Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else

It was actually an article he wrote in Fortune magazine on the topic of great performance that prompted the author to write this book. His article got a very enthusiastic reception, and some readers even told him they'd read the article aloud to their kids.

So, which adults should read this book?

Talent is Overrated will appeal to people who want to be more successful, but who feel they've been held back because they lack a specific talent. The author rejects this notion, and says success depends on your own efforts – not on an innate ability you either were, or were not, born with. The book offers to change the way you think about your career, and motivate you to achieve greater things through your own efforts – not because of some innate ability.

So, stay tuned if you want to know why Mozart was not a child genius; why, when we say, "practice makes perfect," we are usually missing the point; and which myth about creativity is most likely to stop us from improving our performance.

The book is divided into eleven chapters. The first four introduce the author's ideas about what really makes people successful, if talent is indeed overrated. The next four introduce the author's theory about the key to outstanding performance – what he calls Deliberate Practice – and how to apply it. And the last three chapters challenge some myths about creativity.

The first chapter, called The Mystery, begins with a scene set in the late nineteen-seventies, inside the offices of the consumer-goods company Procter and Gamble. Here, the author highlights two college graduates who differ from their peers – not in their outstanding talents or charisma, as we might expect, but because they're not very ambitious, and have no career goals.

It turns out these two unmotivated men, twenty-five years later, became chief executives of two major corporations – General Electric and Microsoft. One was Jeffrey Immelt, and the other Steve Ballmer. They recall that in their first jobs they were thought of as the least likely to succeed.

This introduction sets the tone for the book's consistent tactic, of flying in the face of conventional wisdom to gain our attention. It points out that things may not turn out the way we expect, and things are often not what they appear to be. The mystery the author sets up is this – if innate talent doesn't lead to peak corporate achievement, then what does?

The author then asks us to wonder why some people do things well, but don't achieve greatness. He suggests "this is a mystery so commonplace that we scarcely notice it." But in his view, we should be paying attention to this anomaly, because it's a crucial factor in whether organizations succeed or fail.

Some might find this approach a little heavy handed. But the author goes on playing devil's advocate, stating that research shows most people not only fail to become outstandingly successful at what they do, but many don't actually improve at all.

There's a term for this in management: "the experience trap," when more experienced managers don't produce better outcomes. Some even get worse the more experienced they become. The point the author's making is this: hard work is not necessarily a surefire route to success.

The next myth he sets out to dispel is that of innate gifts. Some people may believe that truly outstanding performers were born with a divine talent they discovered early in life. The author makes a wry comment that this view helps reconcile people to their own less-than-superhuman accomplishments. In other words, this belief in innate talent is an excuse for mediocrity.

You may find it strange that the author doesn't mention the importance of great role models, and how we should take inspiration from high achievers. He seems to be testing our assumptions here, and the reason why becomes clear later.

He wants to jolt us out of our ordinary perceptions and beliefs, with the aim of helping us receive his ideas with a more open mind. From here until the end of Chapter Three, the author gives us a series of entertaining examples to challenge our beliefs. This section also introduces his concept of "deliberate practice" as the key to greatness.

Most readers will probably enjoy the example of the composer Mozart, in Chapter Two. Mozart has been held up as an example of a child genius, so it's interesting to learn that his domineering father, Leopold, had a much more active role behind the scenes than is commonly known.

It turns out that Mozart's early compositions were not in his own handwriting, and that his father suddenly stopped composing when his son supposedly began. Mozart's early piano concertos don't contain original music, but were arrangements. And the claim that Mozart held whole pieces of music in his head before writing them down comes from a letter that was forged.

The author makes two points here. First, Mozart became Mozart by being worked hard by his father, and then by working himself incredibly hard. Second, humans have a tendency to enjoy magical and romantic explanations for why unusual things happen.

Perhaps the most useful comments in this section are the examples from the worlds of sport and music. The author argues that outstanding performers achieve so much because they train themselves more effectively than other people do.

Passionate teaching is another important factor in the success of high performers. Think of the golfer Tiger Woods' father. He loved to teach, and had little Tiger watch him hit balls into a net in his garage when Tiger was still in a high chair.

Talent is Overrated is an unusual book in its genre, as it doesn't present conclusions. It just sets up a thesis, disproves it, and then moves on. At times this is frustrating, and requires readers to keep an open mind.

In Chapter Three, the author probes the idea that memory might be as important in great performers as IQ. He tells a story about a man in a psychology experiment who had an unusual ability to remember a sequence of digits that had been read out to him.

He goes on to discuss different types of intelligence, and how they are measured. Then he dismisses intelligence as pretty much useless as a tool to assess how well someone will perform in sales, suggesting that memory might be much more important.

We learn a little about tricks to improve memory, and are challenged to consider if our own personalities are fixed or could change. The final conclusion is, again, that we can only conclude what the answer is NOT: Experience doesn't make people excel, nor does innate talent. Nor do general abilities like intelligence or memory.

In Chapter Four, called A Better Idea, the author scores a hit with football fans by using the example of US National Football League receiver Jerry Rice. He makes the point that excellence doesn't come from hard work itself. Rather, it comes from the right kind of hard work, which might be independent workouts or self-testing. In other words, people should design their practice to help their own needs. This theme will return later, as the author expands on his concept of Deliberate Practice.

