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If you're interested in more analysis of 'talent', read this: http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_colvin.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn

by kul 18y ago

If you're interested in more analysis of 'talent', read this: http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_colvin.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/21/magazines/fortune/talent_col... "Why talent is overrated It is mid-1978, and we are inside the giant Procter & Gamble headquarters in Cincinnati, looking into a cubicle shared by a pair of 22-year-old men, fresh out of college. Their assignment is to sell Duncan Hines brownie mix, but they spend a lot of their time just rewriting memos. They are clearly smart - one has just graduated from Harvard, the other from Dartmouth - but that doesn't distinguish them from a slew of other new hires at P&G. What does distinguish them from many of the young go-getters the company takes on each year is that neither man is particularly filled with ambition. Neither has any kind of career plan. Every afternoon they play waste-bin basketball with wadded-up memos. One of them later recalls, "We were voted the two guys probably least likely to succeed." These two young men are of interest to us now for only one reason: They are Jeffrey Immelt and Steven Ballmer, who before age 50 would become CEOs of two of the world's most valuable corporations, General Electric (GE, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500). "

yters 18y ago
I'm not getting the argument for talent being overrated. Two bright slackers become much more successful than all their driven, but less bright, co workers?
- vixen99 18y ago
  Is it an argument? Isn't it more an observation to which many can attest? Musical ability (for instance) is one area where it's completely clear cut. Even if you fingered fugues on the piano reaching out from your cot at age 18 months, you'll never get very far in the extraordinarily demanding world of classical music unless you're prepared to work like a dog. Ask Evgeny Kissin, one of the most prodigiously talented pianists alive today.
- electromagnetic 18y ago
  Who cares if two slackers succeed? The whole argument is that talent is inherently pointless. I wasn't a talented writer as a child, hell my 3rd grade teacher told my parents I might be dyslexic and I'd need to take special needs classes until I graduate. Before the end of the summer after I graduated I got a job as a journalist, and at the same time my friends who in 3rd grade were supposedly phenomenally talented in English were going to take a 2 year introduction to English at university and then a 5 year journalism course. I wasn't born with an uncanny writing talent, I was thought to be retarded but I liked telling stories. So I spent a lot of my childhood from 13 years old, when I realized that I wanted to write books for a living, practicing writing. I read huge amounts of books to learn how different people write and taught myself. At 17 (I'm from the UK I graduated at 16) the editor was telling me I was the most talented writer they had. I surprised him one day, he sent me an email at around 6 saying one review I did wasn't how they wanted it (which was the reason I left, the product I reviewed sucked ass but because it came from a big company we couldn't offend them) so he said it needed changing. An hour later I emailed him back with the entire thing rewritten the score from a 1 to a 8. For everyone who doesn't know the review game; for example a video game review, if it takes 10 hours to play the game it will probably take you around 20 hours to review and edit it, so getting an essentially new review in an hour was amazing to him. The reason why I could do a review in an hour that would take anyone else a day to get back. Well because I'm driven. I'm sure there were more talented people on the staff, but that doesn't mean shit when I can consistently out perform someone 10:1. So yes being talented will help you, but if you're a slacker you're not going anywhere to begin with.
  - LPTS 18y ago
    Wrong. Slacking is great. You got a brain? Why not use it to figure out how not to work. Work is for people who don't know how to get everything they want without working. Slacking is surfing the path of least resistance and riding it to build up incredible momentum. One game to play with the few waking hours you have to live is to work hard to get what you want. I'd much rather not work hard and get what I want anyways. Relax, the structure of the universe will catch you if you do what you want and don't work.
- yters 18y ago
  Both of you make very good points. I'm merely saying the example I responded to seems to support the opposite.
13ren 18y ago
Great article, I refer to it often, especially points 6, 7 and 8. However, I find the example of Steve Ballmer... uninspiring. It seems more like the luck of knowing Bill Gates, and he gets to oversea Microsoft's demise.

by kul 18y ago

yters 18y ago

I'm not getting the argument for talent being overrated. Two bright slackers become much more successful than all their driven, but less bright, co workers?

vixen99 18y ago
Is it an argument? Isn't it more an observation to which many can attest? Musical ability (for instance) is one area where it's completely clear cut. Even if you fingered fugues on the piano reaching out from your cot at age 18 months, you'll never get very far in the extraordinarily demanding world of classical music unless you're prepared to work like a dog. Ask Evgeny Kissin, one of the most prodigiously talented pianists alive today.
electromagnetic 18y ago
Who cares if two slackers succeed? The whole argument is that talent is inherently pointless. I wasn't a talented writer as a child, hell my 3rd grade teacher told my parents I might be dyslexic and I'd need to take special needs classes until I graduate. Before the end of the summer after I graduated I got a job as a journalist, and at the same time my friends who in 3rd grade were supposedly phenomenally talented in English were going to take a 2 year introduction to English at university and then a 5 year journalism course. I wasn't born with an uncanny writing talent, I was thought to be retarded but I liked telling stories. So I spent a lot of my childhood from 13 years old, when I realized that I wanted to write books for a living, practicing writing. I read huge amounts of books to learn how different people write and taught myself. At 17 (I'm from the UK I graduated at 16) the editor was telling me I was the most talented writer they had. I surprised him one day, he sent me an email at around 6 saying one review I did wasn't how they wanted it (which was the reason I left, the product I reviewed sucked ass but because it came from a big company we couldn't offend them) so he said it needed changing. An hour later I emailed him back with the entire thing rewritten the score from a 1 to a 8. For everyone who doesn't know the review game; for example a video game review, if it takes 10 hours to play the game it will probably take you around 20 hours to review and edit it, so getting an essentially new review in an hour was amazing to him. The reason why I could do a review in an hour that would take anyone else a day to get back. Well because I'm driven. I'm sure there were more talented people on the staff, but that doesn't mean shit when I can consistently out perform someone 10:1. So yes being talented will help you, but if you're a slacker you're not going anywhere to begin with.
- LPTS 18y ago
  Wrong. Slacking is great. You got a brain? Why not use it to figure out how not to work. Work is for people who don't know how to get everything they want without working. Slacking is surfing the path of least resistance and riding it to build up incredible momentum. One game to play with the few waking hours you have to live is to work hard to get what you want. I'd much rather not work hard and get what I want anyways. Relax, the structure of the universe will catch you if you do what you want and don't work.
yters 18y ago
Both of you make very good points. I'm merely saying the example I responded to seems to support the opposite.

13ren 18y ago

Great article, I refer to it often, especially points 6, 7 and 8. However, I find the example of Steve Ballmer... uninspiring. It seems more like the luck of knowing Bill Gates, and he gets to oversea Microsoft's demise.