A reluctant ode to biodata

How many times have you been impressed by the title, position or even biodata of someone and then fell terribly disappointed when you finally work with him or her because he or she could not demonstrate the mastery or creativity of a field that his or her biographical credentials seem to imply and thus, you expected? In this age of information, data are paramount so that everything seems to be recorded and many have taken this dictum fanatically. I have read personal biodata that could rival the unabridged version of Tolstoy’s War and Peace in density and yet at work, the self-proclaimed master could only demonstrate mastery the equivalent of the Cliff notes (short study guides) of the great novel (and often, just the first few pages.)

There is more to being a master in a field than one’s efficiency in updating and embellishing one’s curriculum vitae. It has to do with how a master’s mind differs from that of a novice’s mind, even if the novice claims to have been born with "master’s genes." Philip Ross wrote an incisive article in the August issue of the Scientific American entitled "The Expert Mind" and it puts the spotlight on the most studied "expert mind" of all – that of chess grandmasters – an icon for a master’s mind. But what is so engaging about the article is that it is not just about the mind of a chess grandmaster; it is about the minds of experts. If you are a novice in your field, what makes your thinking different from the masters in that field? If you are a musician, what makes you different from George Gershwin or Ryan Cayabyab? If you are in technology, different from Bill Gates or Dado Banatao? If you are in science, different from Newton or Einstein?

Ross highlighted three very crucial differences between the mind of a novice and the mind of a master, based on scientific studies on expert minds since the turn of the century.

One, the novice remembers individual details while the master remembers meaningful connections among sets of data called "chunks." Remembering things in "chunks" seem to skirt around the "7 plus or minus two rule" discovered by a psychologist named George Miller, which he published in 1956, that identified the limited range of our "working memory," sort of the handy memo pad section of our brains. (It is why telephone numbers also contain numbers within that range.) Thus, for novices who have to make sense of five to nine small details, the masters could work on five to nine sets of connections, expanding the range of data that working memory stores and works with. For music, it could mean that while a starting musician could remember individual musical pieces, Cayabyab or Gershwin could remember a whole repertoire as one or a set of harmonizing portions of different musical pieces as just one.

These "connections," however, are SPECIFIC to a given field and like your membership in many clubs, non-transferable. This means that these connections do not translate to general areas of mastery like, for instance, "visual-spatial" for chess grandmasters (they did not fare better than novices in other visual-spatial tests). Thus, it also means you cannot necessarily extend expertise in one area to that one that seems to have similar mental requirements. The article was very careful to point this out, citing that you cannot aim for a mastery of Latin and expect to have a mastery of the English language because of your Latin expertise.

Second, the novice’s mind contends with a whole wide forest as representing the whole stage for the possibilities of a given issue, the master’s mind already homes in on that particular tree with the particular stretches of pointed possibilities suited for the issue to be addressed. If you are a starting techno fan, it may mean you could churn out bits and pieces of gadget models and a whole range of software versions but Gates or Banatao could home in on what are the essential facts about the current state of technology that could define the possibilities for the next generation of technology. 

Finally, the making of a master’s mind happens not on stage when one is rewarded a plaque or an award, but in an "effortful" continuous engagement with the field of one’s choice which usually happens on tiptoe, with only the fire of the mind raging to discover principles behind nature, create beauty like in music in the arts or knowledge in the sciences or innovate on tools for life. Ross cited the efforts of Hungarian educator Laszlo Polgar who home-schooled his three daughters to become grandmasters in chess, as well as the efforts of the father of Mozart to train Mozart. Both fathers incidentally wrote books on how to "create" masters which was followed by a rise in chess and music prodigies, respectively.

This also means that graduating valedictorian from your prestigious elementary or high school or even college is not considered a mastery of anything. If at all, probably a certified master of going to school, period.  To approach mastery in your chosen field is to labor endless hours, exploring the field of learning, picking the questions and issues you want to address and this takes about 10 years, according to Herbert Simon who in the 60s did a study on the limitations of the expert mind. It also includes the many humbling moments when you fail. But the difference is that a master remembers how he/she failed and will learn from that mistake. Most people relax after gaining competence in a field. By doing so, they divert from the path of mastery. To be a master in a field means you cannot seal the horizon of your understanding because you can only grow in mastery if you are ALWAYS challenging not just others’ but also your very own views and competency. A self-proclaimed master who is dazzled by his or her own biographical data or too proud to acknowledge his or her mistakes and learn from them is just a perpetual novice with a cumbersome biodata.

This research on the expert’s mind is also worrisome. Since mastery of a field could be cultivated, even if you are not sure whether you have the supposed genes for it, then the burden is now on what could motivate one to stay and grow in one’s field. I am worried because I can only think of one sure reason why one would want to learn as much and as deeply as one could in a field of learning, and that is a love for the field. If you love your field of learning, it makes you happy and happiness is one thing you cannot argue with in terms of its motivational power. Most kids now choose work or careers based on their financial promise and not really on love for the field because often, the field they are in love with is silent on job opportunities.

A recent study on happiness in the journal Science and reported in Livescience.com last June 29, found that moment-to-moment happiness could never be bought and that those with higher incomes have, in fact, significantly lesser moments of glee. To connect it with the issue of the expert’s mind, this means that if you choose a kind of work that you do not love, and you base it only on the money it will bring, then it could only get you so far in your journey to become the best you can be because you will eventually reach a point of plateau, probably comfortable but flat and unable to yield you continuing pleasure and happiness since the mind only dresses up differently if it wakes up to a new kind of morning. If happiness is a motivation and recent study showed that money from doing what you do cannot buy happiness, then we cannot count on the promise of money alone to cultivate the masters of the fields of learning.

I guess the next time you read the biodata of someone who seems to have all the entries that speak of his/her mastery of his/her field, it would be a good thing to ask if he or she is also happy with his or her work, regardless of how much it paid, if it pays at all. Then you will probably have that rare glimpse of a master-in-progress, in love with his or her own craft.

* * *

For comments, e-mail [email protected]