Deliberate practice

2. Deliberate practice. A second characteristic of the training is that it embodies the concept of deliberate practice. Deliberate practice entails isolating the specific elements of performance that will enable you to excel at an activity, repeating them over and over again, and getting objective feedback. A great deal of research supports the notion that intensive, deliberate practice — notinnate talent — is the secret of exceptional performance. An Army Special Forces weapons specialist, for example, must master nearly 50 different weapons systems during 65 days of intensive training.
In 1970, Army Special Forces launched a daring commando raid on the Son Tay prisoner of war camp near Hanoi. To prepare for the mission, they conducted 170 full dress rehearsals at a mock-up of theprison camp in Florida. The operation went flawlessly, and although the U.S. prisoners had been moved before the raid, news of the attempt spread throughout POW camps in North Vietnam; many captured servicemen later said that it gave them the will to survive.
Is doing 170 rehearsals of a major sales presentation to a client a reasonable expectation for a corporation? No, but how about just onerehearsal? That would be above the norm for most managers. Walmart  Stores Inc. showed how powerful this type of preparedness can be when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency was woefully unprepared for the disaster. Walmart filled the gap in supplying aid to many Louisiana communities because of the exceptional preparedness ofits emergency management department and emergency operations center, which had repeatedly rehearsed for similar contingencies and put in place a series of procedures and protocols for responding to a natural disaster.
3. Realism. Special forces training is characterized by extreme realism. Medics will treat “injured” soldiers who have pumps squirting “arterial blood” and sport Hollywood-qualitymakeup. For a simulated mission, men may be kept awake for two or three nights in a row and subjected to lifelike explosions and bullet fire. The final exercise to earn the Army’s Green Beret lasts a full two weeks and involves more than 1,000 personnel.
Some corporations use computer-based business simulations or lengthy case-study scenarios to teach executives — putting them in charge of afictitious company for three days, for example — but it is not a widespread practice.
4. Constant feedback. A key feature of SOF training is constant and relentless feedback about performance. Nearly every exercise — from tying knots while holding your breath underwater to building a camouflaged shelter — is graded by experienced instructors, and most exercises have an “after action” review thatbluntly analyzes what went well and what could have been improved. At regular intervals, instructors rank the men in their training units according to performance, and often ask each team member to rank everyone in his unit. They might very well confront a trainee and ask, “Why do you think your team members ranked you dead last?”
5. Physical and mental stress. Hell Week, or some variation of it, is afeature of most SOF training programs. Navy SEAL trainees, for example, are forced to function over a span of 100 hours while being allowed a total of five hours of sleep. These experiences have a purpose: They simulate actual combat conditions, they expand the trainees’ comfort zone, and they provide a benchmark experience that makes subsequent hardships more manageable. They also create apowerful (albeit painful) shared experience that is an indelible part of the culture of special operations.
Some companies create such shared experiences early on in their employees’ tenure, and it is a very effective technique. General Electric Company’s leadership development center at Crotonville, for example, is a legendary hotbed of intense learning experiences that form part of the shared...