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

by Geoff Colvin

Talent is Overrated dispels the myth that some people are born with natural talent for things like playing piano or playing chess. The reality is that years of deliberate practice are required for best-in-the-world performance. Overall, this is a good book and I largely agree with Geoffrey Colvin’s major points.

Colvin does a solid job of justifying his position, explaining deliberate practice, and giving a few examples outside of sports and music. He also makes an interesting point that there is an ever increasing expectation of performance that makes understanding talent critical.

As for opportunities to improve, Colvin spends too much time talking about studies having found no gene for playing piano. Of course they haven’t. There may be a combination of genes impacting fine motor skills, hearing, and timing that allow a person to play piano better, but it doesn’t make sense to discuss a single piano gene or chess gene or a single gene for pretty much any other complex, modern activity.

The other callout is that Colvin argues for the need to develop absolute best-in-the-world talent to be competitive in a global economy and only discusses examples of historically great talent. Then, in the closing chapter, he points out that “oh, by the way, many world class performers are kind of weird and have given up the rest of their life for their achievement.” So we better train ourselves and our kids to be the very best in the world, but we have to sacrifice having a life to do it. I understand why Colvin focuses on the historic examples of the best talent in the world – those are the people that others say must be born with a natural gift and it makes it easier for Colvin to make the case for deliberate practice. That said, most organizations are not interested in developing an entire employee base of absolute best-in-the-world performers and most employees are not interested in sacrificing their lives and, frankly, haven’t been positioned from a young enough age to reach that level. Helping people to understand what it takes to be in the top 10% of global talent might be more realistic and useful.

A final comment is that more work is needed on applying deliberate practice to skills used in the business world. Colvin gives some examples and pushes hard for the use of coaches, but more is needed to turn these ideas into action for most of what most people do at work. Of course, a final comment is that in the dynamic and unstructured “real world” it may be difficult to prove that one person is really better than another – rather than just being lucky – and therefore hard to know how to achieve that. Read “The Drunkard’s Walk” by Leonard Mlodinow for more on that.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

by Susan Cain

Outstanding book for both introverts and extroverts that gives insights as to how we can create more powerful teams by understanding the strengths and weaknesses of all the members.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

by Patrick Lencioni

I agree with the many readers who find this book a good reminder of basic but important dysfunctions that cause teams to operate less effectively:

1) Absence of trust
2) Fear of conflict
3) Lack of commitment
4) Avoidance of accountability
5) Inattention to results

The book does a good job of demonstrating how these effects can be masked by excuses such as not hurting teammates’ feelings. I personally found the parable style a little tedious, but many others say it is easy to read. It is definitely worth the effort.

Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries
by Peter Sims

People often think of creativity as a big bang event in which a creative genius spews out a great new idea. Peter Sims suggests that is not usually the way creativity works and certainly is not a basis on which you can design a creative organization or repeatable creative process. Instead, making many small bets and investing more in those that take off – perhaps in unexpected directions – is a way to more consistently produce creative results. Experimentation sounds clinical and antithetical to creativity, but the opposite is true. Another important point is that breakthrough ideas are often discovered through serendipity which is another side of the argument to let a team try new ideas – even some you may not initially agree with.

Sims gives enough examples from comedians to software companies that the reader will walk away with specific ideas for his own scenario

Brain Bugs: How the Brain’s Flaws Shape Our Lives

by Dean Buonomano

Dean Buonomano discusses an important and interesting topic – the science behind how the brain works and how it sometimes comes to surprising or inconsistent conclusions. While there is good content, there is also speculation and bias which take away from the quality and credibility of the book overall.

I applaud the effort to educate people on the subtle and sometimes important ways that humans can come to inconsistent conclusions. There is sound and compelling scientific evidence that humans are much less logical than we would like to think and that our conclusions are heavily influenced by context. Being aware of those issues can help us to slow down and try to make decisions we will be happier with in the long-term.

His choice of the word “bugs” is funny and probably right for marketing purposes, but can guide the reader down a subtly wrong path. Buonomano assumes a brain shaped by natural selection, but then speaks as if it were designed to produce some right answer. Natural selection suggests the brain was selected for coming up with solutions that are more helpful than hurtful to reproduction. A “statistically better than the alternative” design means that wrong answers are a “feature” rather than a bug. This is true in the same sense that sickle cell anemia is not a bug, but a feature of an overall design that saved more people than it killed. This point comes into play where Buonomano says that “bugs” mean we were designed for a different environment – the answers were right before but wrong now. That is not necessarily true – the brain has always been guilty of giving answers that were sometimes inconsistent or got people killed. We should be thoughtful as we make changes – our decision making process was and is sometimes wrong, but it has been more often right.

