Practice matters a great deal. It appears to explain less of the difference between people than the slogan suggests.
The claim. Ten thousand hours of deliberate practice make an expert, in more or less any field.
Where it comes from. A 1993 study of violinists reported that the best performers had accumulated far more practice by age 20 than their peers. The figure entered wide circulation through popular writing a decade later, usually without the conditions the original authors attached to it.
What the evidence says. Macnamara, Hambrick, and Oswald pooled 88 studies and found deliberate practice explained roughly 26 percent of the variance in games, 21 percent in music, 18 percent in sports — and about 4 percent in professions.¹ Practice remained the most controllable factor they measured; it simply did not account for most of the gap. The professional figure is the one worth sitting with, since it is closest to the work your people do.
A better bet. Treat practice as necessary rather than sufficient, and pay attention to what surrounds it — feedback quality, task design, whether the person gets to attempt the real thing.
Talent Takeaway
When someone plateaus, it often helps to look first at what they practice — and at who tells them how it went — before we add more hours.
¹ Macnamara, B. N., Hambrick, D. Z., & Oswald, F. L. (2014). Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: A meta-analysis. Psychological Science, 25(8), 1608–1618. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614535810
