Peak: Secrets From The New Science of Expertise

by K. Anders Ericsson

These fields have several characteristics in common. First, there are always objective ways — such as the win/loss of a chess competition or a head-to-head race — or at least semiobjective ways — such as evaluation by expert judges — to measure performance. This makes sense: if there is no agreement on what good performance is and no way to tell what changes would improve performance, then it is very difficult — often impossible — to develop effective training methods. If you don’t know for sure what constitutes improvement, how can you develop methods to improve performance? Second, these fields tend to be competitive enough that performers have strong incentive to practice and improve. Third, these fields are generally well established, with the relevant skills having been developed over decades or even centuries. And fourth, these fields have a subset of performers who also serve as teachers and coaches and who, over time, have developed increasingly sophisticated sets of training techniques that make possible the field’s steadily increasing skill level.

Several common characteristics of top fields