Recently I introduced my coaching clients to a principle I call the Rule of 300/3000. It is one of the most important and least discussed principles in leadership development. I didn’t invent the concept. I heard about it from Richard Strozzi-Heckler’s book Leadership Dojo and then coined the expression. Here it is:
The Rule of 300/3000
- If you want to get good at something, you need to practice doing it over and over again.
- To be specific, it takes 300 repetitions to develop a bodily memory of a skill and 3000 repetitions to fully embody it.
- Therefore start practicing right now.
Example: learning to drive stick shift. When you first learn to drive a manual transmission car, shifting from first to second gear (or from second to third) is incredibly challenging. When do you push your left foot down? Can you time it with your right foot? When do you move the gear? Does your hand even know which gear is where? Coordinating these movements is hard. As a result, initial attempts typically produce a combination of stalls, erratic acceleration, and multitudes of disturbing sounds coming from who-knows-where in the car. Do you know anyone who skipped this step in learning stick shift? I don’t. This is why some people give up and switch to an automatic. [Read more…] about Practicing Leadership: The Rule of 300/3000 [January 2008]