Buonomano seems to have little respect for values that differ from his own or consideration for the possibility that other value systems could be a logical basis for decisions. He questions how anyone could possibly have thought Dan Quayle (who had been a Representative, Senator, and Vice President) was qualified to run for President. I wonder what the counter point is – perhaps Barrack Obama as a first-term Senator? [DISCLAIMER - I didn't support either Quayle or Obama but I respect that either of them could be a reasonable choice depending on one's values]. It is more troublesome that Buonomano suggests religion is a brain bug, but then goes on to consistently assume there is a “right” answer without specifying what higher standard he is applying. He suggests that government take a more planned role in shaping peoples’ decisions by setting the context in which those decisions are made. Before I agree with anyone so sure there is one right answer and so ready to manipulate other people to come to his “right” answer, I want to understand the value system on which he is making decisions. That just seems… logical.

Given the bias and lack of respect for other perspectives, I can’t recommend this book. I will keep looking for others, but Blink by Malcolm Gladwell does a better job of covering some of the same material.

Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck

Ram Charan is one of my favorite authors and speakers. He has an amazing ability to bring complex down to the basic principles. Some reviewers comment “that is Business 101″ but I suspect more businesses fail because basic mistakes than fail because of miscalculations in rocket science. In any event, I greatly enjoyed this book by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy.

A key point is that a system is designed to produce some result, whether that design was conscious or not. If the system consistently produces errors, the system is designed wrong and it is the leader’s job, rather than a technician’s, to fix it. To diagnose the problem and correct it, the leader must be in the details. The leader’s job is to get the people, strategy, and operation connected in a system that produces results.

Simple but powerful

The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

by Leonard Mlodinow

The Drunkard’s Walk is a wonderful blend of statistics, psychology, business, history, and everyday life. Mlodinow’s slightly dry sense of humor makes the book fun and easy to read.

He gives powerful examples of subtle, yet critically important, errors in the way statistics are used in law, medicine, investing, and sports. Another theme is that many extraordinary performances are not unbelievable long shots but the inevitable result of a large number of people trying for a long time. Talent is an important factor – Tiger Woods is much more likely to get a hole in one than I am – but among professional golfers, holes in one likely follow a random distribution.

Mlodinow points out that compensation for investment analysts and film industry executives is based on the premise that winners can be picked despite repeated demonstrations that actual performance is random. Most businesses are afraid to take a chance on a new approach, but significant savings are possible with a new compensation model that sacrifices nothing in results.

His advice for winning in a world heavily influenced by random factors? More “at bats”. Just keep trying

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
by Simon Sinek

By starting with the reason he/she is working toward a goal, a leader engages intrinsic motivation, which is likely to produce greater resiliency and creativity in followers. That important point is often forgotten in the rush to begin a new endeavor, so a reminder is a good thing.

I listened to the audio book and the recording was a bit sloppy. There were a few places where a passage was played twice. Unfortunately, the sloppiness went beyond the recording. Simon Sinek made the point that overturning the belief that the world was flat opened up a whole world of possibilities. It is a myth that spread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that earlier people believed the earth was flat. While that does not invalidate the underlying point, it is one illustration of a problem throughout the book – the author tries to engage science but without doing enough research. Daniel Pink’s book Drive and Nicholas Carr’s book The Shallows are examples of well researched books – Start with Why falls short.

The underlying point is important and Simon Sinek gives a few good examples, but I will look for a another book on the topic

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

by Daniel H. Pink

This is a very good book by Daniel Pink about motivation – what works, what doesn’t, and how our effort to motivate others can sometimes backfire. His argument is that there is a dramatic disconnect between the science of motivations/incentives and current business practices. We don’t leverage intrinsic motivation (autonomy, mastery, and purpose) at work, especially for right-brain, creative work that is becoming more common in the US. His basic points are well supported with science, a few examples from the business world, and some practical ideas for how to implement them.

Since I listened to the audio book, I sent an email to Daniel Pink asking if he could send a link with some of the lists and exercises. He replied the same day, graciously sending what I requested and more. He is passionate about helping others to understand human motivation, and that passion comes through in the quality of his book.

For a preview of his key points, I also recommend watching his talk on TED: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

As with “A Whole New Mind”, I think he over estimates the degree of change most people will experience at work between the next 10 years and the last 50 – much of what most people do will still be relatively routine. That being the case, one concern is that over enthusiastic managers may try to apply Dan’s ideas where they are not the best fit. Another is that significant thought and creativity will be required to apply his ideas in many common business situations. This doesn’t mean his fundamental points are wrong – in fact, I agree with him – just that his ideas will take time to move into common practice.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Daniel H. Pink

I listened to the audio book and it worked great in that format because it is well organized and the author keeps the listener updated on the overall structure throughout. Dan Pink was the reader which adds a nice sense of connection and he did a wonderful job.

While he gives a balanced perspective – it is a WHOLE new mind that he recommends, after all – it is still tempting to say that he overplays the argument for right-brain focus in the new millenium. Also, the book was published in early 2006 – I wonder if he would moderate the focus on affluence and offshoring as factors driving the change after the last few years.

That said, I agree with his conclusions, even if I wouldn’t take them quite as far or as fast as he does. Our country and our schools would be well served to develop whole minds.