By: Allison McCarthy, MBA | amccarthy@barlowmccarthy.com
In his bestselling book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell notes that it takes approximately 10,000 hours to master a skill. Gladwell cites research conducted by K. Anders Ericsson who found that “once a musician has enough ability to get into a top music school, the thing that distinguishes one performer from another is how hard he or she works.”
That concept applies to rock ‘n roll musicians, too — or any high endeavor. The Beatles are a prime example. Before their meteoric rise to stardom in the U.S. the group had performed together in Europe about 1,200 times — sometimes for eight hours a night. If you do the math, that’s just shy of 10,000 hours.
In the original research, Ericsson noted that improvement comes through deliberate practice that adapts the execution over and over to get closer to the goal.
Learning to excel as a leader is no exception.
But it’s not just the quantity of practice time that matters. It’s also the quality. In Hidden Potential, author Adam Grant shares that deliberate play is a way to imbue practice with passion, creativity, and variety to sustain enjoyment and continuously grow and improve.
No less a luminary than basketball star Steph Curry was able to transform his performance from lackluster to brilliant by teaming up with a coach who made it fun to work on the skills he needed to improve to achieve his full potential.
I learned this lesson as a clarinetist in my high school marching band, from our band director. If you’ve ever tried marching in formation while playing a complicated musical piece you know it takes practice — and lots of it. But the quality of the practice is just as important as the time logged on the practice field.
Our band director had high standards for us and worked us hard. He’d have us march in one long line, or in groups, or moving in different directions. Each practice session, he’d change things up to challenge us and keep things fun and interesting. Sometimes we’d just play the music while we stood stationary. Other times we’d march without music, and then we’d march while playing the music. We practiced these patterns over and over again. He was committed to our success and wanted us to be just as committed. He even insisted we invest in private music lessons.
Our effort and commitment under his leadership helped us reach the pinnacle as a marching band, leading us to a state competition and one of our best performances ever.
Like Steph Curry, as an emerging leader you bring gifts as well shortcomings to your situation. To excel as a leader takes practice. It takes time to learn the patterns, the playing field, and the people. Practicing leadership skills includes:
- Exposure to different people and situations.
- Varying the level of difficulty and types of challenges.
- Recognizing natural skills versus growth skills.
A coaching relationship gives you a safe space to explore your strengths and identify the barriers that may be hindering you. A coach helps you understand your blind spots and overcome them, posing questions that encourage you to reflect, and opening your eyes to see alternatives.
Together with your coach, you practice leadership skills — brainstorming new approaches that help you achieve your highest aspirations for yourself and your team, and ultimately discovering the path leading to your success as a leader.
We currently have seats open for both 1:1 and group coaching sessions in physician relations, physician recruitment and practice administration. We would love to share more about what we have to offer. Simply reach out to me at amccarthy@barlowmccarthy.com for more details.