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 divide...