Mastery

Encouraged by a colleague I committed to reading Dan Pink’s 'Drive' over the last few days. Not really a hardship as it is superb and relevant. It seems Dan is another one of these authors (like Gladwell and Robinson) who are brilliant at pulling together old ideas and putting a new and entertaining ‘face’ on them. Pink draws heavily on George Leonard’s work on 'Mastery' (but strangely does not appear to acknowledge him). I went back to this wonderful book again and re-discovered a section in which he encourages learners to love the learning ‘plateau’ and to expect it. It struck me that helping people to enjoy the process rather than continuously striving for the final product could be a key for me in supporting them as they develop their strengths and discover new way to get them into action . As Leonard says, life for people who can do this can be ‘especially vivid and satisfying.’