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Talent Is Overrated
Reviewed by Monica Regan
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My father wears a T-shirt that depicts an energetic cyclist zooming past. The caption says, "Life begins at 80." At age 70, he set out to ride his bike across the United States, starting in Oregon. As he neared Chicago, he felt more than a little fatigue, so he wheeled his bike into his garage and went to bed for a week. Undaunted, he continued training and finished his trek the following year.
What drives a person to perform much better than average? Passion, yes. Good genes and basic talent, yes. But, invariably there is more. My dad ran marathons for years before getting on a bicycle. And, he trains and studies maps for months before any long-distance ride.
The global financial crisis of 2008-2009 raises both troubling and exciting questions about the power and limits of human collaboration and achievement. Our global economy depends on talented people who can get today's job done, but also see into the future enough to prevent calamities. Leaders who harness this talent will remain at the front of the pack.
Two recent management books go to the heart of human capital issues—specifically, talent and its actual relationship to high achievement. Both help the reader re-examine what he/she is doing, and whether there is a better way.
Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller Outliers (Little, Brown, 2009), showcases his keen storytelling ability while echoing the main theme of his most famous book, which challenges the notion of the "self-made man." He affirms the idea that a number of factors converge to cause a person to accomplish great things.
Geoff Colvin's Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (Portfolio, 2008) takes a slightly different tack. Colvin is less of a storyteller and sociologist than Gladwell. He gets to the heart of individual human performance and the implications for organizations.
Colvin, like Gladwell, profiles some very famous high achievers like Mozart, Warren Buffet, The Beatles, Tiger Woods and Bill Gates. He recounts studies that have deconstructed great achievements of all kinds—from the arts to science to sports to business. Over and over, these studies reinforce a basic truth. Talent will get you started, but hard work is the only path to success.
Colvin demonstrates how we can harness the right elements of a practice
to move beyond ordinary achievement. He calls this deliberate practice. The
elements of deliberate practice are:
- It's designed specifically to improve performance.
- It can be repeated a lot.
- Feedback on results is continuously available.
- It's highly demanding mentally.
- It isn't much fun.
Colvin's example, comedian Chris Rock, works hard at being funny. Before going on tour with a comedy routine, he practiced it 18 times before local audiences. His audience, of course, gave him continuous feedback, which taught him exactly what people find funny.
Colvin points out that knowledge is absolutely essential. But knowledge, too, falls under the deliberate domain. A complete understanding of artworks will not a great painter make. He makes the link between knowledge and innovation: "Great innovators aren't burdened by knowledge; they're nourished by it."
Yes, the world needs new answers to problems, and smart, hard-working people need the tools to work on those problems. This has tremendous implications for our schools and training in the workplace, as our global economy demands different types of workers. Do the traditional structures in which we encourage learning really prepare people for the specialized niches of tomorrow's workplace?
Colvin continues by debunking some myths about great performance. It's not true that very few people are genius enough to reach great heights of innovation. It is true that a handful of immutable factors have made you you, and Warren Buffet the billionaire he is. However, Buffet's deliberate practice is really the key.
It's not true that being too close to the problem keeps us from seeing the answer. Bill Gates absolutely lived and breathed computers while hatching innovations like a fertile hen.
It's not true that too much schooling messes with our creativity. The trick is to access the right kind of knowledge. Great teachers, great resources, and knowing what to study (a deliberate practice of study) are all key. Tiger Woods could never be the superstar of golf without a wide base of knowledge, excellent teachers and the regular, repeated channeling of those resources into action.
It's not true that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, or that aging automatically decreases performance. Colvin states: "For many years in a person's life—more years than most of us believe—performance deterioration in our chosen field isn't an inexorable process. It is, rather, a choice about how much effort we want to invest in our performance." Olympic swimmer Dana Torres, who won silver at age 41, is a great example.
Colvin reminds us, perhaps more than anything else, that wise leaders study the big picture, discern where the world is headed, and steer their organizations in that direction. They prize human capital, and develop their employees by giving them the tools they need to excel.