“Practice makes perfect, but you can over practice”
I was struck by this post from a colleague Phil Hesketh, that I wanted to share hot of the press:
Shocking news just in from the USA. Researchers have discovered that the more sports teams practice, the better they get. No, really!
Apparently, levels of skill, fitness and teamwork all improve greatly, resulting in more matches being won. But hold your horses. If you don’t have one handy, hold something similar. The research goes on to suggest that the benefits of ‘persistent practice’ dissipate after about four years.
The theory goes that experience and practice leads to overconfidence, complacency, and routine rigidity. But this isn’t a new theory. Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and head coach of all their national sports sides, said something very similar. Only in Greek, obviously.
He declared that both ‘excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength’. He went on to say ‘Similarly, drink or food above or below a certain amount destroys the health, whilst that which is proportionate both increases and preserves it.’ So basically, he was championing the idea of moderation in everything. Including moderation.
Now fast forward 2,000 years and you can see how in business today the relationship between experience and performance sometimes takes the form of an inverted U. Companies often enjoy a period of great success just before a quick slide into decline.
Same people, same product, same market, but different results. Whereas, companies and individuals who constantly reinvent themselves often enjoy continued success. Think Branson. Music, banking, trains, planes – even travelling in space in the future.
it’s natural to become complacent.
So what we can we do to stop it happening? Well, Ask all your clients and customers this simple question:
“Is there any aspect of our service we could improve on?”
Find just one thing you could do better and go and do it.
You are probably not doing enough for some clients because their expectations have changed.
And if on a personal level you don’t know when you’ve ‘done enough’ and it’s time to stop, here’s one final clue. It was probably just before you said to yourself ‘I’ve done enough’.
Apparently, levels of skill, fitness and teamwork all improve greatly, resulting in more matches being won. But hold your horses. If you don’t have one handy, hold something similar. The research goes on to suggest that the benefits of ‘persistent practice’ dissipate after about four years. The theory goes that experience and practice leads to overconfidence, complacency, and routine rigidity. But this isn’t a new theory. Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and head coach of all their national sports sides, said something very similar.
Only in Greek, obviously.
He declared that both ‘excessive and defective exercise destroys the strength’. He went on to say ‘Similarly, drink or food above or below a certain amount destroys the health, whilst that which is proportionate both increases and preserves it.’ So basically, he was championing the idea of moderation in everything. Including moderation.
Now fast forward 2,000 years and you can see how in business today the relationship between experience and performance sometimes takes the form of an inverted U. Companies often enjoy a period of great success just before a quick slide into decline.
Same people, same product, same market, but different results. Whereas, companies and individuals who constantly reinvent themselves often enjoy continued success. Think Branson. Music, banking, trains, planes – even travelling in space in the future.