Geschreven door Peter van der Reijden | September 26, 2012
Serious soccer practice is not about playing a match, but about practicing individual subskills. A good soccer player is complete. He masters various kicking techniques and tricks, knows where to be and chooses his actions intuitively from his repertoire. During the match, he is focused on what he wants to do, not on how to do that.
To reach this level of mastery, requires training. A lot of training, but especially focused training. Training that aims to improve the skills that are currently below par*. Soccer players practice endlessly on their kicking techniques (with right and left), passing with the inside foot and the ideal route to the goal. They do this, so they don't have to think about these crucial subskills during the match.
So, what they don't do, is play a full time match every day and hoping that - by doing this often enough - the underlying techniques improve automatically.
Weirdly enough, we actually do have this hope when it comes to professional soft skills. Take Consultancy Skills for example. We hope that someone becomes a better consultant, after a two day course and then plenty of real time experience on the job.
Inefficient.
Consultancy Skills can also be trained much more efficiently by focussing on the subskills and practicing those until they become automatic.
So, let's not have 2 simulations of an entire consultancy conversation, but:
- let's practice 20x on different interviewing techniques, so you have those available automatically when you want to know something in the conversation.
- let's practice 20x on the presentation of your solution, so you can have eye for your counterpart's (nonverbal) response.
If you do not have to think of the how, you can focus on what it is you want to accomplish. You have the confidence and freedom to take advantage of unexpected situations, because your repertoire of subskills is broadly developed.Ask Messi.
* Ericsson, who researched the difference between 'top grade' musicians and average musicians, supports this. In his research he found that the top musicians focused their practice on their 'skill gaps'. Interestingly, the total practice time for these musicians was not longer.
