Practice Perfect

Three years ago, the authors realized to their surprise that teaching is a performance profession, meaning that the job happens in real time with no do-overs -- you can't hit the pause button or pull the rip-cord mid-performance. Leaders, too, are performers -- in all conversations -- with only one chance to get it right. And like teachers, who dramatically improve when they begin to practice regularly and effectively in an intentional setting, most organizations could get dramatically better, with a bit of practice. These realizations seem pivotal to performance and critical to how a leader approaches talent development. Seven of the rules for leaders to use when improving the use of practice in talent development are: 1. Encode success. 2. Replace your purpose. 3. Isolate the skill. 4. Call your shots. 5. Practice using feedback. 6. Everybody does it. 7. Hire for practice.