It’s Deliberate Practice that Makes it Perfect (Profitable!)
As children we discovered our favourite skills, finding happiness learning to play a musical instrument, joining a sports team or drawing in a sketchbook. And as we discovered our aptitudes, our parents and teachers encouraged us along the way, sometimes reassuring us that, “practice makes perfect.”
But does it really?
It may have been more important to hear from our parents that “deliberate practice makes perfect.” Today, as a savvy entrepreneur who is mindful of your time, looking to increase your productivity and effectiveness, this statement has power.
What is deliberate practice?
Deliberate practice is my favourite tactic and can be your superpower too. Deliberate practice is the technique of breaking down learning into small, bite sized pieces and mastering each one of those lessons individually, then moving on and mastering the next lesson, until you can put all the lessons together into a skill set.
The key to deliberate practice is focusing your learning on each small lesson, until you are truly skilled in each. For example, a chef who is learning the art of patisserie must master baking many types of cakes and pastries, learning how to make beautiful coulis, pastry creams, icings and ganache before they can finally learn the art of designing and assembling their delectable creations. So perhaps our pastry chef isn’t wonderful at creating shortbread - this would be the chef’s opportunity to apply deliberate practice and focus on learning to bake all types of shortbread, practicing to perfection before moving on to the next step, which could be learning how to make ganache.
Moving on from this delicious image, consider the often-quoted line from Malcolm Gladwell:
“Success has to do with deliberate practice. Practice must be focused, determined, and in an environment where there’s feedback.”
-Malcolm Gladwell
the guitar as an example.
When you pick up a guitar for the first time, your first task won’t be to write a song. First, you’ll focus on the guitar itself. What is the head, neck, fret, body, output and why does each part matter? Next, you’ll learn how to hold the guitar, then you’ll start looking at the strings and what notes they represent and how to understand whether they’re in tune or not. Then you will start exploring what the guitar can do – perhaps going to YouTube and experimenting with a song.
That song may even sound passable after you’ve put in a few hours. You’ll walk away with one song under your belt but still missing the fundamentals that you need to learn and play the next song. This is what deliberate practice is about. As you consciously and deliberately practice, you break down what you want to learn into fundamentals of music, fingering, keys and playing techniques, building skill upon skill and learning the pleasure of being a musician.
how does this apply to you as an entrepreneur?
It’s true that unless you own a guitar shop the example above may not apply directly to your business, but the concept remains true. Understanding and building on the fundamentals is crucial to any task that you take on. Trying to jump ahead will only take up more of your time in the long run, and as an entrepreneur you know that you’re already on the clock 24/7 with no time available to waste.
Here’s another example - if you have never worked in marketing, it would not be beneficial for you to put your efforts behind every marketing channel at once — media outreach, a poster campaign, building a mailing list, setting up Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn and Pinterest accounts and running multiple ad campaigns across all platforms, and all the rest — simply to get your business off the ground. This will spread your personal resources thin, and you will have difficulty excelling in each task - just like trying to bake a cake or learning a song.
Focusing on one or two marketing tactics, being deliberate about learning those tactics, and giving yourself time to understand which is best for your business and your industry has the benefit of focusing your energy on delivering one or two really strong campaigns, even if you are new to the marketing world.
Feedback.
Ask for feedback in all your endeavors. If your audience runs howling from the room when you pick up a guitar but praises your almond croissants, that’s good feedback. In the business world, the sincerest form of praise is the testimonial, the returning customer, or an increase in the number of new customers.
You are an entrepreneur and you run your own business, which means you may feel insecure about not being an expert in all things - accounting, HR, payroll, marketing, finance and so on. Unless you went into business to specifically offer those services, it’s not reasonable for you to have these expectations of yourself.
Focusing on what is most useful to you to learn, applying deliberate practice, and being intentional with your time is absolutely the most effective way to grow your business. Outsourcing and partnering with suppliers who can free you to focus on exactly what you want to do can save you countless hours and help you realize amazing results.
Looking to apply deliberate practice into your operations and not sure where to start? We’d love to chat and help you and your business reach new heights. The Guildstreet team are the profitability experts! Contact our team today!