Reams of research on expertise shows that elite athletes spend more time in highly technical, deliberate practice each week than those who plateau at lower levels. And Range is an urgent and important book, an essential read for bosses, parents, coaches, and anyone who cares about improving performance. Deliberate practice, according to the study of 30 violinists that spawned the rule, occurs when learners are “given explicit instructions about the best method”, supplied with “immediate, informative feedback and knowledge of the results of their performance” and “repeatedly perform the same or similar tasks”. The “rule” represents the idea that the number of accumulated hours of highly specialised training is the sole factor in skill development. Tiger was not merely playing golf, he was engaging in “deliberate practice” – the only kind that counts in the now ubiquitous 10,000-hours rule to expertise. Tiger’s incredible upbringing has been at the heart of a batch of best-selling books on the development of expertise, one of which was a parenting manual written by Tiger’s father, Earl. Hyperspecialization is the idea that a singular-focus combined with deliberate practice is the optimal path to success in a given field. Unlike Tiger, thousands of kids, at least, had a head start on Roger. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein (2019) is a thoughtful counterpoint to the narrative that success is best achieved through hyperspecialization. It seems pretty unusual for a childlike Federer, who had “pully” parents and who dabbled in a dozen sports, to grow into a man who dominates one like no athlete before him.
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