Impatient Experts: Deciding When (Or If) To Try Something New

Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, gave an interesting piece of advice on his blog last night: “Do something new every three years.” He writes:

For the first ten years of my career, I changed jobs every three years. Then, for the seven years I was at The Economist, I changed countries every three years (London, Hong Kong, and New York, although sadly not long enough at the last). Here at Wired, I seem to have achieved the same rhythm by publishing a book after my fifth year and, next summer, my eighth. Each time it changes my life and puts me back on a steep learning curve with a new subject to immerse in and a new pace of travel and speaking. I’ve got a new foreign land to explore.

Anderson goes on to tie his “three and flee” advice (my words) to a theory advanced by Malcolm Gladwell in his new book Outliers: that it takes about 10,000 hours of disciplined application to something to create a true master.  In an excerpt from the book provided by The Guardian, Gladwell writes:

This idea – that excellence at a complex task requires a critical, minimum level of practice – surfaces again and again in studies of expertise. In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is a magic number for true expertise: 10,000 hours.

“In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice-skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals,” writes the neurologist Daniel Levitin, “this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or 20 hours a week, of practice over 10 years… No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

Though I appreciate the unique insight he brings to interesting subjects — and I’ll also admit I haven’t yet read Outliers — I’ve always been slightly skeptical of Gladwell’s reductionist theories (see also: Thomas Friedman’s Flexible Deadlines and the F.U.).  My skepticism aside, Anderson calculates that (60 hours/week) x (50 weeks/year) x (3 years) = (a little under 10,000 hours).  And so, according to rough Gladwellian-Andersonian metrics, if you work your butt off for a little over three years, you can consider yourself a master in your field.

Having done that, Anderson writes: “Great. Now go do something else.”

Let’s say that you are actually able to become an expert under Anderson’s three-year model, and that you do decide to move on after that.  Isn’t that, with all due respect, a little selfish?  Wasteful, even?  You work 60 hour weeks for three years to become an expert, accumulating a rare wealth of knowledge about something that only a select number of people in the world possess… and you just move on?

It’s important to point out that while, under Malcolm Gladwell’s theory, the total amount of “dedicated application” is 10,000 hours, all of the examples that he and his sources cite show that those hours were accumulated over roughly one decade of total elapsed time.  Between Anderson’s model and Gladwell’s theory, there’s a seven year differential.

This is not insignificant, and I’ll tell you why.  Something important happens in those seven years: space.  Space to think.  To draw connections.  To apply.  To challenge.  To be wrong.  To re-visit and re-think things.  To win.  To rest.  To breathe.  To enjoy.  To teach.  To give back.  To lead.

Let’s take a look at Professor Lawrence Lessig.  To me, he represents the perfect model for recognizing when you have truly reached black belt expertise; for understanding that the marginal return of one more year of effort no longer outweighs the opportunity cost of applying oneself to something new; and for having the clarity of mind and courage to make the switch.

Larry Lessig is one of most important thinkers at the intersection of technology and intellectual property.  He co-founded the Creative Commons (under which this blog is licensed, and under the licenses of which we use the photos used in all our posts).  He was named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries in 2002 for his work in the field.  After mastering the material early in his career, he went on to teach it, to lead a movement about it, to create something bigger: in short, to give back.  In June 2007, he announced that after ten years (*cough*) of mastery and activism, he would be shifting focus and dedicating the next ten years to becoming an expert on the subject of, and advocating against, corruption.  He came, he learned, he mastered, he gave back, and then (and only then) he moved on.

Anderson wrote his post with good intentions.  He wants to encourage us to keep fresh perspective on the world and to always be trying new things.  And, I imagine, he sees a benefit in spreading mind power across a great number of subject matters instead of just one.  But for me, and I suspect for many members of my generation, his advice falls on deaf — and maybe even astounded — ears.  Three years?  Doing one thing?  Dude, that’s like, forever!  We are the generation of speed, of having anything and everything at our fingertips.  Our resumes reveal our hyperextension across all sorts of sports, clubs, and other high school and college organizations.  We’ve had different jobs every summer, we’ve spent semesters abroad, and we’ve been taught since the day we could talk to always be preparing and marketing ourselves for tomorrow, for the Next Big Thing.  If there’s anything we know how to do well, it’s how to equip ourselves to move onwards and upwards.

But what about the Right Now?  What about taking what we’re good at and applying it beyond ourselves, instead of constantly applying it to move ourselves?  Why work so hard for three years and become a master, only to wrap it up and move on?  There’s something about taking expertise and applying it that is so rewarding, but I’m afraid for myself and for my peers that we’ll be too impatient to make it happen.  I’m afraid that we’ll be too impatient to invest ourselves, our families, and our careers in a movement or an idea for the long haul.

A final example: my father’s father, George Peach Taylor, who passed away last week.  It’s funny (and frustrating) that sometimes we don’t appreciate how objectively amazing those whom we love really are, until they are no longer here.  I encourage you to follow the link and read the full details of his life.  From representing plaintiffs in a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that led to the “one man – one vote” principle; to moving his wife and four young children to Africa when he joined the Peace Corps; to training law students effective trial advocacy skills; to serving as a Public Defender and representing indigent prisoners — my grandfather dedicated himself to fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves.  He dedicated his whole life to true justice.  He certainly could have used any of those credentials to run for political office, or to become a partner in a big city firm, or to do any number of things.  But he did not.  Instead of reaping what could have been enormous personal advancements, he just kept on sowing.

I have many friends, and know of many people my age, who plan to do (and are doing) the same thing as my grandfather.  But I am concerned, in this career-driven, me-me-me, more-more-more, what’s-next-for-me culture that my generation lives in, that too many of us will never slow down to apply our gifts to something bigger than ourselves.  I don’t worry that my generation will become masters of amazing things but fail to keep a fresh perspective.  I worry that my generation will become masters of amazing things, but fail to sit still long enough to use that expertise to do good in the world.

And I’m at the top of my list.

Image used under a Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user Squirmelia.