PDF Summary:Decoding Greatness, by Ron Friedman

What if there were a secret shortcut to elite performance and creative innovation? According to workplace performance psychologist Ron Friedman, there is—and it’s called reverse engineering. In Decoding Greatness, Friedman argues that the surest road to success is to take apart work you admire to see how it’s made, and then create your own version of it. By doing so, he says, you’ll spark original ideas, improve your skills, and ultimately find creative success.

In our guide, we’ll explain Friedman’s advice for doing great work—whether that means getting a show at an art gallery, winning a marathon, or nailing a big product pitch. We’ll explore reverse engineering in depth and show you how to go from taking apart someone else’s work to creating your own. Then, we’ll discuss how to practice effectively and how to get useful feedback from peers and experts. We’ll also build on Friedman’s ideas by putting them in conversation with advice from creativity and performance experts such as Austin Kleon and Tim Ferriss.

(continued)...

(Shortform note: In addition to helping you review your progress, self-reflection can help you focus your efforts so that you get the most out of your practice time. In The One Thing, Gary Keller recommends that you ask yourself the following focusing question: “What’s the one thing I can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?” The answer to this question, Keller suggests, will help you hone your practice by uncovering your most impactful course of action.)

Friedman suggests that journaling is an especially good way to reflect on your practice. He specifically recommends five-year journals, which allow you to make entries for the same date for five consecutive years so that you can review where you were at specific points in the past. In the process, you have a chance to notice relevant patterns that might not be obvious on a day-to-day level—for example, you might realize that when you play video games before going to work, you’re more creative at your job.

(Shortform note: If Friedman’s five-year journal suggestion doesn’t appeal to you, there are a number of other journaling and note-taking options that incorporate a similar process of review and reflection. For example, The Bullet Journal Method makes ongoing reflection a core part of its system: The method requires you to transfer your tasks and notes from day to day, month to month, and year to year—in the process, you have the chance to review your accomplishments and setbacks, identify tasks that have become irrelevant, and assess whether you’re on the right track.)

Challenge Yourself

Friedman also argues that for practice to be effective, it needs to be challenging—it should push you past your current comfortable skill level. If practice is too easy or too repetitive, you stop paying attention to what you’re doing, which halts growth and can harm your performance.

(Shortform note: In addition to being necessary for growth, difficult practice goals might also make you feel better about practicing in the first place. Research suggests that people find challenging goals more motivating than easier goals—and that they paradoxically tend to feel more confident they can achieve harder goals than easier ones.)

Similarly, Friedman stresses the importance of mixing up your practice so that you don’t fall into routines. The problem, he says, is that if your practice regimen is the same every time, you get bored: Your brain checks out and you stop learning. To avoid this problem, find new ways to develop the same skills, or add new obstacles and challenges to keep things fresh. For example, if you’re a heavy metal guitarist, you might practice by learning some classical pieces; or, you might challenge yourself to play material you know at a faster-than-normal tempo to make it harder.

(Shortform note: In addition to varying your practice regimen from session to session as Friedman suggests, consider varying the structure of your practice itself. In other words, instead of spending half an hour practicing a difficult passage on the piano over and over again, switch between loosely related activities such as repeating the passage, transposing it to different keys, and improvising variations on it. This approach—known as variable practice—helps you learn better because it forces you to recall the target skills and knowledge more often and in different contexts. That translates to deeper understanding and improved long-term retention.)

Imagine Your Performance Ahead of Time

In addition to physical practice, Friedman recommends that you mentally rehearse prior to your actual performance. To do so, he suggests imagining your performance as specifically as you can, including the time and place, the sensory details you expect to encounter, and the nuances of the behaviors you’ll need to perform. For example, if you’re about to prepare a complicated meal for guests, you might imagine each step of the cooking process, from gathering your ingredients to chopping vegetables to finishing a sauce and plating each course.

Friedman argues that this kind of imagery can improve your actual performance in several ways:

• It locks down important details, such as the steps you’ll need to perform or the skills you’ll need to employ. For example, it’s a chance to “practice” that tricky tournée cut one last time before you actually let loose on your potatoes.
• It prepares you for the stressors and challenges you’ll likely face. For example, your kitchen will still be too hot and you’ll still be pressed for time, but you might be less stressed because you anticipated these extra challenges.
• It helps you strategize because you’ll foresee potential problems and find ways to avoid or compensate for them. If your sauce doesn’t turn out, for instance, you’ll be less likely to panic if you anticipated that possibility and you’re prepared to fix it or modify the dish.

