Deliberate & Orchestrated Mastery
How to decimate the anecdotal 10,000 hour requirement to master a challenging skill.
Deliberate & Orchestrated Mastery
Mastery is challenging, because we lack familiarity with the new domain - what to avoid and capitalise on.
This is compounded by the 20|80 distribution of unfamiliar challenges (the opportunities to learn are infrequent) - further compounded by the disproportionate impact of mistakes at the new level.
One of the biggest challenges is to find a way of learning and practising things, before they transpire, so that we're adept at handling them when they do.
The key is understanding what mastery is.
The Mastery Definition
A superior intuitive ability to diagnose and intervene early - on few symptoms and with great precision and little effort.
The Mastery Definition
A superior intuitive ability to detect, diagnose and intervene early - on few symptoms and with great precision and little effort.
- Early Detection: The earlier the detection the earlier the diagnosis.
- Early Diagnosis: The earlier the diagnosis, the earlier the intervention.
- Early Intervention: The earlier the intervention the less effort required.
Although experts (e.g. cyclists) have superior ability to avoid falling, they are at lower risk of falling because they detest and correct way earlier than novices.
The Mastery Framework
The Deliberate Mastery Process
Mastery is a three step process:
- Detect: early to that trigger diagnosis early.
- Diagnose: early to allow early intervention.
- Intervene: early to minimise effort and stress.
The Deliberate Mastery Process
- The first key to mastery is early intervention.
- Early intervention requires early diagnosis. And early diagnosis requires early detection.
- Bottom-line: It all starts with early detection.
- Experts are able to detect earlier, because they are more familiar with the more demanding situations.
The Deliberate Mastery Framework enables experts to accelerate their mastery - and disseminate it to novices.
The Early Detection Step
Early detection is a criticial step in effortless mastery, because it gives the most time to confirm & prepare.
The Early Detection Step
In order to detect potential challenges to avoid and capitalise upon, we need to know what their earliest signs and symptoms are.
We need to be scanning the situation at an appropriate frequency, on the lookout for tell-tale signs of all potential risks and opportunities, so that we can be prepared to confirm that they do, in fact, herald the suspected problem or opportunity - so that we have the time to develop and an launch an intervention strategy.
The Early Diagnosis Step
Early diagnosis enables us to plan our intervention ahead of time.
The Early Diagnosis Step
The earlier we diagnose, the more time we have to design, plan and implement a solution to avert disaster or capitalise on opportunity.
The Early Intervention Step
Early intervention enables us to intervene where and when the effort is smallest and the impact greatest.
The Early Intervention Step
Early intervention enables us to intervene where and when the effort is smallest and the impact greatest.
It gives us the time to correct things as they unfold and the ability to keep monitoring the situation for other issues and opportunities that may arise and the time to integrate appropriate responses to them in a timely way.
Early intervention provides with greater degrees of freedom and ability to work calmly and resourcefully, putting the focus where it's required and enabling us to grow capability on-the-fly, by taking a measured and considered approach.
What are we detecting, diagnosing and intervening to capitalise on?
This seemingly obvious insight is the key!
What are we detecting, diagnosing and intervening to capitalise on?
- Situational failure modes (ways in which things can go wrong) and
- Situational opportunity modes (ways in which things can go right).
In fact, we're ideally looking for ways to detect and identify failure modes so early that we can turn them into opportunities, but if a failure mode is truly catastrophic, then we're looking to avoid, prevent, mitigate or recover from it's effects as possible.
Mastery Framework Development Method
A simple step-by-step way to develop a comprehensive mastery framework.
Mastery Framework Development Method
- List all the risks and opportunities (failure and opportunity modes) we could face in the situation.
- Work out what the earliest signs and indications are of each risk and opportunity.
- Develop a simple diagnostic that enables us to detect and diagnose the risks and opportunities as early as possible.
- Develop a simple procedure for avoiding and mitigating each failure mode and capitalising on each opportunity mode.
Practice
Performance:Practice Ratios
How much time do you spend practising?
Performance:Practice Ratios
Professionals in sport and the arts practise many times for the occasional match or performance, but as vocational and career professionals we perform in match settings every day - and never practise.
Imagine if we had to set time aside, every week, to practise - individually and collectively - just as professional artists and sportspeople do! What would that do individual and organisational performance?
Myelination and Deep Practice
Deliberately and systematically accelerate capability by stimulating myelination - the wrapping of myelin around axons in the brain. It peaks after 12-16 minutes and drops off after 40-60 minutes. It's triggered by deep, repetitive concentration at the limits of current capability.
Myelination and Deep Practice
- Break the desired performance into its key steps or elements.
- Repeatedly and uninterruptedly learn then practice each of the elements independently
- Slowly at first and with
- Increasing speed and pressure
- Combine the various elements together.
Myelin reduces electrical signal degradation and increases the flow of current which strengthens thinking patterns and performance.
Taking Mastery to the Next Level
Some next step ideas.
Taking Mastery to the Next Level
- Develop simple DARTs (diagnostic and resolution trees and templates) to corporatise the expertise and make it easier for people to get started.
- Get novices to develop provisional solutions, decisions, assessments and plans for intermediates to vet and get intermediates to do the same for experts to vet.
- Provide "stripes", "tickets" or "badges" to certify people to move up to the next expertise level.
- Hold regular internal competitionsto equip people to lift their games.
Safe Practice Environment
A safe practice environment enables people to make & learn from mistakes, without real-world consequences.
Safe Practice Environment
Create an environment where people of all capabilities can practice without risk of damaging a real client relationship or comtaminating the system.
Set up standard challenges, with approved answers, solutions, designs, results and plans.
Encourage people to attempt to solve the challenges, first. If they can't, get them to work through the approved answer. Then get them to attempt the same challenge again, without the approved answer. Repeat until they can do it correctly on their own - slowly first, then at increasing speed and under increasing pressure.
