Embrace the plateau

Because the plateau is where mastery happens…

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There are three seminal moments in a human’s life that tend to give a lot of pause since they go to the core of who we are. The first of these is when you figure out who your parents really are. As human beings I mean, as I am pretty sure that most of us learn their names and appearances quite early on. When you are a child you think that your parents are superhuman and know and can do everything. Then, eventually, it turns out that they are “just” human beings with all the flaws and limitations that come with that. If you are lucky, you will figure that out only when you are nearing adulthood yourself and when you are perhaps somewhat well equipped to deal with the consequences of that life lesson. However in some cases, like mine, it is only well into adulthood (and after many years of therapy) that this realization sinks in.

The second of these seminal moments is when you figure out who you actually are. This is even tougher than figuring out who your parents actually are and therefore this life lesson often comes with a non-trivial depressive episode. That’s not fun, but for some people that insight never comes and that is much worse altogether…

Especially for their environment!

The first few decades of your life are defined by incredible growth. Physically of course, as we grow from a few centimeters and a handful of pounds to quite a few feet and way too many kilograms, but especially mentally. The amount of things you learn and learn how to do in these years is simply staggering. For example, in the first twelve years of your life you learn more than eleven words of receptive vocabulary per day (these are words that you understand but might not necessarily use regularly)!

In some languages that is not as much of a feat as in others. In Dutch particularly we have a tendency to string words together from existing words, so the Dutch word for “glove” is “hand shoe” (handschoen) and a binocular is a “far seer” (verrekijker). Surely this makes Dutch one of the easiest languages to learn. Could someone please tell my darling wife?

With language and basic math out of the way, the learning continues well into adulthood with more advanced skills, knowledge, and concepts. You might learn how to design a complicated system, how to manage a project, or how to drive a service level objective. Inevitably though, the learning slows down and you will reach a plateau.

In our crazy “winner takes most” world, the plateau is often an unwelcome phenomenon. One glance at LinkedIn will tell you that there is an incredible amount of emphasis on “life-long learning” and “continuing to challenge yourself”. All that advice is undoubtedly well-meant, but in my opinion mostly addresses the small slumps that you run into earlier in your life and career. I had one of these two years into my first job, when I ran into a small depression as I started figuring out that this is what I would have to do for the next forty years 😀. The kind of advice we read on LinkedIn is usually not talking about the big plateau that you hit a bit later in life because, well, this is who you are and you are not going to get much farther without a considerable effort.

Until a few years ago I was regularly frustrated that I am not more successful than I am. People I started with at Google in 2006 became distinguished engineers or are now vice-presidents of engineering at other reputable companies. I clearly am not. But then I did some good long soul searching and I learnt that that is just who I am. In some cases I don’t have what it takes and in other cases I don’t want to give what it takes. And in yet other cases I made decisions earlier in my life that cut off some of these paths.

One of the best books I read in the past few years is “The 7 rules of power” by Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of Organizational Behavior at the business school of Stanford University. This is not some crazy self-help book written by a <insert favorite stereotype here>, this is science! In the book, Dr. Pfeffer explains the research into behavioral patterns that lead to power, complete with references to experiments that show that this is not some new-age mumbo jumbo but, I’ll say it again folks, science!

In the book, Dr. Pfeffer also addresses the negative connotation of power. He explains that you need power to change something, for worse, but also for better. If you want to enshrine a federal abortion ban into the US constitution (to name something just a tad controversial) you need power. But if you want to create a federally recognized right to abortion or extend Medicare to all people who lawfully reside in the US, you also need power. Power in itself is neutral. It is what you do with it that is not.

The great thing about the book is that it made me understand why I am not more powerful than I am. Of the seven things that you should apparently do to become more powerful, I do two things naturally and the other five things I would never want to do because that is just not who I am. And to top it off, I generally do not care enough about becoming more powerful to overcome this disinclination.

The plateau appears for many reasons that conspire to slow down your rate of growth. A lot of these reasons are related to age. I am racing towards the big six-zero and it would be foolish to assume that I am as energetic as I was thirty years ago. When I was much younger, I wasted incredible amounts of time and energy on things that were, all things considered, not worth it, such as ill-advised business ideas or projects that required an investment of time that would never pay itself back. At my current near-exalted age I need to be way more strategic about what I do with the effort that I can put in. On top of having less energy, age also comes more things needing your attention. Today I have responsibilities that I did not have before and so a big part of my time and energy does not go to work-related personal growth but to taking care of my elaborate affairs, including planning for retirement and looking after children, family members, and friends.

Years ago, a colleague and friend of mine wanted to make a career move into a management role. I knew about his struggles at home with his newborn child and the stress that that put on his marriage. Consequently, I counseled him against this step with the following words: “If you want to end up like me, meaning divorced and with your ex-wife and child in another country, now seems like a great time to put more effort into your career.” I am happy to report they are still together and there is even a second child, which goes to show once more that the purpose of my life is to serve as a warning to others.

Another reason for the plateau is that you are only as smart (IQ and EQ) as you are. Look at me: I am terrible at math. I mean, high school math goes just fine and I didn't do too badly in my undergrad degree,  but in my Introduction to Graduate Algorithms class I struggled mightily with some of the math around prime numbers and I must say that the theorems related to the Fast Fourier Transform (with all of the complex numbers involved) also required significant work.

For people who are also struggling with this, here are my notes for that class 🙂.

It is unfortunate, but everyone is just limited and eventually you will have grown into your comfort zone, from whence it is steeply uphill in all directions

This might give some of you the idea that the plateau is a place where all learning has stopped. Nothing is further from the truth.  First of all, I am clearly on the plateau already and I am still quite active in adding to the noggin’ by doing things like learning to fly and playing the piano. These are clearly hobbies though and I really never had the ambition to become either a rock star or a commercial pilot. But the plateau is also a place where some really deep learning can  happen in the areas that you already consider yourself an expert in. 

The issue is that there is a real difference between knowing how to do something and mastering it. The very successful concert cellist Pablo Casals, when asked why he was still practicing at age 90, reportedly answered: “Because I think I’m making progress.” Even if you think you are already quite decent at something, there is an infinite space between the cracks of your skills and knowledge that you can start filling in. Seen from that perspective, the plateau is just the place where you start becoming really good at some of the things you are doing. And to become really good, you really need a lot of practice because the lessons are more subtle, harder to learn, and sometimes more difficult to recognize.

So don’t be afraid of the plateau. Yes, it might seem there are some diminishing returns going on, but on the whole the plateau is the place where you really start to understand what is going on and how things hang together. You might not have as much energy to waste, but you will become better at figuring out where to spend the energy you have. If nothing else, the plateau is often also the place where you aren’t fazed anymore about a lot of what’s happening because you have seen it before, which takes a lot of edge out of events that might have caused considerable anxiety before.

Embrace the plateau! All things considered it will be a much easier ride than when climbing the mountain.

P.S. Wonder what the third of the seminal life lesson is that I started this lesson with? That’s when you figure out who your children really are…