Outliers Malcolm Gladwell Research Paper

Yadira Riera

Mrs. Goodman

English 12R

3 November 2014

Practice Doesn’t Always Make Perfect/Not Much Experience Necessary

The idea that practice makes perfect has been heard through the years of a majority of individual’s life. In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he ultimately states that a specific number of hours someone needs to practice before they can become successful. Gladwell is not completely wrong; however, his strong claim and evidences for the 10,000 hour rule can be proven false. Many researchers have looked into lives of successful people and people who aren’t as successful. Among their research they have also conducted surveys giving them a chance to compare the hours of practice between individuals. Through this it is concluded

that the number of hours someone practices doesn’t matter. Actually two important factors that can help someone become successful are innate skill and talent (“Practice”), along with the area an individual is trying to become successful in (Alleyne).
Some individuals have a talent that comes natural to them; this allows them to reach a higher level of success with less practice. Psychology professor David Z. Hambrick conducted a study that involved chess players and musicians. The results that were collected displayed that some chess players reached mastery after practicing 7,500 hours, another group of the chess players reached this point of success only needing 5,000 hours of practice, and a very small portion of the chess players required 10,000 hours to reach the mastery level; a similar correlation also appeared in his study of musicians as well (“Practice”). From his study David Z. Hambrick stated “Some people require much less deliberate practice than other people to reach an elite level of performance in chess” (par. 4). Thus proving that 10,000 hour of practice is not necessary to become successful is someone has a natural skill or talent in that area; of course if it was required for someone to practice to become successful they would need a close minimum of 10,000 hours. However such applied practice can only be work in certain areas.
On November of 2013 Sonia Alleyne wrote an article about the written works of Frans Johansson, who is the author of The Medici Effect and The Click Moments. Similar to Outliers Frans Johansson’s books talks about success, primarily focusing on the success in the industry area. The article points out that hours of deliberate practice in some areas, such as industry, will not insure continuous success as the years pass on. This is due to the fact that industry is open to change making it impossible practice a set of rules towards success. On the opposite side of the scale from industry are areas where rules never change, this includes golf and tennis. Areas where rules don’t change are the only ones where 10,000 hours of deliberate practice can work (Alleyne). Quoted in the article Frans Johansson stated “Serena Williams knows exactly what she has to do. She just needs to do it better than anyone else” (par. 3), summarizing that the reason for Serena William’s success is due to the fact that she is able to practice and apply the 10,000 hour rule without worrying whether the rules of the game will change.
One of the many claims Malcolm Galdwell stated, in his book Outliers, was that the 10,000 hour is an absolute necessity that needs to be completed before an individual can become successful.

Within his book he uses results from a study that surveyed a group of violinist from a music schools. The study concluded that the violinist who practiced for 10,000 hours or more would play professionally, and the violinist who only had 5,000 hours of practice would become school music teachers. Malcolm Gladwell also uses hockey players as a source of evidence stating that the younger they start playing with the all-star teams the more practices they will gain adding up to the minimum of 10,000 hours that they need to become successful and play in professional level. To sum up his claim of 10,000 hours he states “And what’s more, the people at the very top don’t work just harder or even much harder than everyone else. They work much, much harder,” (39) meaning that those who are at the highest point of success are there because they have practiced harder to get there than anyone else around them. However looking back to what Sonia Alleyne wrote about Frans Johnson’s book, areas such as music and sports are areas where rules never change. Thus deliberate practice and reaching the magical number of 10,000 hours would make a violinist or hockey player successful. Along with the result of David Z. Hambrick’s study even if 10,000 hours of deliberate practice is the ideal goal of individuals trying to reach the highest point of success, consideration must be taken that there are some individuals who have innate talent and skill with the ability to reach this point of success requiring less deliberate

practice.
Malcolm Gladwell claimed that the 10,000 hour rule must be followed before anyone can become successful. Although his statement can not be ruled as entirely wrong it can be considered false. Malcolm Gladwell did not take into account that there are fields where this rule can and cannot be applied to. Individuals who are in areas were rules never change have the opportunity to follow the 10,000 hour rule. On the other hand individuals who are in areas where constant changes are made are unable to apply the rule, but can still become successful in that area. Continuing on from individuals who have the opportunity to follow the 10,000 hour rule, among those individuals is a group whom require less hours deliberate practice because they have a natural skill or talent that allow them to succeed in a shorter period of time. Now for the rest of the individuals who do require 10,000 hours of deliberate practice they must also take into consideration one more factor that can determine their success; which is Vince Lombardi quote "Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect," meaning their deliberate practice can not have a flaw that can risk their chance of success. In whole everyone does not need to follow the 10,000 hour rule to become successful.

Works Cited
Alleyne, Sonia. "What Box: Frans Johansson and The Medici Group Are New-school Innovators Looking to Bring Their Solutions to the World of Business." Black Enterprise Nov. 2013: 50. Diversity Studies Collection. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. 1st ed. New York: Little, Brown, 2008. Print.
"Practice Isn't Everything." The Wilson Quarterly 37.3 (2013): n. pag. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 24 Oct. 2014.