Critical Review of Daniel Coyle’s “The Sweet Spot”
“The Sweet Spot” is the first chapter of the book “The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle. In this chapter Daniel Coyle presents the idea of deep practice which he feels helps nurture and produce great talent.
The author’s main claim is that a person can become an expert in his field by indulging in a “deep practice”. This term ‘deep practice’ according to him means a dedicated effort by a person in his chosen field where he pushes himself to an edge where failure is very likely. Further, these efforts, which most likely will result in failure, will be the catalyst for a person to improve his skills and eventually excel in his chosen field.
The main evidence which author draws upon are examples from nine coaching centres or hotbeds as Coyle likes to call them. During his research the author visited each of these nurseries of talent and found that besides the great potential and talent that existed in these places there was also the desire and inclination of individuals to push themselves beyond their limits and use failure a stepping stones to ultimate success. The author visited various places such as a tennis academy in Moscow, soccer field in Sao Paolo, Brazil, a music academy in New York and uses specific examples from these places to build his argument.
Coyle’s claim of deep practice being an effective way of gaining expertise in a particular field is well supported by various examples. His ability to draw from various field and diverse geographical regions as well as over varying age groups lends credence to his claim. However there are certain grey areas in his claim. There is no justification as to how he selected the nine centers and which ones he rejected. There is also surprisingly no contrarian view and no effort to discuss factors which may go against his claim. For example how would Coyle counter the predominance of African American athletes in world of athletics where their physical abilities make them surpass other athletes. Another limitation of his claim is that is that he has used specific examples and no statistics. A statistical analysis, sourced from a large pool of athletes, may have made the claim sounder and more believable.
The main examples he uses to justify his claim are those of how Brunio (p 11) an eleven year old boy perfects the “elastico” move by repeatedly trying and failing and finally succeeding. He supplements this by quoting the example of Jennie, a twenty four year old musician (p 11) who is trying to sing a pop song which she perfects after repeated attempts. He questions whether repeated failure is a way improving the skill of these people. Subsequently, he goes to a bigger example of Brazilian soccer where he traces the growth of Brazilian soccer and what factors were responsible for their success. He argues that the two factors of gene and environment were always existing, however the change occurred in 1950’s when the Brazilians changed the way they trained. Further he uses a visual example of asking the reader to go through two lists of words, one correct and another one with few letters missing. When one is forced to break one’s thought the memory of that word lingers. This he argues is akin to deep practice wherein you focused more on the list with broken words. He also quotes Robert Bjork, the chair of psychology at UCLA who says “One real encounter …. is far more useful than several hundred observations”. He claims that deep practice goes against talent as dedicated and focused effort may beat natural talent. Further he claims that talent can be acquired by deep practice. The author also quotes example of how Edwin Link (p 20) who built an aircraft trainer for aircraft pilots to practice their skills on ground and reduce aircraft crashes. His final story which appears most convincing is that of soccer coach Sam Clifford (p 24) who learnt the Brazilian mini soccer game “Futsal” and introduced it in United Kingdom. He focused on ball handling skills at the junior level and successfully reared a entire crop of talented players who learnt soccer by deep practice using the “futsal” method.
To support his claim Coyle effectively uses questions and key phrases at various stages to gain the users attention. He call the nine centres “the chicken wire Harvards” which generate “Everest size amounts of talent” signifying that they were modeled in a crude way on a world class institution and produce highly talented individuals . These phrases help attract attention and generate users interest in the text. He calls his research a “Treasure Hunt” to pique the users interest in outcome of his expedition to find the factors of acclaimed success. His examples are exotic ranging from “elastico” move in Brazil to visual examples which involve the reader is an activity to reinforce his point of view. His description of Edward Links dramatic entry in a plane during a thunderstorm dramatizes the story and reinforces the area of Links Aviation Trainer as a tool of deep practice for acquiring a talent.
I personally find Coyle’s chapter to be very interesting reading and would love to read his full book. I found his style of writing very conversational is examples very inspirational. Though the text lacks the rigour of a an academic paper for his claim, I feel that data would have made the text insipid and boring to read. I would have liked for the writer to have reduced the length of stories a little and wrote more on how he came about his finding.
Coyle presents a very convincing argument which is presented with well written prose and interesting examples. What he lacks is a sound academic rigour to support his claims This would be supplemented by previous research in this field and numeric data in favour of his argument. However considering the fact that this chapter is a part of novel, Coyle presents his claim in an effective manner which enthuses the reader to continue reading his book and learn more of his theory and how to apply the same to one’s personal life
References
Coyle, D. (2009). The Talent code. New York: Random House Publishing Group (Extract from Chapter 1: The Sweet Spot (Pg 11 - 28) )
Hi, Thank you for your evaluation, it was very helpful.
ReplyDeleteAs for your paper, I liked the Idea that you say that Coyle does not bring any argument which would challenge his claim.
One thing I would like to suggest is to draft smaller paragraphs with just one idea or concept each. This way it would help the reader read.
Btw, great idea blogging the assignments. I'll come back to see your completed version.