July 20, 2009
Outlier Teams
In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that talent and ambition are much less important than practice. Â De acuerdo.
I grew up without an apparent talent for anything: Â I was too skinny for sports, too tone deaf for music, had too much ADD for serious study, and was way too awkward for social/political pursuits.
So, I was delighted to see a cohesive argument for the efficacy of practice & dedication. Â It’s the only way I’ve become decent at anything in my life – by working my ass off, despite the fact that (in almost every case), I lacked any discernible talent or proficiency for the stuff I loved. Â Now, at 32 years old, there are even a few things that I might be ready to call myself an expert at…after a few more years and several hundred hours of practice!
In a simplified version of Gladwell’s model, you are an expert after you put 10,000 hours into something. Then, if your culture and general situation is fortuitous, you have a shot at being one of the best in the world at your pursuit.Â
After enjoying the way his arguments applied to my life, I began thinking of how this applies to teams – specifically to global teams. Â At Monsoon Company, many of us have been working together for close to a decade, just around the number of hours (and years) that Gladwell believes create true expertise.
In one of his examples, Gladwell takes a look at classical musicians.  Early in their careers, there are clear standouts – people with the immediate & obvious talent I have always lacked.  However, when you track their careers, the successful musicians were almost always the ones who simply practiced more.  Period.  Talented or not, if these musicians  spent 10,000 hours or more dedicated to their craft, they were most likely successful concert musicians, while their counterparts became teachers and went on to other fields.
There are programmers and designers who dedicate themselves to both their craft and their team’s system. Â A significant portion of their 10,000 hours are spent this way: meeting, arguing, collaborating, iterating, etc. As a unit.
Those that dedicate to practicing and internalizing team processes routinely leapfrog team members who were far more talented.
Over time, these hours of dedication turn a bunch of solid individuals into an expert team. Â Things simply begin to flow.
All too often, business literature puts far more emphasis on ‘fresh perspectives’ and ‘thinking outside of the box’. Â And when your team is creatively stagnant or bogged down in process, there is a definite need to prioritize these thing things.Â
