Election Selection: Precocity or Mastery -- Which Will Voters Choose?

Last week, I spoke at the American Society for Training & Development's International Conference and Exposition. Malcolm Gladwell also spoke. The bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink is promoting his new book, Outliers, to be released in November. Because it was a gathering of people who are deeply involved in corporate professional development, a.k.a. employee education, he focused his remarks on how businesses identify talent and move that talent up and through the ranks. I couldn't help but draw parallels to the way we have come to select presidential candidates.

Gladwell classifies talent as either precocity or mastery. Precocious talent shows itself early in life. Such geniuses do eye-popping, paradigm-busting things early in their careers. People around them naturally take notice and select them for fast-tracking through the organization. Think Barack Obama.

Mastery is described as slowly evolving, experimental, painstaking, incremental, error-infused work that ultimately results in an extremely high level of competence and expertise. Think Hillary Clinton and, perhaps, John McCain.

Alas, Gladwell avers, there is trouble in mastery-land. It seems that our fast-paced, stimulation-addicted culture is biased in favor of precocity. But this is shortsighted, he argues, and he provides some examples to illustrate his point. The first is from the world of fine art. Gladwell describes Pablo Picasso as precociously talented. Picasso broke into the art world in his twenties and quickly created a sensation with his paintings. His talent was identified immediately and he became an overnight celebrity. The story then shifts to Paul Cezanne, who took quite a while to produce the art that he became famous for. Throughout his 20s, 30s and even 40s, Cezanne carefully honed his craft. Through trial and error, he mastered technique. Unlike most artists of his time, he became proficient in several styles. Still, his work went unnoticed for the most part until he reached his 50s and 60s.

Now here's the remarkable thing: Picasso's early paintings created when he was in his 20s, sell for 4 times more than his later works. On the other hand, Cezanne's later works, created when he was in his 50s and 60s sell for 15 times more than those done earlier in his career.

Gladwell gave other fascinating examples of how we think we know what we're doing when it comes to identifying talent, but really don't. From sports, he told about how giving intelligence tests to quarterbacks has been a huge failure with several hall-of-famers scoring at the low end while many who scored high, badly underperformed. From pop music, he related how Fleetwood Mac's album "Rumors," one of the best-selling rock and roll albums of all time, was not its 1st, 2nd, or even 3rd album. It was the seventeenth album by this group that had been working at their craft for years.

What we lose when we surrender so easily to the precocity model of talent selection is a range of important skills that mastery types like Cezanne, Fleetwood Mac and, yes, Hillary Clinton (and, again, maybe John McCain) bring to the party. Skills like persistence despite failure and the learning opportunities that presents, the ability to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds (McCain's POW experience? Hillary between Super Tuesday and concession?). How about the ability to maintain passion through it all? Maybe there is even something about the struggle itself that sustains and nourishes mastery.

Gladwell calculates that mastery occurs after 10,000 hours of practice -- that's about 3 hours a day over 10 years. Now, Obama certainly has spent the requisite time mastering the skills of big-arena oratory. He is a smart guy and if he wins the election, we have reason to be hopeful that whatever gets shoveled into that brilliant brain of his will be retained. But we also have cause for concern. A president's time is divided among many vital issues, most of which he must know a great deal about so he can make those all-important 3 a.m. decisions. In this case, the math, so favorable to Obama during the primaries, doesn't bode well.

Keeping all this in mind, it could be that the way we have come to choose candidates for the most important job in the world -- subjugating it to our insatiable, 21st century hunger for constant entertainment, viewing campaigns as an endless series of reality shows, the more explosive and voyeuristic the better -- is a very poor way to do so, indeed.

When did we give up on selecting the Cezannes, Fleetwood Macs and, yes, Hillary Clintons of the world? Why have we lost patience with those whose genius takes longer to blossom? How much value has been lost? What do miss when we dis mastery?

Comments

[thurbers]

Can you name anything that Hillary Clinton is master of besides persistence?

What has Clinton's experience brought in the Senate - a near perfect early attendance record, diligent service on her committee assignments, a questionable voting record, and minimal legislation either written by or supported as a signatory. It is an example of someone doing the job to provide a solid uncontroversial record for the next job.

How about her campaign. She spent money like a drunken sailor during her senatorial reelection (30 million for a largely uncontested election), something that continued into her presidential campaign. She took the primary system for granted, never bothering to look beyond the big picture to the details, the rules. She was overconfident "this will be over on February 5th". And when things fell apart it took too long to come up with what to do next. She usually went in as the front runner in a state and lost ground, didn't increase it. (There were some obvious exceptions to this, and being a known quantity didn't give her much room to go but still. ) She persevered even as she lost the lead by March, tapped out her donors by April, and was left with a hail mary play of pleading with the SuperDelegates and demanding rules changes by May.

There is certainly a dialogue to be had about the lack of respect for craftsmanship and mastery, Clinton is not the example to use., because it trivializes that dialogue.

[Calinative]

Thinly disguised spin from a spiteful Hillary supporter.

She lost the nomination, OK. She wasn't the best candidate. She was a liar. Nobody owed it to her as if it was her time for succession to the throne. Her problem was not in our inability to spot late-blooming genius. Her problem was in herself, as a candidate.

As for Fleetwood Mac...elevator music won't change the world.

[MVH1]

Oh, please, mastery and Hillary? She's a master of deception. Give me the precocious guy any day.

[ricflair]

Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Abrams, Wolfowitz, et al. By your logic, a collection of "masters." Precocity seems pretty attractive right now.

[TruthStar9]

For sho'.

[bgregs]

And yet Barrack Obama has not only spent plenty of time honing his craft (being in his 40s now!) he has also shown the amazing ability to change when it's shown that what he's doing is wrong. By contrast, we see someone like Hillary who spent the entire time from Super Tuesday until she conceded with the exact same methods, the exact same messages, and the exact same people advising her. This is all in spite of having an obviously losing campaign.

And as for John McBush, let's be serious here. This is a man who had a winning message in 2000, but didn't play dirty enough, and thus lost to a man with a losing proposition for the US. And what does McBush do in 2008 when he gets his second chance? That's right, he turns into the very losing message that he lost to in 2000!

[CJGibson]

"Throughout his 20s, 30s and even 40s, Cezanne carefully honed his craft. Through trial and error, he mastered technique."

You do know Barack Obama is in his 40s, right?

It certainly seems to me as though he's done a good job "carefully honing his craft" and "mastering technique."

[Johnnn]

This is one of the most insightful articles I've seen on these pages ever. Perfect summation of the choice we're faced with. Obama is peaking too early. Even if he becomes President, which I doubt, what will he do with the rest of his life. At 54 his political career will be over. He should have waited.
Or maybe Hillary will be President in 4 or 8 years and do a better job. America is a sucker for flash-in-the-pan showy guys.

[blaqntelligence]

Ruth Sherman: "When did we give up on selecting the Cezannes, Fleetwood Macs and, yes, Hillary Clintons of the world?
When we were offered a better choice......


"Why have we lost patience with those whose genius takes longer to blossom?"
Speaking on HRC, we didn't lose patience with her slow-to-blossom genius, we lost patience, and grew disgusted, with her unpresidential behavior on the way to the Oval Office.