The Right Practice Challenge Jump Starts Learning and Elevates Performance
Anytime we practice a task that is too difficult for us, learning and performance both suffer.
Interestingly, a task that is too easy compared to our skill level stunts learning and improvement, as well. The key is finding a challenge that stretches us at just the right level of demanding. A nudge higher than our current skills. It is these challenges that enable deep learning and long-term performance gains.
High performers improve performance by attempting new challenges that test their knowledge and skill. They don’t simply replicate the skills they already possess by engaging in the rote practice of repetition. While repetition builds muscle and intellectual memory, it is raising the bar through challenge that most elevates performance.
Finding and designing the right challenge is the hard part.
A practice challenge that doesn’t create discomfort and struggle misses the mark. But so does a challenge that can’t be accomplished without dozens of attempts. The key is to design a challenge that pushes the limit of your current skills without causing so much frustration and anxiety as to undermine confidence. The right challenges are difficult but fun. They require a hyperfocus to complete but don’t ask you to violate or disregard fundamentals to achieve them.
One of the reasons high performers depend on third parties to assist them with practice is for their ability to create and design the right challenges for their current skill level. High performers are constantly on the hunt for new and innovative practice challenges to be incorporated into their improvement plan.
The idea of finding the right challenges for current practice applies to every arena of performance. Too often leaders think practice and challenges are better suited for physical or athletic performance. But performance of any and every kind depends on enhancing learning through practice. This includes presentations, facilitation, project management, model building, and a myriad of other pursuits.
Performers in any field get better by practicing difficult tasks. But only the right challenge at the right time allows performers to acquire and retain the important learning that improves long-term skill. Collecting and designing challenges for use now or in the future is a critical element for reaching higher levels of performance.
What difficult tasks are you challenging yourself or your team with? Is each challenge the right level of difficulty for the skill set? Real improvement depends on it.
I've noticed whenever we introduce a new tool or process to the team, they will take what they know today and try and fit it in to the new. We've introduced two new design/development tools that have much different functionality compared to our existing tools. We held a train-the-trainer session with everyone to go over the basic functionality of each tool, features and benefits, and how we can use them in addition to our existing toolset. But when I reviewed the first couple of projects my teams produced with the new tools, they were just bad copies of the old ways. We're solving this by expanding the review sessions from two people to a cross-team session of four or five. We review the current project and make recommendations for the trainer to try/do in their next project (not to make major changes to the current project - but one or two things to try out on their next project). It seems to be working. Today's post gets to the root cause of the problem - people don't yet have the skills to take full advantage of the new technology - it takes time and lots of opportunities for practice. Fortunately, we're never short on new content requests, but we have to break the cycle of doing what we already know and push ourselves to get a little better with each new project.