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The Talent Fallacy

It’s March Madness, the greatest sporting event on earth! Over the course of the next few weeks buzzer beaters will break hearts and keep dreams alive, tiny mid-majors will compete against tradition-rich blue bloods, and players we’ve never heard of will out-perform guaranteed lottery picks. 

It’s entertaining, infuriating, and exhilarating all at the same time.
It never fails to deliver.

Of course, most people love it the most for the upsets. Highly rated teams from big conferences with enormous fan bases being knocked out of the tournament by a team whose location is a mystery and  look like they finished second at the local YMCA winter men’s league. These matchups provide the lifeblood of the entire tournament. 

The question is, why do the upsets happen? 
The larger schools almost always have teams with more talent - higher recruits, bigger athletes, more skilled basketball players … so, why do they lose? How can these smaller schools with lower rated recruits, smaller players, with less skill beat the goliaths?

There are many reasons it happens, but it all boils down to one key point that coaches, and business leaders, miss on over and over and over:

Talent is overrated.

Why Should We Care?
We do the same thing in the ‘real’ world. 
When hiring, or putting teams together, our focus is always on finding the most talented candidates. I mean, if the purpose of your resume isn’t to highlight your talents, then what is it? Of course, there is a certain level of competency required to fill any role on a team, but once that base level is met virtually everything else that leads to success is unrelated to talent. 

The mindset around talent says more is always better when most of the time, enough is usually best.

While maximizing talent remains at the top of most employer’s wish lists, the best leaders understand the idea of a talent threshold - more is not always better. And, once that threshold is met, they turn their attention to critical behaviors that allow individuals to function at maximum capacity within a team. Soft skills like humility and emotional IQ are easy victims of this relentless quest for talent. 

Partially because they’re harder to see and partially because they simply are not valued enough.

REAL TALK - Action Steps
When your team is struggling to reach its goals, the answer is typically not a lack of talent. Yet, insufficient talent is the most common scapegoat for underperformance. Likewise, when your team is performing at its best, the reason is rarely due solely to your talent. Nonetheless, a team’s success is almost always attributed simply to one thing: talent.

Here are a few characteristics that are every bit as deserving of credit as talent.
*Pat Lencioni’s The Ideal Team Player

• Humble 
  
  • Humility within a team provides a fertile foundation for talent. When choosing talent, we should be sure it is accompanied by an equal amount of humility. Talent without humility is cancerous to a team. The argument that humility should precede talent in a team setting is a fair one. Humility is infectious and allows any talent to shine its brightest.
    

• Hungry
  
  • Hunger within a team allows talent to grow. Stagnant talent becomes an invitation to complacency. Hunger is the fuel that drives any talent that we have. A person with a moderate level of talent but a high level of hunger is far better for a team than a person with a high level of talent and a moderate level of hunger. Complacency will cause the most talented team to crumble - it’s just a matter of when.
    

• Smart
  
  • Emotional IQ within a team multiplies talent. How we relate and interact with our teammates is one of the primary behaviors that allows talent to flourish. It should be prioritized accordingly. Without emotional IQ, talent is at best wasted; at worst it spawns jealousy and  unhealthy comparison. Being ‘smart’ allows you to draw out the best in others.
    

Contrary to the popular approach to team structure, talent alone is not king. Unless accompanied by a few other critical attributes, talent can be just as detrimental as it is beneficial. 

Checkout Surrender the Outcome on Amazon and order our new book The Score That Matters with Ryan Hawk & Brook Cupps. The latest blog from Blue Collar Grit can be found here!