Editor’s Note: Thought leader Grace Ueng is CEO of Savvy Growth, a noted leadership coaching and management consultancy. Grace writes a regular column on Happiness & Leadership for WRAL TechWire. Companies hire her firm to facilitate HappinessWorks™ programs, infusing the happiness advantage into corporate culture, leading to higher productivity and results.

Note to readers: WRAL TechWire would like to hear from you about views expressed by our contributors. Please send email to: info@wraltechwire.com.

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RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – In last week’s column, I share the musings of the founder of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra founder, Ben Zander, who has enjoyed a lengthy career not only in music, but also as a highly sought after speaker to business leaders on the art of possibility.

The left brain working hand in hand with the right brain is so important for innovative thought.  I marveled at just how many of my highly quantitative, left brained classmates at MIT also played a musical instrument beautifully. The grand piano in the living room of my dorm was in use at all sorts of hours.

 

Lang Lang. Photo courtesy of Grace Ueng.

Lang Lang – My journey of 1000 Miles, My Story

I’ve known of Lang Lang for years as one of the world’s top concert pianists, and had special interest in his story since he is from my parents’ home country. After I went into remission from my severe depressive episode last year,  I pored into his revealing, uncut autobiography, My Journey of 1000 Miles. I read it cover to cover in just a few sittings.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
-Lao-tzu, Chinese philosopher (604-531 B.C.)

This Chinese proverb is an appropriate title for Lang Lang’s memoir. Lao-tzu teaches that even the longest and most difficult ventures have a starting point. The very difficult times that Lang went through to reach international musical acclaim is akin to what entrepreneurs often must go through to become a unicorn. In each case, the meaningful pursuit begins by having the courage to take the first step.

During COVID, I declared that I wanted to travel to see Lang in concert when he began touring again.  As I restarted my piano studies this year, the first thing I’ve been doing when learning a new piece is to go to YouTube to listen to his interpretation, and this often serves as guidance to my playing.

I had my wish to see Lang perform by being a part of the season opener last week for the renowned Boston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Adris Nelsons.  I journeyed my own 1,000 miles to hear him play.  Every moment of the program was breathtaking. I leaned into each of Lang Lang’s notes, and not wanting to miss anything, I adopted “one buttock” listening!

My sister, Vivian, a piano virtuoso, and I taking in Lang Lang’s performance.

Intrinsic Motivation + Teacher + Instrument

My teacher Teddy tells me and I saw through Lang’s memoir that “nothing” can substitute for practice – hours of time playing is simply essential to making progress. Malcolm Gladwell has told us that it takes 10,000 hours to become an overnight success.  I now have a different will to learn, for the pure enjoyment of playing music. I have a talented teacher, and own a grand piano with a beautiful voice.  The importance for me has been in that order, having a strong desire driven by intrinsic motivation, followed by my coach who is a good fit, and a beautiful instrument that I invested in for my selfcare that I deeply appreciate. I am not learning for a grade or because I have to, I am learning because I want to.

For the Love of Learning

 I quickly fell in love with the first software company I worked for, MECC, the Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation; we were the makers of The Oregon Trail. Our tagline was “for the love of learning.”  I loved what I did, and children who used our products had fun while playing and learning. Our products were loved by teachers, parents, and students. I contributed mightily to that company because I wanted to; I was intrinsically motivated. As were all my colleagues.  We were united by creating the highest quality interactive educational technology for children.  No wonder Kevin O’Leary, now Mr. Wonderful of Shark Tank, and his partner acquired us and The Learning Company for $1 billion.  He then turned around and sold us to Mattel for $4 billion, his big liquidity event, allowing him his personal freedom (see Mr. Wonderful on Women Entrepreneurs).

Not all Practice is equal

100 hours into practicing this year, I counted up what it would take to get to 10,000 hours and quickly realized it was quite far into the future. My pianist sister tells me that I am already studying pieces beyond what I played over four decades ago, so I started wondering about the accuracy of the 10,000 hour rule.

More recent research shows that hours of practice is not enough. I am now intrinsically motivated.  The importance of a good teacher who is in synch with you is also a key difference maker.  Teddy tells me that his role is to help me practice better.  My pianist sister, who like Teddy, earned two degrees from Juilliard, said that her more advanced students learn a piece on their own and then ask her for guidance.  I had an a-ha that this is highly correlated to my coaching.  Our clients are advanced in their careers, and we partner with them to help them be even better. The fit between coach and coachee is critical.  I encourage each to feel confident in the fit before engaging.

