Secrets of Greatness

What it takes to be great
by Geoffrey Colvin - CNN Money
[ Commentary by Meryl K. Evans, Editor ]

Research on what it takes to be great shows that you don’t have to born with a talent to have great success in it. Rather, the secret to become great is lots of hard work and practice. My softball coach loved to say, "Practice makes perfect." I wasn’t a natural born athlete, but I practiced and developed my sporting skills to become a decent player.

I asked a friend how she was doing with her new manager. She said he wasn’t doing well as it was his first time in a management role. Managers have to start somewhere. How does a person learn how to be a manager and become a great one at it? After all, practicing business isn’t like practicing a sport. You can’t go to the range and practice.

So "As this article states, it’s all about how you do what you’re already doing - you create the practice in your work, which requires a few critical changes. The first is going at any task with a new goal: Instead of merely trying to get it done, you aim to get better at it."

Also, feedback makes a difference. Don’t wait for it. Ask for it. As a small business owner, I ask my clients for their honest feedback, and all except one has provided it.

To pull this all together, practice regularly. I took a class to improve my writing skills and applied some of the concepts I learned, but eventually stopped practicing as I got busy with other things. If I want to make these new skills a habit, I need to keep applying them.

How do you practice?