> OTOH, the 10,000 hour rule was created by Malcolm Gladwell and revealed to
> the world in his book /*Outliers: The Story
> of Success,*/ published on November 18, 2008.
> Thus, it is simply not an 'old saw'.
Mr. Gladwell may have been the first widely published author to
espouse this, but it predates him by a country mile. I was taught this
in a COMMUNITY COLLEGE back in 1986. When I entered the business
world, it was also something that was expressed. Maybe not in the
10,000 hours, term, but five years, yes. We also so it with hiring
practices where they would require five years experience in ______.
Each year is averaged in at 2000 hours, so five years is 10,000 hours.
> Without spending way too much time on a detailed reply, I'll say that my
> experience of over 30 years in the headquarters of a Fortune 500 company does
> not agree. Five years as an average, with a large std. deviation? Maybe, but
> how does one prove it?
Having now worked for a couple Fortune 500 companies, I'll suggest
that a person learns far less in one of them than in the smaller
companies. I was very fortunate that my first five years were working
for a VERY small software company. By the end of the five years, I was
running the company. In the next five years, I worked for a little
larger electronics manufacturer, but still a dinky company compared to
a F500. There came a point where I had achieved and succeeded as much
as I was ever going to in the role I was in. By the end, I was a
product manager. Then I switched industries. It literally took five
years, again, before I had gotten to the point where I had established
myself as THE goto person on the subjects I was expert in. At that
point, I switched over to marketing... I didn't get my five years
there, but did return to the engineering side and got multiple
promotions as I learned more things. Again, it took five years to
become the in-house expert on a specific type of technology and became
the goto person for the F500 company that bought us. The one I work
for now is likely more like the one you worked in. Not too pleased...
I really do believe in the 10,000 hours thing. In my case, once I've
gotten to that point, I'm ready for a new challenge and a new 10,000
hour adventure. At the moment there is something in the works for me
to get on a new 10,000 track.
> Yet the apprentice period is not only for learning, but part of a system for
> controlling access to a trade and keeping earnings for journeymen higher than
> they otherwise might be. I'm not saying it's not useful for trying to assure
> competence, but that it is mixed up with other purposes.
While I do not dispute that, I believe that time does make a good
filter. In the industry I work, you cannot even breathe on the
equipment unless you are part of the skilled trade. Never mind the
fact that I'm FAR more qualified than they are, rules are rules. I
have the scars of labor union complaints to prove it. But one
particular union got it right back when I proved that a technician
didn't even know how to use a Volt-Ohm meter. Or again, when I proved
that several technicians were complete morons when it came to handling
fiber optic connectors and it brought down working networks affecting
hundreds of thousands of customers.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
--
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