Two thoughts on expertise and success. There’s an old joke that goes: “How can you fire someone with 5 years of experience?” “I didn’t: I fired someone with 1 year of experience repeated 4 times.”

“Becoming an expert” connotes achieving a particular level of mastery of a field or endeavor. Achieving that mastery can be considered a success, but this assumes that the achievement was the result of pursuing an implicit goal. To restate: expertise in a (field, endeavor, body of knowledge) implies success in mastering that endeavor, but doesn’t speak to the goal-orientation of the individual, nor does it speak to external recognition of the attainment of that expertise as “a success.”

You say, “So, is an expert automatically successful?”

One way of looking at success is by achieving expertise. But that definition is a bit like the chicken and the egg and asking which came first.

I think we have to define what’s meant by ’success’ in the same way as we may also have to define what an ‘expert’ is.

Catchya later
from Middle-earth

I don’t think that Gladwell is saying that 10K hours equals success; rather, I think he’s saying that 10K hours is one important prerequisite to success.

Success and expertise can be, in my view, be separate characteristics–not to mention that both terms can be rather subjective. (I hold a “peer reviewed” perspective on such things.) One doesn’t have to be an expert to succeed; one doesn’t have to succeed to be an expert (e.g. undiscovered talent, unpopular skill in a commercial context, etc.).

Mentoring, coaching, being a constant student (being teachable)–these are all important factors in developing expertise and using such expertise successfully, IMHO.

>> I think the reason people never get to that 10K time mark
>> is that most folks aren’t doing the necessary reflecting on
>> what they are practicing. Instead, they learn the bit they
>> need to know and then they are done.

Sad but often true, I’m afraid. Often the deliberate/determined/reflective nature of practice is missing; so, the hours are wasted, too (i.e. don’t count).

If you can get Dr. Ericsson to speak to EMC, I’d be very interested to learn from him.

Cheers,
-Craig