4 Stages Of Dominance In Performance

In just about any role you may fill in your business, there are a consistent handful of skills necessary to succeed. Chances are, you have a natural gift for some of them. Likely, this gift is what attracts you to any particular role in the first place.

However, many of the skills you need must be developed, nurtured and maintained much more intentionally. There are many theories as to how you master any particular skill.

You’ve likely heard of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-hour rule. I’m a huge fan of Gladwell, but I struggle buying into this rule in a literal sense. If there are 2,000 work hours in a year, simple math tells us it takes five years of full-time work to master a skill.

Multiply that by the number of skills required for a role, and it sounds overwhelming to me. But who am I to question?

Maybe the issue here is understanding the definition of what it means to “master” a skill. Does mastery mean you are world-class? Should skills be categorized in some way to help determine the effort necessary for mastery?