Infamous!
When Gladwell wrote Outliers in 2008, Ericsson and his colleagues had already conducted many studies on deliberate practice. Gladwell, however, used some examples that suggest that the 10,000 hours was more important than the deliberate practice part. For example, he argued that the Beatles playing 1,200 times in Hamburg resulted in their musical virtuosity. But Ericcson himself points out, these were just performances. Were they really honing their craft and challenging themselves with every performance, or were they playing Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins covers to a bar full of drunk Germans? In fact, in a 2013 book, Lewisohn calls into question Gladwell’s assessment that the Beatles even played that much in their four years in Germany.
But one of the controversies that is really interesting to me is that Ericcson’s numerous studies were challenged by a meta-analysis in 2014. Macnamara, Hambrick, & Oswald conclude that deliberate practice accounts for an overall 12% of variance in performance. They write, that, “deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued” (p. 1608). This study generated a lot of press because Gladwell is popular, and we like when people popular people are challenged. But think for a moment about that 12% finding and your own life. Every year, there are thousands of students who graduate in your major who you will be competing with for a job. It seems to me that 12% is a pretty significant difference. It doesn’t matter if you are 1% or 30% behind the next person, you still lose.