Deliberate practice leads to great performance

I've recently learned a bit about Geoff Colvin, who is defined on his own website as a “leading thinker, writer, broadcaster, and speaker on today's most significant trends in business”.

In his book Talent is overrated: what really separates world-class performers (2009), Geoff Colvin helps us understand why some people are really good at what they do while others tend to have mediocre performance during all their lives. Is it talent? Is it hard work? None or both together plus something else?

Here is an excerpt of the book's first chapter:

• The factor that seems to explain the most about great performance
is something the researchers call deliberate practice. Exactly what
that is and isn’t turns out to be extremely important. It definitely isn’t
what most of us do on the job every day, which begins to explain the
great mystery of the workplace—why we’re surrounded by so many
people who have worked hard for decades but have never approached
greatness. Deliberate practice is also not what most of us do when we
think we’re practicing golf or the oboe or any of our other interests.
Deliberate practice is hard. It hurts. But it works. More of it equals bet-
ter performance. Tons of it equals great performance.