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Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else | 
 enlarge | Author: Geoff Colvin
Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $15.64
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Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 100
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1
ISBN: 1591842247
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.9
EAN: 9781591842248
ASIN: 1591842247
Publication Date: October 16, 2008
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Product Description
Expanding on a landmark cover story in Fortune, a top journalist debunks the myths of exceptional performance.
One of the most popular Fortune articles in many years was a cover story called What It Takes to Be Great. Geoff Colvin offered new evidence that top performers in any field--from Tiger Woods and Winston Churchill to Warren Buffett and Jack Welch--are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness doesn t come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades.
And not just plain old hard work, like your grandmother might have advocated, but a very specific kind of work. The key is how you practice, how you analyze the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes, that enables you to achieve greatness.
Now Colvin has expanded his article with much more scientific background and real-world examples. He shows that the skills of business negotiating deals, evaluating financial statements, and all the rest obey the principles that lead to greatness, so that anyone can get better at them with the right kind of effort. Even the hardest decisions and interactions can be systematically improved.
This new mind-set, combined with Colvin s practical advice, will change the way you think about your job and career and will inspire you to achieve more in all you do.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
How Do They Get So Good? November 18, 2008
Daniel L. Marler (Oak Lawn, IL, USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Geoff Colvin deals with a fascinating and worthwhile subject: How do extraordinary, world-class performers get to be so good? This is an outstanding book!
The basic argument of the book is that high level skill is achieved primarily through tons and tons of hard work over a long period of time. (In other words, I'll have to write a lot more book reviews in order to start getting more people to find my reviews "helpful".) So, rather than innate skill or some kind of mysterious "giftedness" being the cause of exceptional performance, Colvin writes, "[t]he factor that seems to explain the most about great performance is something the researchers call deliberate practice." The concept of "deliberate practice"--which is a little bit more rigorous and demanding than what might be thought of as "practice" in the more general sense--is explained with some detail in the book.
In addition to disputing the idea of some kind of special giftedness, Colvin disputes the idea of high IQ or special innate ability for memory as explanations for superior ability and achievement. In fact, his chapter that deals with the development of memory, among those who require it in their field of endeavor, was very enlightening.
"Talent Is Overrated" deals with the study of peak performance in a broad range of fields of including the arts, science, business, chess, music, writing and sports and provides interesting stories and examples of the world class achievers in the various disciplines. This is helpful because it is interesting to see that the principles of great performance apply--at least in a basic sense--in a pretty general way to all fields of endeavor.
Leaders will be interested to note that Colvin explains the application of some of the key concepts of exceptional performance to organizations rather than just looking at the matter as it applies to individuals.
Because the bottom line of great performance is identified as years of "deliberate practice", Colvin states that the "deepest question about great performance" is this: "Where Does The Passion Come From?" It's a fantastic question and I'm glad that he dealt with the issue. Why do the world class performers submit to the long, exhausting, difficult, often painful work that is required to achieve their level of mastery? Is the motivation intrinsic or extrinsic, or a little of both? That is the subject of the last chapter of the book.
I find the message of "Talent Is Overrated" to be extremely encouraging and motivating because it convincingly reports that you do not have to blessed at birth in some super-human way in order to develop exceptional skill in your field--I'm already out of luck if that's the case. This means high-level performance is possible--with a lot of hard work--even for us mere mortals.
Dan Marler
Oak Lawn, IL
Talent Is Overrated, But for Many, Perseverance Is the Final Issue November 16, 2008
Dan Erwin (New Brighton, MN)
This book is written to challenge the notion that high performance is either about innate talent or hard work. Colvin makes it possible for business people (and other professionals) to think for themselves rather than listen to the parade of management experts, consultants and celebrity CEOs who claim that they have the final answer about productivity and human performance. This book will help you separate the nuggets from the nonsense.
Colvin knows the latest research on expertise and much of the new neuroscience. He also knows that the research supports his thesis that deliberate practice is what really separates top performers from everybody else.
Previous reviewers have assessed the major emphases of the book, and surfaced important matters to help readers decide whether they should buy this book. Based on my own long experience as a business coach, I want to emphasize the importance of the last chapter: "Where does the passion come from?" For years managers have asked me to assess the motivations of a particular employee to ascertain whether he or she is "motivated enough" or "highly motivated"--necessary characteristics for an important project that may be a key objective of an organization or a given manager. Colvin addresses that issue in a discussion never before seen in a business book.
