practice leadership Archives -

In the September issue I made the case that leadership excellence grows through deliberate practice. In this issue I’d like to ground that assessment with several examples.

But first, a quick refresher on the attributes of deliberate practice. You will recall that it (a) is designed specifically to improve performance, (b) can be repeated at high volume, (c) involves continuous feedback from a teacher or coach, (d) requires intense concentration, and (e) may not always be fun.

Let me also make a distinction between practices and habits. (Thank you, Dr. D, for the reminder to do this). Practices are conscious. Habits are not. If you tend to signal to others that you agree with them when inside you don’t–and you’re not aware you’re doing this, at least until much later–I would call this a habit. On the other hand, if you are consciously speaking up when you see things differently, even when this feels uncomfortable, I would call this a practice. All of us go through the day with dozens, if not hundreds, of habits that vary in their impact on our leadership. I often ask leaders to observe those habits in order to develop more freedom to respond. It’s part one of rewiring the brain. Then and only then do I ask them to practice something new. With enough repetition, that new practice becomes–yes, you guessed it–a habit. [Read more…] about Three Stories of Practicing Leadership [November 2011]

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]