Friedman cautions that when using this kind of imagery, it’s important to imagine your performance, not your success—in other words, imagine the specific behaviors you’ll perform in the kitchen, not how good the food will taste or how proud you’ll feel when serving your guests. He points to a study showing that visualizing success actually makes your performance worse. That’s because when you imagine yourself succeeding, you get an emotional payoff that tricks your brain into thinking you have already succeeded. This payoff lowers your motivation and makes you more complacent, which ultimately makes you less effective.

The Neuroscience of Mental Rehearsal

Research supports Friedman’s contention that mental rehearsal can improve future performance. But what exactly is going on at a physiological level when you mentally practice a skill? Understanding the answer could help you hone your mental rehearsal technique and make sure you get the benefits Friedman describes.

Researchers believe that mental rehearsal takes advantage of two mechanics in your brain:

Motor preparation: When you’re about to make a movement—say, to stand up from your office chair—your brain runs through that movement, essentially warming up and instructing the neural network that fires your muscles when you actually stand up.

State-dependent learning: Memory and learning are contextual, which means that you recall information and skills better when you’re in the same situation as when you first learned them (this includes factors such as your physical location and mental state). Mental rehearsal takes advantage of the fact that your brain can also tie skills and knowledge to a specific imagined state.

Putting these two phenomena together, mental rehearsal works by “grooving in” a desired behavior along with the context in which it’s desired so that when you encounter that context, you’re more likely to execute the behavior you want in the way you want.

That’s why Friedman emphasizes specificity: For mental practice to work, you need to imagine yourself executing a specific physical behavior in a specific physical and emotional context. That way, when you’re actually in that context—standing in a hot, messy kitchen with your stress level spiking because the sauce isn’t coming together—your brain already knows what to do because you’ve already established the neural patterns that cause you to take a deep breath, walk over to the sink to get some water, walk back to the stove, and patiently whisk the sauce together.

Motor preparation and state-dependent learning also help explain why, as Friedman points out, simply imagining success doesn’t work: When you imagine yourself watching proudly as your guests tuck into a gourmet meal, you’re not preparing the neural networks that you’ll need to make that meal.

Improve Your Performance With Metrics

Another way Friedman says you can improve your performance is to set goals and then develop key metrics to help you track your progress toward your goals. He explains that doing so encourages you to think critically about your goals and how to achieve them.

That’s because metrics force you to break down your larger goal into component steps, behaviors, or milestones. In turn, these milestones help you track your progress and also detect areas where your performance is lagging, which Friedman says allows you to take a strategic approach to improvement.

(Shortform note: One way to implement performance metrics is with the Objectives and Key Results (OKR) system. In Measure What Matters, John Doerr explains that OKRs are a way to achieve your high-level goals (objectives) by identifying and measuring the specific behaviors and accomplishments (key results) that, if completed, will fulfill that goal. Once you’ve identified three to five key results for each objective, you periodically track and score your performance by using objective measures (such as completion percentages) and subjective assessments to judge how well you did with each key result. At the end of an OKR cycle, you have a chance to review your scores and decide what next steps to take to keep making progress.)

Friedman warns that if you do use metrics, you should be careful not to get too focused on metrics for metrics’ sake. He explains that metrics are simplifications, and if you choose your metrics poorly, you might miss important aspects of your behavior or even let your pursuit of numbers distort your actual behaviors and thereby undermine your goals. For example, if you want to get better at painting and decide to track your progress in terms of how many paintings you finish in a month, you might find yourself focusing only on familiar, comfortable subjects and techniques rather than challenging yourself as we discussed earlier—choices that would improve your metrics without actually improving your painting skills.

(Shortform note: As data-based approaches have become more common in many aspects of daily life, researchers have found that there is indeed a real danger of metrics causing unintentional and undesirable behavioral changes. For example, wearable fitness trackers like Fitbit promise to make you more active by tracking the steps you take each day. But studies have found that these metrics make some users more stressed, which paradoxically leads them to become less active. Similarly, some users report distorted behaviors such as avoiding exercise and moving as little as possible while charging their device’s battery so as not to “waste” any untracked steps.)

Mitigate Risk When Trying New Things

Getting good at anything requires risk. Creativity and effective practice both require you to stretch yourself, which means that sooner or later, you’re bound to fail. Friedman explains that this kind of failure is a good thing—it’s how you learn—but he also acknowledges that the possibility of failure can prevent necessary risk-taking if the stakes are too high, such as when failure might damage your reputation or your financial position. The answer, Friedman says, is to lower the stakes of failure by strategically mitigating your creative risks using the following strategies.

(Shortform note: Although it’s typically possible to make risks safer using the strategies we outline below, sometimes, the best choice really is to shut down a creative venture that’s not working. In Creativity, Inc., Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull agrees with the notion that failure is key to creativity, but he also argues that if you’re not learning from your failures and gradually improving, you might have to let go of a project (or the people involved, if you’re working with others) before you lose more than you can afford to.)