Somewhat frustratingly, the author then presents a study on violinists that apparently contradicts the points he just made about the footballer. Before we despair of more fence-sitting, he comes up with a proposal: This contradiction arises because we don't have a clear definition of what practice is. When we say "practice makes perfect," we're usually missing the point. Too often, we think of practice as repetition, rather than working on things we're not good at.

Chapter Five, called What Deliberate Practice Is and Isn't, emphasizes that Deliberate Practice must be built around a design for improvement. This is why teachers are so important, as seen in the case of Mozart and Tiger Woods.

An example from business helps, with a theory developed at the University of Michigan. Three circles inside each other show a "comfort zone," which is the innermost circle. The next circle out is the learning zone. And the outside circle is the panic zone.

The author says that progress comes from carefully selecting activities in the learning zone, and then repeating them. He warns us that Deliberate Practice isn't fun, because we have to seek out and focus on what we're not good at.

Chapter Six probes how Deliberate Practice works, and refers to the famous business book Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, as a way of introducing the idea of fast reaction times. The author suggests that pushing practice beyond our normal capabilities helps improve our reaction speed. He says that this makes us better at looking ahead, which is useful in some sectors. For example, major oil companies look at supply and demand forecasts a hundred years ahead.

Skills that develop with Deliberate Practice include greater perception – and here we learn about Charles Revson of Revlon, who could see different shades of black. Deliberate Practice can also help you remember more, the author claims.

Chapter Seven, on Applying the Principles in our Lives, is warmly motivational, and starts with a story about Benjamin Franklin. But the next chapter, on Applying the Principles in Our Organizations, is perhaps more useful for readers looking for practical tips.

For example, we learn that nowadays, younger members of staff expect their employers to help make them better performers. They don't want to just do a job; they want to develop their skills while they're doing it. The author suggests that Deliberate Practice can be applied for just this purpose. Employees can grow by working on specific and targeted job assignments.

And companies can also apply the same principles of great performance to team development. The same elements that work for individuals all work for teams as well, says the author.

There is one problem though. The principles of Deliberate Practice will lead to employees being given assignments beyond their capacities, in order to push them, which means the company has to take a risk.

In Chapter Nine, Performing Great at Innovation, the author wants us to identify which of our deeply held beliefs are mistaken. One such belief is that creative achievements come suddenly, out of the blue – like Archimedes shouting "Eureka." The author tells us that this is never the case.

Examples to back this up are the invention of the airplane, cotton gin, the Internet, and the steam engine. All are variations on things that already existed. The author claims that the eureka myth discourages us from working at achieving our goals.

The next chapter, on performance in youth and age, serves as a morale booster for young and old. It mentions the value of apprenticeship systems as a way of bringing out the best in young people. And it encourages us with the news that top performers are extending their achievements into much higher ages.

The book's last chapter asks what is perhaps the most interesting question: "Where Does the Passion Come From?" It starts with the example of ice-skater Shizuka Arakawa's triumph in the 2006 Winter Olympics. She was a winner who worked thousands of times on jumps she couldn't do, unlike the "sub-elite" skaters who worked on the jumps they could do – so the author reports.

He chooses this as a metaphor for how achieving a great performance involves landing on your butt twenty thousand times. And then he asks why anyone would go through so much pain for a reward that is so remote.

Does motivation come from within – or from outside?

In exploring this question, the author notes that creative people and scientists tend to be focused on their tasks in a way that isn't egotistical. That is, they're unlikely to ask, "What will solving this problem do for me?"

An interesting suggestion comes from the work of a University of Chicago psychologist who discovered a mechanism he called "flow." Flow is when the challenge of the task perfectly absorbs the person tackling it. The person gets so involved that it seems to cost him or her no effort. The author uses this as a way to link inner motivation with the tough work of Deliberate Practice.

He goes on to look at scientists and mathematicians who get excited by new problems, suggesting that an intrinsic drive is always more powerful than an urge to make money.

To balance the discussion, the author gives two significant examples to show that external competition can also improve performance – the discovery of DNA and the invention of the telephone. Ultimately, though, he ends up concluding that extrinsic forces are not great motivators for most creative endeavors.

So, if motivation comes largely from the inside, the question is how? The author comes up with the interesting theory that instead of compulsive practice producing high ability, it is high ability that leads to compulsive practice.

It may be surprising that the book ends by asking us what we believe? We're warned that Deliberate Practice is a heavy investment that can exact a high price – such as marriages and friendships. So the question is: what would we give up to achieve our goals, and do we believe we have a choice? The author's very clear about one thing, at least: You have to believe that Deliberate Practice will get you to the top, to even have a chance at succeeding.

Talent is Overrated aims to show that if one person can be great, so can you. It reads like a motivational speech and some readers may well find it inspiring, although it perhaps lacks sufficient substance and structure at times.

It's valuable to clarify the differences between types of practice, and people on a mission to improve a particular skill or develop a specific technique, will find this book useful. But does it live up to its claim to reveal what really separates world-class performers from everybody else? You'll have to be the judge of that. At the very least, it gives it a good shot.

"Talent is Overrated," subtitled "What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else," is published in hardback by Penguin.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Click here to buy the book from Amazon.