What differentiates star performers from their run-of-the-mill colleagues? It’s not smarts, creativity, or ambition.
Carnegie Mellon’s Robert E. Kelley spent ten years looking for the differences and found that stars are made, not born.
A nebbish can evolve into a star. What distinguishes stars are the strategies they use to do their work and to work effectively with others — strategies that allow them to double their productivity improvement rates while working less.
Undoubtedly, the prerequisites for success change with the times.
Kelley says the percentage of the knowledge you need to memorize to do your job is shrinking rapidly:
- 1986: 75%
- 1997: 15-20%
- 2006: 8 -10% estimated
Knowing how to get the answers you need is more important than storing those answers in your head, especially with the shorter lifespan of knowledge these days. What you find when look something up is probably current. What you already know is more and more likely to be out of date.
A vital meta-learning skill: how to find the answer you need, online or off.
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Jay, what’s the actual source of “percentage of the knowledge you need to memorize to do your job”? Is it in Kelley’s book? etc
I’ll tell you when I receive Kelley’s book in the mail — it was $3 at Amazon. My interim source is a presentation by Reuters’ Charles Jennings. You can find it at http://tinyurl.com/y3kskw
I downloaded the PDF as well and it’s quite interesting.
I did notice one reference on page 17 to the flawed “data” on learning retention rates that are still pushed by NTL. Will Thalheimer has a good post on how NTL continues to pass this crap off as real research:
http://www.willatworklearning.com/2006/11/ntl_continues_i.html
I guess you have to watch out for what industry experts (Reuters) pass off as bona fide research. I’m looking forward to reading more about Kelley’s research, though.
Will debunked the pseudo-scientific origin of the learning retention statistics. It’s also obvious that retaining 10% of what you read, 20% of what you see, 30% of what you hear, etc., is a generality; the real deal will vary with the specific situation.
Nonetheless, there’s some underlying truth there. We remember more if we’re engaged, challenged, teaching others, etc.
Hey Jay:
Did Kelley poll his respondents on what they consider to be knowledge? From your remarks, it seems that you’re assuming, like I am, that most of his respondents are likely thinking of factual knowledge. Our profit last year was 8.2% of Gross Margin. or Jane Smith is the Accountant assigned to our group. Her extension is 3948 – give her a call. If, that’s what folks are thinking knowledge is, then Kelley’s number would seem to be true from anecdotal evidence. I have maybe 5-10 phone numbers memorized. But my phone has hundreds memorized.
what troubles me a bit here, is that knowledge of those strategies Kelley talks about would then be above and beyond his 8-10% figure. What of situational knowledge? Or knowledge of causal relationships? or of human/emotional relationships? These types of knowledge have been key to leadership training almost to the exclusion of factual knowledge.
There is far more knowledge in our heads than purely factual knowledge.
Dave, as I told Harold above, I will know more when I read the source material. Until then, I draw these interim conclusions.
Given that Kelley is talking about memorizing, I conclude that he’s saying a worker has to keep proportionally seven to ten times fewer facts in mind than previously.
Depending on the inflation of factual knowledge required to do one’s job, this suggests that there are more brain cycles to devote to non-factual knowledge.
Hence, what differentiates stars from mediocre performers is precisely the sort of nonfactual knowledge you mention, e.g. knowing who knows and getting the big picture.
Aren’t you and Kelley really agreeing with one another?
You may be right Jay that Kelley and I are in agreement, but perhaps with a difference in semantics, which I am concerned might be material in the long run. The impression I have from what you presented is that he refers to factual knowledge as knowledge and thus something that can be taught and learned. The rest he calls strategies.
By the alternate terminology, it follows logically that he is seeking to set strategies apart from knowledge. The next logical step is then to conclude that strategies can’t be taugh or learned in an formal setting. As much as I respect his work and thoughts, I feel Harold fell into this trap in his related post when he implied that now 92% of all that employees know and use in regards to their work in informally learned.
I fully understand that I’m basing my comments on a summary report of a review of the orginal text and I may being doing disservice to Mr. Kelley thoughts and intent. But I do believe that too often we are willing to follow along with arguments that seem compelling on first blush without ever questioning the underlying logic or facts.
Good point, Dave; perhaps I fell into the trap. If Kelley only looked at factual knowledge, then he missed out on a lot of “how-to” knowledge.
As I previously noted on a blog post, three tools that I used extensively during my military career were 1) the Estimate, 2) Battle Procedure and 3) the Orders Format. These three types of “how-to” knowledge were practised over and over in various contexts over my +20 years of service. I still use these tools outside of a military context. However, learning how to use these tools (about all that I really remember from my service), took up much less that 8% of my total time served.
http://www.jarche.com/?p=724
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