Strategy #1: Find a Test Audience

A test audience lets you try out your new idea and get feedback from your intended audience while you’re still figuring things out and the stakes are low. For example, if you’re developing a new board game, you could assemble a playtest group to gauge player reactions and get feedback on your rules and game mechanics before you spend lots of money on production.

(Shortform note: In The Minimalist Entrepreneur, Sahil Lavingia outlines a detailed process for finding and working with a test audience before you launch a new venture. He recommends that you join a community you care about, identify a problem in that community, then offer a product or service that addresses that problem. At that point, you can offer your solution within that community on a freelance basis before you try to formally launch a business—this helps you figure out what people care about and what they’re willing to pay for.)

Strategy #2: Sell Before You Create

Friedman suggests finding a way to sell your product or service before you create it (such as by creating a prototype and taking a list of preorders). This technique helps you gauge how much demand there is before you invest your resources. For example, if you’re thinking about expanding your coffee shop by offering catering services to local businesses, you could offer a waitlist where businesses can sign up for such a service—this will help you gauge whether the new idea is viable.

(Shortform note: One way to sell before you create is to build what Eric Ries calls a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). In The Lean Startup, Ries describes several different types of MVPs: For example, you could build a webpage that describes and shows mockups of your product and asks users to sign up. Or, you could launch a product or service at a smaller scale than you actually intend—for example, by building a product by hand at first until you generate enough demand to justify investing in an automated production process. Whatever type of MVP you choose, the goal is to make the minimum investment necessary to figure out whether people want what you’re offering.)

Strategy #3: Use an Alias

Friedman suggests working under a pseudonym, stage name, or sub-brand while trying out new ideas. Doing so allows you to experiment without damaging your established reputation, confusing your audience, or creating false expectations. For example, Major League Baseball commonly pilots potential rule changes and other experimental practices at the minor league level so that they can see what works and what doesn’t before altering their main product—the major league game.

(Shortform note: In Loonshots, Bahcall suggests that another benefit of keeping innovation separate from your established product or service is that innovating and executing require different skill sets—experimental risk-taking might be a good idea when you’re trying to be creative, but when you’re implementing an established idea, it’s better to be consistent.)

Strategy #4: Diversify Your Career

Friedman recommends keeping a day job as a steady source of income that allows you to take more risks outside of work. But he also recommends getting creative in how you leverage your talents to make money. The more you spread yourself around, Friedman explains, the more you diffuse the risk associated with any one venture. For example, if you’re a musician, you can make money playing shows and selling your music. But you could also earn money through related work such as composing a video game soundtrack or using your audio skills to freelance as a podcast producer.

(Shortform note: Diversifying your career could bring benefits beyond spreading out your risk—it might also fuel long-term growth by exposing you to new ideas, people, and opportunities. The authors of The Great Mental Models Volume 3 suggest that these new experiences increase your surface area. In chemistry and physics, the more surface area an object has, the more connections it has to the world around it, and the more easily it bonds or reacts with other objects. Likewise, the authors argue, if you increase your metaphorical surface area by seeking out varied experiences, you increase your chances to learn, grow, and build on your existing skills and connections.)

Part 3: Making the Most of Feedback and Expert Guidance

As you work to grow your skills and expand your creative output, it’s crucial to get feedback and guidance from others, but it’s not always easy to do so. Friedman cautions that much of the time, feedback from others isn’t that helpful, and similarly, even if you’re lucky enough to consult with an expert in your field, you’ll find that many experts make poor teachers and coaches.

In this section, we’ll explain Friedman’s reasoning for why that’s the case and share his strategies for getting everything you can from feedback and expert opinions.

How to Get Useful Feedback

Friedman argues that most feedback is unhelpful because it’s too vague, often taking the form of “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it,” and it can easily swing between extremes of supportiveness or criticism. Instead, Friedman argues that good feedback needs to be:

• Specific—reviewers should point to concrete strengths and weaknesses in the work.
• Actionable—the point of feedback is to help you improve, so it needs to point toward a plan for doing so.

To elicit helpful feedback, Friedman recommends that you point your reviewer to specific aspects of the work that you’re concerned about or deem critical. Don’t just ask, “What do you think?” or “Do you like this?” Instead, ask, “Does the third verse make the song too long?” or “Do I strike the right tone in this application letter?”

Similarly, Friedman recommends that you reframe critical feedback as steps for improvement. For example, if your test audience tells you that the conclusion of your film is too ambiguous, you might consider adding a voiceover by the main character to clarify the action.

