There is More to Organizational Success than Individual Talent

© 2003, Coert Visser

Isn’t it sometimes puzzling how a sports team of highly talented players can be defeated by a team of players who are considered by everyone as less talented? And don’t you sometimes wonder why a management team consisting of people with the highest qualifications seems to be constantly doing dumb things? This article challenges a wide-spread view on individual talent and its importance for organizational success and proposes an alternative view.


What is individual talent and how important is it?
The word talent is often used in two different ways and the difference is significant. The first way, the categorical way, is used to point out a category of people: ´John is a big talent´, ´ Maria is a high potential´. The second way, the analytical way, is used to point out specific capabilities of people: ´A great talent of Maria is convincing people´, ´John is very talented at speaking in front of an audience´. The categorical use of the word talent implicitly divides the world in talented people and less talented people. But making such a division is probably largely misplaced and harmful for organizations. After all, when can you really speak of potential or individual talent? And how important is it? These might seem to be rather easy-to-answer questions but the following four points demonstrate that it is quite hard to answer these questions unambiguously.

1. The Pygmalion-effect: expectations shape performance

In the nineteen sixties Harvard professor Robert Rosenthal executed several experiments in which teachers were informed that some of their students had an extraordinary talent while other students did not. Based on this information the teachers developed positive expectations of the first group of students and negative expectations of the latter group. What these teachers did not know was that the so-called highly talented students were randomly selected. In reality the two groups of students were equivalent with respect to their talents. Surprisingly however, as the experiments progressed differences in performance between the two groups started to emerge. The so-called high potentials did considerably better that the other students. As time went on these differences grew. These experiments show how large the effect of expectations of other peoples´ performance is on their actual performance and development (for more information, click here).

2. Talent is multidimensional

Often the suggestion is made that talent is a very clear and unambiguous construct. I want to propose however that the use of the word talent without mentioning to which performance domain you are referring is useless. In other words: there is no such thing as general talent. One person can have a strong analytical talent, another person a strong social talent. The next person has a strong creative talent and yet another has the talent excel at certain sports. People with talents in all of these domains are probably as scarce as snow in the summer. But people without any talent most likely are just as scarce. Thus, more useful than the question ´Is he talented?´ is the question 'Where lies his main talent and how can this be used and developed?' (An example of a theory that acknowledges the multidimensionality of talent is that of Howard Gardner).

3. Individual talent is not the only important thing…..

Apart from the question what individual talent is and who really has it and to what extent, there is the question how important individual talent is anyway. The importance of individual talent is most likely overrated in many organizations, nowadays. The fact is, individual performance is not only determined by talent (plus knowledge and skills), but also, and probably to a large degree, by the organizational system in which the individual operates (the processes, procedures, and the interactions between people). The quality of the relationships between people and the question of how individual talents of different people can be matched to each other, deserves at least as much attention as developing individual talent. Building a well-working organizational system is of the highest importance. It pays off to invest in building a work system that enables all people to use and develop their talents.

4. Focusing on ´superstars´ may degrade the majority of the people
It is probably much more fruitful to assume that anyone in the organization is a potential than it is to identify a small elite of superstars. Doing the latter can unintendedly be interpreted as an implicit degradation of the rest of the personnel. Viewing and treating all employees as potentials far more likely will lead to everyone feeling taken seriously and feeling challenged.

How to build a well-working organization system
How to build an effective organizational system that challenges all of its members is described in detail in Hidden Value, a book by Chales O'Reilly & Jeffrey Pfeffer. In this book the authors tell the story of eight extremely successful companies that manage to bring out the best in their people. Examples of these companies are: PSS World Medical, AES, Southwest Airlines, and SAS Institute. The stories are detailed descriptions of the company's backgrounds, strategies, systems and management practices. What these studies show is how these companies have achieved their success by aligning their values, strategies and people. This may be easy to understand but it is hard to do and keep on doing. It requires consistent articulation and implementation of the values and vision and a relentless attention to detail in ensuring that all policies and practices support the company's values. In order to be able to show this kind of consistency a real belief and commitment are needed and a willingness to persevere. High performing companies consciously turn a lot of the conventional management wisdom upside down. What they do is:

1. Focus more on building talents than on hiring them
Contrary to what many people now think, recruiting, selecting and retaining unique talent is NOT the primary source of competitive advantage. Notice how a company with excessive attention to individual talent, Enron, failed miserably. Although talent development is important, the examples of these extraordinary companies in Hidden Value show that it is much more important to build a culture and work system that enables all people to use their talents and develop their talents. A very nice byproduct of this will be that your company will also be better at attracting and retaining people.

2. Put values first instead of strategies
The conventional view puts competitive strategy on top and derives from that strategy what structure is needed, what competencies and behaviors are needed and so on. The companies described here work differently. Although they do have competitive strategies these are secondary to their set of guiding values and to the alignment of these values with their management practices. In other words: they have a values-based view of strategy. This values-first way of working is reflected in the following statement the extremely successful company AES made many years ago: “If the company perceives a conflict between these values and profits, the Company will try to adhere to its values – even though doing so might result in diminished profits or forgone opportunities.”

3. Focus more on trusting people than on controlling them
Many companies monitor, check and try to control employee behavior. The hidden value companies work differently. In the spirit of Douglas McGregor's classic management book The Human Side of Enterprise, they seem to understand that if you begin by designing systems to protect against the small, unmotivated minority, you end up alienating the motivated majority. So they put their people first by treating them respectfully, involving them and trusting them.

Choose your assumptions about people and organizations wisely
Lessons like the ones presented in this book can be found in several other well-researched books by for instance Jeffrey Pfeffer (The Human Equation), David Maister (Practise What You Preach) and Jim Collins (Good to Great). They demonstrate that the human factor is of critical importance to achieving organizational success but show that how this works goes against conventional wisdom.