What musician Jack White can teach business leaders about learning.
Seeking out difficulty is what marks out top performers.
Jack White – front man of alt. rock band The White Stripes – doesn’t make his life easy. His live set involves a complex move of guitar juggling, whereby he deliberately places the instruments that he needs to access, at crucial parts of the set, in difficult-to- reach positions. Is there a method in this performative madness? White believes there is. And the science backs him up. This is the concept known as desirable difficulty, first cited by psychologists Professors Elizabeth and Robert Bjork from UCLA. And white is not the only elite performer to make use of it.
Serena Williams
Serena Williams famously practices under conditions that she makes significantly more difficult than anything she would face in live competition. Her coaches routinely shrink the court, crank up the pace, and load her with fatigue before she even starts hitting — forcing her to find precision when the margins feel impossibly tight. She practises against faster serves, heavier balls, and pressure scenarios she is unlikely ever to encounter in competition. The effect is simple and powerful: when match day arrives, the real world feels spacious, familiar, and entirely within her control.
Steve Jobs
In the world of business, Steve Jobs would require his designers to defend their designs under pressure without the crutches of either PowerPoint slides or supporting notes.
And get this: numerous studies show that if we read something in a difficult-to-read font, we are significantly more likely to retain it. How counterintuitive is that?
It has been suggested that this explains why actors – a profession for which script reading and line learning are foundational skills – are significantly more likely to be dyslexic. (Tom Cruise, Keira Knightly, Orlando Bloom, Daniel Radcliffe…
We could go on…. And on…)
Desirable Difficulty
Top performers understand that desirable difficulty, is essential to the process of learning. Difficulty increases focus and cognitive effort – essential ingredients if learning is to be hardwired and performance improved.
Unfortunately, too many corporate leaders have failed to grasp the importance of desirable difficulty, especially in the field of leadership learning, where it’s quite easy to be seduced by the availability of low-cost curated video platforms, bite-size or micro learning, or AI generated workslop.
AI-driven personalised learning paths
A 2021 Gartner report found that 70% of organisations moved to online learning primarily to reduce costs. Since then, many have invested in scalable digital solutions, including AI-driven personalised learning paths and bespoke platforms. On the surface, this shift makes sense. Front-line leaders face intense time pressure and need learning that is quick, accessible and easy to consume.
But what if the opposite were true? What if effective learning required greater effort, friction and challenge? In the drive for speed and convenience, organisations may be overlooking a critical ingredient of deep learning.
Problem-solving capability
Struggle forces deeper cognitive engagement, leading to stronger understanding and longer-term retention—particularly when problems are complex. Supporting this, Jeffrey D. Karpicke of Purdue University shows that attempting to solve problems before being taught the solution dramatically improves both short- and long-term memory, while passive methods such as reading or watching videos are far less effective. Research in the Journal of Educational Psychology further demonstrates that grappling with ill-structured problems strengthens problem-solving capability and cognitive development.
Productive failure
At Threshold, this underpins our use of “fail-first” learning. Research on productive failure shows that initial struggle—combined with timely feedback—creates deeper, more durable learning than ease or immediacy alone.
Thankfully, we are seeing the more switched-on organisations return to the essential principles of challenging, hands-on, in-person learning, under the right sort of pressure. In other words leaders grow only by being effectively put in the equivalent of – what we call at Threshold – the flight simulator.
Solving problems is rewarding – but only when proceeded by the discomfort and challenge of trying first.
Desirable Difficulty
Threshold’s survey of Chief People Officers – carried out on behalf of a major public sector organisation earlier this year – highlights why this matters. As one HR leader from a large professional services firm put it: “The new generation of talent want to learn and grow, and they expect to be invested in. Fobbing them off with online platforms won’t cut it anymore.”
How do you use desirable difficulty to boost your performance?
To find out how we can help leaders in your organisation to be more impactful, influential and persuasive visit www.threshold.co.uk
