Summary: The Making of an Expert by K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely

The main premise that is argued by Ericsson et al. (2007) in the article “The Making of an Expert” is that “experts are not born; but made”.  In their research, Ericsson et al. (2007) found that there is no correlation between IQ and expert performance (EP).  Three factors were identified as having direct correlations to EP.

1. Intense Practice.
2. Studying with devoted teachers.
3. Enthusiastic support provided by family during developing years.

In order to judge, genuine expertise, 3 criteria need to be satisfied. The individual will have to:

1. Have performance that is consistently superior to that of expert’s peers.
2. Produce concrete (Definite/Discrete) results.
3. Produce results that can be replicated and measured in a lab (definite environment).

Genuine expertise however cannot be judged based on:

1. Individual (isolated) performances.
2. Common opinion of expertise.
3. Performances based on the unpracticed intuition of identified experts.
4. Performances in newer/better systems.
5. Results of Knowledge Management Systems.

In order to become an expert the individual will have to do “Deliberate Practice”, which is practice that focuses on tasks beyond current level of competence and comfort. Deliberate practice is the considerable, specific and sustained efforts to do something that one cannot do well or cannot do at all. Deliberate practice includes two kinds of learning:

1. Improving skills one already possesses.
2. Extending the reach and range of skills.

Concentration (1) and time (2) are the two input factors that are required for the aforementioned types of learning. 

Deliberate practice requires deliberate thinking (concentration (1)), where individuals “think out loud” as they practice, going back to prior analysis to assess points of errs and work to eliminate weaknesses.

In order to become an expert in a field, the time (2) period estimated for deliberate practice is 10,000 hours. This period is similar to working 10 years in a given field.

Quality deliberate practice can be achieved by the constant supervision of the individual by a coach, because coaches:

1. Accelerate the individual’s training process by relating to their own experience in pointing out the optimal path of training.
2. Provide constructive and if necessary painful advice.
3. Identify aspects of the individual’s performance that will need to be improved at next level of skill.

As expertise increases, the individual, with the enablement of the coach, should be able to engage in “self-coaching”, where the individual breaks from being coached by an external party and autonomously coaches oneself by actively comparing and monitoring individual performance against an expert in the field.

1. Focusing on things well known/already known to individual.
2. Stopping deliberate practice and relying exclusively on intuition after becoming an expert.

Read more at : http://hbr.org/

References

K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, Edward T. Cokely. (2007). The Making of an Expert. Harvard Business Review.