Book Review: Talent is Overrated is overrated and overpriced
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Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin is a book that makes some important points about personal development. It is also one of the most overrated books of this type in a long time. And for most people it's likely to be an overpriced way to get same information. That takes some explaining.
Let's take care of the excellent part first. Geoff Colvin makes three important points that need to be made today. Not only that, he supports his points with both research and examples.
Talent is overrated as the title suggests. If you believe that it's a difference in talent that carves out the space between top performers in a field and the rest of the pack, you're probably wrong.
That's not to say that talent doesn't matter. If you want to make it to the NHL or Carnegie Hall or the C-suite you will need some talent. But all you need is enough.
What you will need is a lot of time working on your skills. Colvin trots out the magic 10,000 hour figure originally postulated by Herbert Simon. In other words, success takes hard work.
But not just any hard work. You'll get the best results if you consciously pursue excellence by practicing things that will make you better. Colvin says that the way to do that is something called "deliberate practice."
Here's where things get messy. Colvin spends the first sixty pages of the book saying things like "deliberate practice isn't what we think" and "deliberate practice is not what most of us mean by practice." And that illustrates one of the main problems with this book.
The book grew out of an article Colvin wrote in Fortune in 2006. He wrote another article when this book was published. Either is likely to give you as much as you need or want about deliberate practice.
If you want a bit more, you can go to the source. The July-August 2007 issue of the Harvard Business Review carried an article titled "The Making of an Expert." One of the co-authors of that was K. Anders Ericsson, a psychology professor at Florida State University. He's the authority Colvin cites often and he's been writing about "deliberate practice" for at least fifteen years.
My suggestion is that you read the Fortune articles first. If you think you need to know more, check out the book by thumbing through it at your local bookstore or using the Inside the Book feature on Amazon. You can also download the HBR article for $6.50.
My problem with this book is that there is both too much and too little. There is too much padding, trying to pump up an article into a book. There is too much mental foreplay, promising the reader that as soon as we get to the serious stuff on deliberate practice we'll all be so happy.
But, there is also too little. There's too little attention paid to other factors that influence success like coaching, family support, developmental assignments, and luck. There's virtually no discussion of the fact that for leadership and other business skill areas, learning and doing intertwine.
Talent Is Overrated might be the book for you. Or, it might not. But don't buy the book until you're sure.
Categories: Development,Book Review,Personal Development,Books
Wally, how does someone get 10000 hours of dedicated practice, anyway? I'm in IT, where anyone who stays in the same field for five years is history. Some software developers can move on to the next rev or a similar language and be more or less in the same area, but they're very replaceable with outsourced workers. Most of us have moved far afield from where we began, often into areas we couldn't have imagined 10000 experience-hours ago. It's not job-hopping (I've had two employers in 26 years) but the flexibility required to stay abreast of the business and technology. How can anyone sit still for so long in today's world?
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Hi Kathy. Think of it as 10000 hours of focused skill development. Let me share an example from a coaching client. He's in IT like you. He's always got what he calls an "educational project" going on. That means that he's working on learning a specific thing. Right now, it's getting familiar with Linux, which he defines as a weak area for him. He tries to put in 20 hours a week on his education. At that rate, it will take him 10 years plus a little to get 10000 hours of focused development.
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Wally,
This is an even-handed review with the kind of take-aways that people actually need.
And, Kathy's question is certainly a legitimate one. This is, in part, why the notion of surface "Talent" is vastly misunderstood and overrated.
First. 10,000 hours looms as an imposing figure. If a talented person wants to become an expert--and see the talent brought to fruition--then that person will put in the time to hone the talent.
Second. I don't want to go too far down this road, but there is a "youth culture' and an "I want it now" element in the whole talent thing. Just because you have good chops and a lot of potential doesn't mean you'll realize it without the 10,000 hours.
Third. To offset the second somewhat, it's important to realize that "young" stars--whether in business, music, or sports--are working at their craft for hours each day, nights, and weekends, in ways that the public never sees.
What's important is to get a grip on your genuine area of giftedness--then do what it takes, 10,000 hours or not, to bring yourself to "star" level.
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Thanks for those comments, Steve. The 10000 hour bar is pretty high for most people. Actually, the first way I ever saw this described was by Howard Gardner who used the ten year figure, not a number of hours. Ericsson actually uses 10000 to 20000 hours which is more daunting.
I think the most important thing to take away from this are that it takes a lot of hard and concentrated work to become a world-class anything. Many people don't want to become world-class, they just want to get better. And even Tiger Woods doesn't want to become world class in every part of his life. I doubt that he's applying deliberate practice to becoming a better cook or driver, for example
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Terrific summary.
I've just finished the book, before seeing your review. And a very disappointing book.
Sure he makes a couple of good points and - yes - far too too much padding. Also several contradictions - he can't seem to make up his mind about deep-seated talents versus the impact of structured development.
Needs a better conceptual structure to make sense of the interaction between different talent strengths, experience and different development responses.
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Thanks for adding your voice to the discussion. There's a danger to read this as "talent doesn't matter."
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Sounds like an interesting book. I wonder about the too much and too little issue--but I guess I will have to read it myself to decide if I agree! Thanks.
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I can agree with some of this critic’s views, but I valued his opinion a lot less when I read the following sentence:
“There's too little attention paid to other factors that influence success like coaching, family support, developmental assignments, and luck.”
Luck?
What does LUCK have to do with anything? And, by putting it in as a FACTOR, this critic presents himself as a purveyor of the idea of it.
As for “too little attention paid to other factors,…” and telling us to simply read the articles from Fortune,…
Well, I’ve read the book, and it definitely gives more examples, details and insights than the articles.
No, the book is not the end-all on the subject, but what I like about it is, it presents enough information to bring down mythical barriers to success attributable to the idea of 'talent'. For example, how many people have not given their all to some pursuit, feeling they just might not have the gift or ‘talent’ for it, when they might have actually all they really needed? This book helps to remedy that situation by giving much evidence that so-called ‘talent’ may just be a certain balance of innate potential that exists in most if not all of us, along with other malleable factors, e.g., support, encouragement, desire, passion, love, vision, emotional intelligence, belief, confidence, etc.
Also, btw, the book DID give me at least enough about ‘deliberate practice’ to understand why some of my efforts fell short of what I desired, and other effort of mine was more effective.
Also, btw, the book DID go into some detail about “learning and doing intertwined,” at least for me, as I recognized a patterned approach I utilize in my work, that makes me more effective than others, that the author more than just mentioned. Could he have said more? Of course, but then it’d be a bigger book, and might have strayed too far from its original purpose.
Phil
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Thanks for coming by and commenting, Phil. I'm glad you got value from the book.
I'll have to push back at you some on the issue of luck, though. It plays a part in every successful life I've witnessed or studied.
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