An Alternative Perspective: The Three Types of Feedback

Friedman suggests that for feedback to be useful, it needs to guide you toward concrete ways to improve your efforts. However, in Thanks for the Feedback, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen take a different perspective: They describe three types of feedback, all of which they say are valuable:

Coaching is when someone gives you advice aimed at improving your future performance. It’s useful because it helps you learn and grow. This is the sort of feedback that Friedman says is best because it’s focused on specific actions you can take to strengthen your work.

Evaluation occurs when someone ranks your performance in comparison to expectations and to other people. It’s useful because it lets you know where you stand and tells you what to expect in terms of the consequences of your performance. If someone tells you they “didn’t like” your work, they might be attempting a form of evaluation by letting you know that you didn’t meet their expectations.

Appreciation happens when someone thanks, praises, or congratulates you. It’s useful because it makes you feel seen, understood, and valued—feelings that motivate you to keep going. If someone says they “liked” your work, they may be trying to express appreciation by sharing their positivity about what you did.

While it would presumably be beneficial for all three types of feedback to be specific, of these three categories, only coaching inherently meets Friedman’s second criterion of actionability. Of course, you could formulate action steps from evaluation or appreciation (such as by reviewing and clarifying the expectations you failed to meet or planning to do more of something that garnered praise)—but actionability isn’t the primary point of these types of feedback.

With these three kinds of feedback and their unique benefits in mind, Friedman’s preference for specific-and-actionable may seem overly narrow. Perhaps a better rule for soliciting helpful feedback is to let your reviewer know what type(s) of feedback you’re looking for—as Friedman suggests, “Good job!” isn’t helpful if you’re looking for coaching, but neither is an evaluation of your strengths and weaknesses when all you wanted was some praise.

How to Receive Feedback

Friedman points out that for feedback to be useful, you have to be receptive to it. That means not getting upset or defensive when you receive criticism. Friedman offers two strategies to help with this:

• Get some distance from your work. If you’re too attached to a project—or if it’s all you think about or work on—it can be hard to entertain critical feedback productively.
• If you get critiques that hurt, take the time you need to process your emotions before you respond. Don’t get defensive, give up, or change things reactively.

(Shortform note: In addition to getting distance and taking time to respond, another way to deal with painful feedback is to examine the source of the emotions you’re feeling. In Thanks for the Feedback, Stone and Heen argue that there are three emotional triggers that make receiving feedback hard: Truth triggers activate when we think the content of the feedback is incorrect or unfair. Relationship triggers happen when we take issue with the person giving us feedback rather than the feedback itself. Identity triggers come into play when feedback threatens our sense of self. Like Friedman, Stone and Heen argue that you need to address each of these emotional reactions before you can take the feedback on its own merits.)

How to Learn From Experts

Finally, Friedman notes that if you’re lucky enough to get a chance to work directly with experts in your field, they might not be as helpful as you’d hope. He explains that experts often make poor teachers, trainers, and coaches. This is because they’ve so internalized their knowledge and skills that when they perform, they do so instinctively—which makes it hard for them to explain how they do what they do. Moreover, Friedman says, experts typically can’t remember (or imagine) what it’s like to be a beginner and lack the skills and knowledge they have now.

(Shortform note: If you’re looking for experts who are good teachers, Think Again author Adam Grant suggests that you look for people who gained their expertise recently, who struggled to do so, and who are good communicators—these people tend to remember what it was like to face beginner challenges and have the skills needed to guide learners toward improvement.)

That said, if you have the chance to work with an expert, Friedman suggests that you make the most of their expertise by asking:

• How they got where they are: What practices and strategies did they find most (and least) helpful?
• How they do what they do: Have them spell it out, step by step.
• What they learned along the way: What do they wish they’d known when they started out?

As the conversation unfolds, Friedman says, don’t be afraid to ask them to elaborate on their answers or to ask for clarification if you don’t understand something they’ve said—experts don’t always realize when they’re using specialized language or breezing over complex ideas. If you’re confused, Friedman suggests that you ask for concrete examples or try repeating back complex ideas in your own words to check your understanding.

(Shortform note: Friedman’s advice assumes that you have the chance to actually talk one-on-one with experts in your field, which might not always be possible. But there are still ways to learn from experts even if you don’t have a chance to interact with them. For example, in Peak, Anders Ericsson recommends that you model your behaviors after the habits and practices of the experts in your field. To do so, start by conducting research to answer the questions you can’t ask in person: For example, biographies, profiles, and interviews might help you piece together an expert’s path to success, their favorite working methods, and some of the lessons they’ve learned in their career—all of which you can emulate in your own practice.)