Practice is important, and it’s surprising how much it takes to master something complicated. But psychology professor Anders Ericsson’s research suggests that someone could practice for thousands of hours and still not be a master performer. They could be outplayed by someone who practiced less but had a teacher who showed them just what to focus on at a key moment in their practice regimen.

What worked best, says Ericsson, is for students to receive personal instruction with a teacher who is able to assess them individually and determine “what would be the next step for them to actually develop and improve.” Otherwise, students might stall out, despite hours of practice.  This is similar to our working with leaders by conducting 360s and then working on a leadership development plan with them as their coach.

Deliberate practice is often guided by an expert, skilled coach, or mentor, “someone with an expert eye,” according to psychologist and internationally known author Daniel Goleman. These coaches and mentors are offering feedback on specific ways to improve, and “without such feedback, you don’t get to the top ranks. The feedback matters and the concentration does, too – not just the hours.”

This is the concept of deliberate practice – having a coach.  It’s similar to clients who come to us who are working extremely hard, but not experiencing success on par with the work input. These performers need an outside experienced and objective partner to guide their performance to bravo.  What Benjamin Zander leads his masterclass students toward.

Malcolm Gladwell got one thing right: it takes many years of concerted effort and practice to become a true expert in a field. But while the time spent practicing is important, it is far from the only factor. Your genetic makeup, when you start, and how you learn all combine to determine how many hours it would take you to master a specific craft – or if “mastery” is possible at all.

Consider the research of master chess players by cognitive psychologists, Fernand Gobet and Guillermo Campitelli. They found that there were actually huge differences in the number of hours of practice it took chess players to reach a specific skill level. The number of hours to reach “master” status ranged from 728 hours to 16,120 – meaning some players needed 22x more practice hours than others to reach the same skill level. The 10,000 hour rule could be a myth. Let’s rename it the 728 to 16,120 Hour Rule.

I am hoping that my piano restart can follow a 728 Hour Rule!

 Listening

 To prepare for Lang Lang’s concert, for weeks, I listened to the Saint-Saën’s concerto that he would perform.  When he started to play last weekend, I thought I had been listening to the wrong piece!  It was so different from Arthur Bernstein’s rendition that I had been studying. My sister explained to me that his interpretation was his own and completely different.

 Musicians perform the same works in their own personal style, reflecting the individuality of their interpretation.  Just as business people can be presented with the same situation analysis and data, how they synthesize the data and draw conclusions and design an action plan can be unique. Each performer has their own story to frame the composition, for their audience to appreciate.

Tal Ben Shahar has us listen to music every week. At MIT, one of the popular humanity classes was 21.60, Listening to Music.  It was popular mainly because it was considered a much easier “A” and a nice break from intensely technical classes.  I now realize that listening can be a much more important skill to learn for life than differentiating equations.

Tal encourages us to read the classics, known as the Great Books, over and over.  His Shakespeare professor at Harvard, said that even after teaching for decades, she learns something new each time she reads his works. I am starting to learn the second movement of Beethoven’s Sonata Pathétique. Teddy told me that musicologist Karl Hass would play this piece as the introduction for each segment of his long running syndicated radio show Adventures in Good Music, rather than use a recorded version. Perhaps Hass felt something new and therefore learned something by playing anew for each show…

…I look forward to doing the same.

The art of listening can apply well beyond music, into our work culture.

How can you listen differently and more intently to the same “melody” this week?

​​About Grace Ueng

Grace is CEO of Savvy Growth, a leadership coaching and management consultancy founded in 2003. Her great passion to help leaders and the companies they run achieve their fullest potential combined with her curiosity, empathy and ability to help leaders figure out their “why” are what clients value most.

Grace’s core offerings are one-on-one coaching for CEOs and their leadership teams, facilitating workshops on Personal Branding and Speaking Success and conducting strategic reviews for companies at a critical juncture. A TED speaker, she is hired to give motivational keynotes and lead HappinessWorks™programs for companies to maintain healthy cultures and have employees flourish.

A marketing strategist, Grace held leadership roles at five high growth technology ventures that successfully exited through acquisition or IPO. She started her career at Bain & Company and then worked in brand management at Clorox and General Mills. She is a graduate of MIT and Harvard Business School.

Grace and her partner, Rich Chleboski, her MIT classmate and accomplished cleantech veteran, develop and implement strategies to support the growth of impact focused companies and then coach their leaders in carrying out their strategic plans. Their expertise spans all phases of the business from evaluation through growth and liquidity.