Executive Coaching for Developing Expertise: 10,000 Hours of Practice

Developing Expertise: 10,000 Hours of Practice

Are you working in a company or law firm where executive coaches are hired to help high flyers develop their leadership capability?  Does your company or law firm provide leadership development for high potentials? One of the most powerful questions you can ask is “Are leaders given stretch assignments that allow them to practice new skills and gain expertise?” Emotionally intelligent and socially intelligent leaders make executive coaching and leadership development available for leaders at all levels of the organization.

10,000 Hours or 10 Years

Malcolm Gladwell makes the case for 10,000 hours of practice to attain expertise in his book Outliers (Little, Brown & Co., 2008).

 “The 10,000-hours rule says that if you look at any kind of cognitively complex field, from playing chess to being a neurosurgeon, we see this incredibly consistent pattern that you cannot be good at that unless you practice for 10,000 hours, which is roughly 10 years, if you think about four hours a day.”

Almost all child prodigies in music, sports, chess and the arts seem to put in 10,000 hours before they attain expertise and produce significant results. The trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers "whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming" are nearly always made, not born.

Many of us have already put in more than a decade of doing what we do. The question is whether we’re practicing the right things, in the right way. Are we designing deliberate practice that actually develops the specific skills we need to make progress toward specific results? Or, to use a golf analogy, are you going to the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls the wrong way, for hours at a time?

Working with a seasoned executive coach trained in emotional intelligence and incorporating leadership assessments such as the Bar-On EQ-i and CPI 260 can help company leaders develop the habit of diligent practice. You can become a leader who models emotional intelligence and social intelligence, and who inspires people to become fully engaged with the vision and mission of your company or law firm.

I am currently accepting new executive coaching and career coaching clients. I work with both individuals and organizations. Call 415-546-1252 or send an inquiry e-mail to mbrusman@workingresources.com