“Ifthere is no struggle, there is no progress.”
—Frederick Douglass
You’ve all heard this old joke: A lost and beleaguered tourist in NewYork City stops a local pedestrian on the street and asks, “How do I get toCarnegie Hall?” “Easy,” replies the local. “Practice.”
Let’s ask a similar question, “How do you get to high performance?” Again,practice is an essential part of the answer. We can point to proveninstructional design principles, but sometimes our best intent gets lost in theweeds of complex learning strategies that we have no time, resources, orunderstanding to apply or test fully. In our efforts to improve performance ina verifiable and sustainable way, many of us would benefit by some simple rulesand techniques for using practice to make learning stick.
Enter Daniel Coyle, a keynote speaker at last month’s eLearning Guild’s LearningSolutions Conference. Coyle, a sportswriter by profession, has been studyingwhat it takes to be an outstanding performer. He draws from research andobservation in a number of fields beyond sports, including business and the arts,to make these principles come to life.
Three habits
Coyle’s sports orientation yields some keen insight into one of the mostimportant aspects of learning in any endeavor—practice. To do this, Coylesuggests focusing on what he calls the three habits.
Habit 1: Maximize “reachfulness”
Coyle recommends that practice should be difficult; it should stretch theperformer. Combined with repetition, a high level of engagement, actions thathave purpose, and swift feedback, practice can be an intensely powerfullearning tool. Forget passive learning, Coyle says; make it all-involving andjust a tad out of reach.
Habit 2: Fill thewindshield
People who aspire to great performance, says Coyle, need to see “stars,”the high-performing role models they want to emulate. They should be encouragedto “steal” the techniques of masters and make them their own. Finally, it isimportant to focus on mistakes, not to penalize, but to celebrate and learnfrom. A “mistake club” can be a fabulous learning experience.
Habit 3: Communicate likea coach
Finally, when teaching new skills, communicate like a coach. Coyle notes thecriticality of trust between learner and instructor and that trustingconnections establish themselves early. Speeches (or, in our world, lectures)are far less effective than sending what he calls VCIs—vivid, concise images—toindividuals. Finally, like all great coaches do, praise for effort, notability. Continuous progress and support helps one obtain mastery far betterthan grades.
Coyle’s books
Coyle’s book The Talent Codeprovides the basis for understanding how typical performers become greatperformers. Sure, there is the obligatory (yet interesting) chapter on how thebrain works, but, for the most part, the focus is on real, practical ideas andsuggestions.
His other book, The Little Book ofTalent, should sit right next to everyone who seeks to develop learningsolutions that work. This book, and it is little, has 52 tips for improvingskills. Each is brief, to the point, practice-focused, and eminently useful. Thetips are divided into three groups: 1) Getting Started: Share, steal, and bewilling to be stupid; 2) Improving Skills: Find the sweet spot, then reach; and3) Sustaining Progress: Embrace repetition, cultivate grit, and keep big goalssecret. Some examples include be willing to be stupid (tip #5), embracestruggle (tip #17), pay attention immediately after you make a mistake (tip#22), embrace repetition (tip #43), and, to learn more deeply, teach it (tip #47).
Implications for our work
What should be clear to us is that Coyle’s three habits really arenothing new. Rather, they are similar to what top thinkers in the learning andperformance field have been saying for decades (think Gagne’s “Events of Instruction,” or Gilbert’s “Performance Engineering,” for example). But Coyle showcases principles ofpractice and mastery in a real and simpler way.
Intrigued? I certainly was. The more I read these tips, the more I cameto the realization of how much obvious sense they all made. There are importantlessons here about the art and science of practice and the ways people actuallyreach mastery. If you look at Coyle’s work and feel the same way, then all youhave to do is plant these ideas into your programs and watch your learnersgrow.
Early in my career, we built a course that began with an intense simulation,designed so that most participants would initially fail. From this, a criticallearning moment would emerge and then, through practice not unlike what DanielCoyle is suggesting, the road to mastery would be clear and achievable. But tothose in charge, this was unacceptable. “We have a culture in this company ofsuccess, not failure,” they told me. “Fix the simulation so that everyonesucceeds.” I tried to dissuade them, but to no avail. You can imagine theresult. Don’t go down the same road.
