Deliberate Practice

There's a library of books and research about hiring strategies for maximizing company success through mapping talent to needs. We tend to lean towards a person's previous experience and industry knowledge as the two main categories for focus in determining future success.

Sometimes, however, we fail to examine the imperative questions related to company stage and the type of people and skills that are required appropriately. Specifically, there is a gap in required skill sets for Sales Leadership from a company in the "build" phase versus a company in the "compete" or "mature" stages of development.

If I'm am in a start-up and you worked at IBM for 12 years, in my mind I'd rather have someone who worked in 2 start-ups for less than 5 years, as the set of experiences will have been much more applicable to the immediate goals and challenges they'd face amidst my team. Vice Versa.

At the root of this issue is the idea that the 'measured-worth' one is projected to contribute is directly related to a period of time (years of experience) and seniority of titles. When, in fact, the value should be mapped based upon the relative energy, intelligence, leadership and productivity one can establish. It's not the number of hours people work that determines the value they create, but rather the energy they're capable of bringing to whatever hours they work.

Also, as a note out of the research from Anders Ericsson, a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University and notable performance behaviorist, notes that success and ability is a factor of "Deliberate Practice." Deliberate practice is just what it suggests. It entails more than simply repeating a task — playing a C-minor scale 100 times, for instance, or hitting tennis serves until your shoulder pops out of its socket. Rather, it involves setting specific goals, obtaining immediate feedback and concentrating as much on technique as on outcome.

Go, Make something happen... Deliberately.