に対する誤ったイメージ
- experts are born
- outstanding performance is innate talent or skill.
- supposed expertise leads to superior performance.
Deliberate Practice
Not all practice makes perfect.
The development of genuine expertise requires
- struggle
- sacrifice
- honest, often painful self-assessment
The development of genuine expertise
- take you at least a decade to achieve expertise
- need to invest that time wisely, by engaging in “deliberate” practice – practice that focuses on tasks beyond your current level of competence and comfort.
- need a well-informed coach not only to guide you through deliberate practice but also to help you learn how to coach yourself.
All the superb performers
- had practiced intensively,
- had studied with devoted teachers,
- had been supported enthusiastically by their families throughout their developing years.
Deliberate practice involves two kinds of learning:
- improving the skills you already have
- extending the reach and range of your skills.
the amount and quality of practice were key factors in the level of expertise people achieved.
Amount of Time
There are no shortcuts.
It takes time to become an expert.
when examining the developmental histories of experts, we unfailingly discover that they spent a lot of time in training and preparation.
even the most gifted performers need a minimum of ten years (or 10,000 hours) of intense training before they win international competitions.
Beyond Comfort Zone
Research across domains shows that it is only by working at what you can’t do that you turn into the expert you want to become.
When most people practice, they focus on the things they already know how to do. Deliberate practice is different.
It entails considerable, specific, and sustained efforts to do something you can’t do well – or even at all.
Quality of Practice
If we analyze the development of the well-known artists, we see that in almost every case the success of their entire career was dependent on the quality of their practicing.
Practice as much as you feel you can accomplish with concentration. — Nathan Milstein(Violinist)
朝の効用
very few appear to be able to engage in more than four or five hours of high concentration and deliberate practice at a time.
In fact, most expert teachers and scientists set aside only a couple of hours a day, typically in the morning, for their most demanding mental activities, such as writing about new ideas.
BOOKS
The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology), Cambridge University Press, 2006
K. Anders Ericsson, Neil Charness, Paul J. Feltovich, Robert R. Hoffman らの最近の研究結果の全貌(918 Page)
This 2006 book was the first handbook where the world’s foremost ‘experts on expertise’ reviewed our scientific knowledge on expertise and expert performance and how experts may differ from non-experts in terms of their development, training, reasoning, knowledge, social support, and innate talent.
Armchair Athlete's Miscellany 