Ross developed a paper and presentation based on Geoff Colvin’s book ‘Talent is Overrated” which he had recently read. The paper will examine Colvin’s principles of ‘Deliberate Practice’ and provide practical guidance for their application to infrastructure management practice as a way to lead us forward on the journey to infrastructure management excellence.

1. The Application of
Deliberate
Practice to AM
Ross Waugh

2. Talent is Overrated – what
really separates World-
Class Performers from
Everybody Else
Geoff Colvin (2008)
Fortune Magazine Senior
Editor

3. What is the real source of great performance?
Born, ‘divine spark’, smart, intelligent, great
memory, innate talent, hard work
Tiger Woods Mozart Jack Welch Yehudi Menuhin Richie

4. Society values and honours great talent and
performance:
• We search it out
• We look for it in sport, music, business, arts,
science, medicine
• It matters because it lifts society up,
improves it
• But for millennia we have thought it is
‘divine’ or ‘superhuman’

5. What does current research show about talent?
• No early evidence of gifts, inclination
• No specific genes, inborn abilities
• No high IQ or extraordinary memory
• ‘Deliberate Practice’ as a concept seems to
explain a lot, but of course not all – life is
more complicated than that

6. What is Deliberate Practice?
• Highly demanding
• Hard work, Isn’t fun
• Takes around limitations
• Designed specifically to
improve performance
• Repeated a lot
• Continuous feedback
Comfort Zone
Learning Zone
Panic Zone
Deliberate Practice

7. Deliberate Practice: Individuals - enables
• To perceive more, cumulative effect
• To know more – high level domain expertise
• To remember more – memory meta retrieval
structure
‘Passion’ seems to develop iteratively in a
multiplier effect

8. Deliberate Practice: Individuals, self regulation
• Before work – set goals
• During work – self observation
• During work – meta cognition. Knowledge
about your own knowledge, thinking about
your own thinking
• After work – self evaluation, adapt to improve

9. Deliberate Practice: Organisations
• Each person stretched and grown
• Find ways to develop leaders in job
• Encourage leaders to be active in community
• Understand critical role of teachers/feedback
• Identify promising performers early

10. Deliberate Practice: Organisations
• People development works best through
inspiration not authority
• Invest time, money and energy into
developing people
• Make leadership development part of culture
• Develop teams not just individuals

11. So, does great performance matter for AM?
• Yes – society is expecting more
• Yes – we have real and growing challenges
• Yes – manage long term fiscal constraint
• Yes – major changes in growth, demand,
demographics
We need to continuously ‘lift the bar’

12. AM – Application to Individuals
• Seek/Apply ‘deliberate practice concepts’
• Continue to learn and enquire – grow your
AM practice and understanding
• Stay in the ‘learning zone’, cumulative effect
• Seek mentoring, coaching, training – e-NAMs
• Self develop, self evaluate
• Keep life balance

13. AM – Application to Organisations
• Continue to innovate
• Build great teams, great performance
• Encourage and build leadership
• Develop mentoring, coaching, e-NAMs
• Apply ‘deliberate practice’ concepts to your
organisation

14. Conclusion
An old Maori saying goes as follows:
He aha te mea nui?
He tangata. He tangata. He tangata.
What is the most important thing?
It is people, it is people, it is people.

15. Questions