In that last chapter, he emphasizes the necessity of intrinsic motivation, constructive feedback and extrinsic motivation, and the "multiplier effect." The multiplier effect refers to how the very small advantage gained in some field can spark a series of events that produce a far larger advantage. In other words, success in an endeavor inherently encourages you to work for still more success. And, in spite of the frustrations of deliberate practice, that success makes the work of digging still deeper into a competency enjoyable.
This is a book that may not sell easily. It goes against the grain too much, and many of us understand the difficulty of arguing against conventional wisdom. As one respondent put it to me in a discussion about the wrongheadedness of innate intelligence, "I can't believe that. It goes against everything I've ever thought or learned. I simply reject the notion." He tuned out and turned off.
It will be a sad day if these ideas are rejected by the great unwashed.
This is an important book dealing with a subject that is just as necessary for families and the educational system as it is to businesss.
Debunks the talent myth November 13, 2008
Alexander Wheeler (Lancaster, CA)
This is a great book that exposes in great detail the "talent myth" and the notion that all great achievers have superior innate intelligence. The author explores the careers of many sports, music and business greats, and concludes that these high achievers' success results from "deliberate practice," which is the studied repetition and improvement of those things in your field that you're NOT good at.
Experts and superior performers also immerse themselves totally in their "domain," which gives them a huge edge in interpreting new information. Studies show once someone has built up this deep pool of knowledge in their domain, they don't loose it. You'll get older and mental acuity will decline in every area but your domain.
To have this drive to deliberately practice and immerse yourself in your field to become truly great, which is a decade-long commitment to even get in the running, you must "know where you want to go." You'll never have this dedication if you're not dead set on your goals.
Highly recommended. Should be read with Gladwell's 2002 article "The Talent Myth," and Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
Fascinating! November 10, 2008
Larry E. Seals
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is fascinating in the respect that it is simple, but so very true. When you read it, what you realize is that to become great at anything, and I do mean anything, it requires a certain persona that most of us just don't have. Also, after I had completed the book, there was this certain something that I had that I felt no one else had--a certain knowledge that I could be great at anything I wanted to become great at--it is a must read book for anyone that wants to become truly great at whatever.
Do you believe you could be a World-Class Performer? November 9, 2008
Robert J. Manard Jr. (Rochester, NY)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Good news...Geoff Colvin provides evidence that great performance is not reserved for a pre-ordained few. Bad news...It is available to you and everyone...if you are willing to pay the price.
"What do you really believe? Do you believe you have a choice in the matter? Do you believe if you do the work, properly designed with intense focus for hours a day and years on end, your performance will grow dramatically better and eventually reach the highest levels?"
One of the fundamental questions to ask yourself is: What do I really, deeply want? This question is crucial, because deliberate practice requires a substantial investment. Colvin suggests that deliberate practice contains the following components:
It is designed specifically to improve performance
It can be repeated a lot
Feedback on results is continuously available
It is highly demanding mentally
It isn't much fun
Everyone who has achieved exceptional performance has faced tremendous challenges...there are no exceptions. Top performers make knowledge a direct objective and set goals to be an expert in their chosen field. Colvin suggest that the 10 year rule...10 years of consistent, deliberate effort... is required to be outstanding in your field.
The book provides a snapshot of the preparation time for: Jerry Rice, Tiger Woods, Mozart, world-class violinists and chess players to give you a sense for the commitment of these performers. Clearly, the time they invest is extraordinary and not for the faint of heart. Perhaps, it is easy for us to dismiss their greatness with genetic predisposition, yet their effort transcends that notion.
Their investment of time and effort allows them to develop deep domain knowledge in their fields which allows them to make finer distinctions. Their knowledge becomes integrated and connected to higher level principles, thus they know more from seeing less.
Now we have some additional evidence for what it takes to perform at the higher levels, so now we cannot easily excuse our life away...we just have to make a decision to claim our destiny!
As you accept that Talent is Overrated...the questions for you are:
What beliefs have guided your life to the present moment?
Is this what you want to achieve?
What beliefs do you need to perform at your desired level?
What do you really, really, really want?
When will you commit to taking action now?
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