'Talent Is Overrated' is food for thought

McClatchy-Tribune News Service (MCT) - "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else" by Geoff Colvin; Portfolio, 228 pages ($29.95)

If you, like most people, believe that Mozart and Tiger Woods entered this mortal realm in possession of some kind of special gift for doing what the former did so exceedingly well and the latter continues to do in such a dazzling fashion, you are not likely to be convinced otherwise by "Talent Is Overrated."

Ditto Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, Steve Ballmer, Jeff Immelt, and many other stellar performers in the worlds of business, the arts, sports and politics.

That does not mean, however, that Geoff Colvin, "Fortune" magazine's senior editor-at-large, does not make a strong case for the proposition that great performance is not necessarily tied to some God-given or genetically wired predisposition to do a certain thing better that most other people.

Colvin's argument calls to mind that apocryphal story about an encounter in Manhattan between a tourist and famous jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie. The tourist, the story goes, asked Gillespie how to get to Carnegie Hall, and Diz responded: "Practice, man, practice."

Citing an impressive body of research into the ingredients of great performance, Colvin arrives at the view that the key factor is "deliberate practice," not ordinary repetition but focused, passionate practice.

"Deliberate practice also is not what most of us do when we think we're practicing golf or the oboe or any of our other interests. Deliberate practice is hard. It hurts. But it works. More of it equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance," writes Colvin.

In the examples of Mozart and Tiger Woods, Colvin points out that both of them had great teachers and motivators: their fathers. Mozart's paternal parent was himself a composer of some note in his day and an even better music teacher. Similarly, Tiger Woods' father was a former high school football coach who took up golf in his middle years, developed a passion for the game, became a scratch golfer and passed on that passion to his precocious son.

Colvin cites numerous studies to back up his position that with solid instruction and inspirational mentoring, even people with modest amounts of readily perceived talent can be motivated to put in the requisite amount of deliberate practice.

Anyone who buys that might be interested in purchasing an abandoned bridge in Alaska.

Nevertheless, Colvin's insights and his research are useful, because it is evident that his real purpose is not to convince anyone to stop believing what they know in their gut to be true _ that some people are simply born gifted to do great things, while most people are born with lesser talents.

The book is really directed toward corporations. Its purpose is to challenge them to achieve great performance by establishing the kind of corporate culture that will motivate employees to put in the deliberate practice to enable them to elevate their performance out of the commonplace into the rare.

On the level of the individual, Colvin endeavors to make the case that it is crucial for a person to believe that he or she can achieve better or even great performance in a given profession or job through deliberate practice.

"But if you believe that your performance is forever limited by your lack of a specific innate gift, or by a lack of general abilities at a level that you think must be necessary, then there's no chance at all that you will do the work," writes Colvin.

Even if you can't buy into its main premise, "Talent Is Overrated," is a thought-provoking read that should not be underrated.

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(Cecil Johnson is a freelancer reviewer. He can be reached at linden35@swbell.net.)

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© 2008, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.