Today continues this week’s theme at how to be good at anything by looking at some books on this topic. If nothing else, this subject is the topic du jour in the publishing industry as two recent books examine how and why individuals become top-performers in any field. Malcolm Gladwell, New Yorker Times columnist and best-selling author, takes a macro approach on the topic while Geoff Colvin, senior editor at Fortune Magazine, has a more mirco approach.

Both authors subscribe to the same principle though. Both reinforce the prevailing view that individualism or innate talent alone, best characterized by the 19th century historical theory known as the Great Man Theory, is NOT why someone becomes great. Instead, successful people are products of the environment and hard work.

Gladwell’s book, Outliers, is a third in the trilogy of his work looking at social phenomenon. Many reviewers have latched onto to Gladwell’s 10,000 hour theory: in other to be good at something, you have to put, on average, 10,000 hours into it. However, the central tenent of his book is, first and foremost, to quote: “Outliers are those who have been given opportunities- and who have the strength and presence of mind to seize them.”

Once given those opportunities, you have to put time and effort to master the craft. Thus, while the 10,000 hour rule is important, to use one of Galdwell’s examples, putting 10,000 hours playing hockey at a lower tier of competition is not the same as putting 10,000 hours playing elite hockey. The latter will be successful since they have the opportunity to succeed and have put the hard work into it.

How does one get those opportunities? Sometimes through demographic accident; the author observes at one point the unprecedented opportunity for those born in the 1950′s to be in the perfect position to lead the dot com boom. Other opportunities present themselves through geographic proximity; Bill Gates was fortunate to live in a part of the world that gave him access to computers at a formative age.

However, lest one think you have to win the genetic lottery to have opportunity, Gladwell does spend the last chapter of his book examining a school program in the inner cities of the New York area that is specifically structured to give disadvantaged kids an opportunity to succeed.

The last chapter epitomes my one grip with Gladwell-notwithstanding his vast abilities to tell great stories and entertain-he observes too much and does not attempt to problem solve enough. True to his training as a journalist, he is ever the detached, yet eloquent, observer. Despite the last chapter, he never fully engages in the solution of providing opportunities for all to succeed.

….tomorrow, I am going to attempt to fill in this piece and muse how one creates opportunities to succeed. In the meantime, here is Gladwell’s blog and another review of the book.

Geoff Colvin takes a slightly different tactic in his work Talent is Overrated (Fortune has reproduced an excerpt here). Colvin has the same analysis as Gladwell. Talent alone is not what gets people to the top. Colvin goes a step further and implies that it may be “irrelvant”; Gladwell only writes that at some level of intelligence there is no further gain to be smarter than a colleague or competitor.

Instead, Colvin writes at length about the concept of “deliberate practice” (Allen Iverson lovers take note- this book is not for you: Practice!). Deliberate practice is practice specifically designed to stretch an individual beyond their current abilities, Thus, to use the author’s example, one does not go to the golf driving range to hit the driver. One goes to practice the hard shots we may have to make once a year but that is not fun but instrumental to succeeding.

Deliberate practice, is in some sense, the concept of working hard and smart at the same time. One does not get into physical shape by just riding a bike three times a week. But one goes and rides the bike at a pace which is initially uncomfortable for a period of time. When that pace is comfortable then you push yourself to the next level of uncomfort.

Gladwell aims to entertain. Colvin aims to teach. Colvin spends particularly long passages on how you can conduct deliberate practice in the workplace (as a Fortune senior editor, his primiary audience are Fortune 500 middle managers who need to differentiate themselves from the Dilbert crowd). He sends some time putting some meat and bones on deliberate practice in the workplace.

Here is an example of a workplace nugget: “…the poorest performers don’t set goals at all… mediorce perfomers set goals that are general and focused on simply achieving a good outcome- win the order… the best perfomers set goals that are not about outcome but rather about the process of reaching the outcome… their goal might be to focus especially hard on discerning the customer’s unstated needs [rather than just win the order.]“

Colvin admits his thesis, and by implication his book, is really not that fun. It is about doing that extra to be better and hard work is, well, work not fun.  If nothing else, Colvin shares some old-time wisdom: everything worth doing comes with a cost. As primarily a business book, it is not exactly a nice and easy bed time read. Give yourself some quiet time to read it.

I would buy both books; in many senses Colvin’s book starts where Gladwell’s ends and should be read in that order.

Tomorrow, I look at steps to create opportunities with a particular applicability for personal finance.