What defines how successful we are? If you leave aside luck, which is a factor we can´t really explain or measure, there are originally two explanations why some people are more successful than others: talent and effort. 

I have always been a huge fan of the idea that hard work can beat any kind of talent. But after having done the research for this article, I slightly changed my mind. Talent has more influence on our success than I´ve ever believed. 

How much talent do we need to succeed? 

Talent concerns all abilities, skills, as well as expertise that determine what a person can do. Effort defines the degree to which a person deploys these talents. 

Talent can make people lazy since talented people need to rely less on real hard work to achieve the same goals. Effort helps people to compensate for lower levels of inborn talent. That´s why it is very helpful to be aware of one´s limitations. 

A team of stars is hard to handle 

Thinking about business, there are actually many people who assume that a 'team of stars' is especially hard to manage. We do see that with important soccer players teams sometimes. There is used to be a certain lack of synergy in collectives of 'expensive prima donnas'. 

But few talented players can make a huge difference

There is this famous formula we all know according to which 20% of individuals (or less) tend to account for 80% of the whole performance. 

Thus these few talented and vital people could be seen as the the main driver of a company’s success. 

20% talents / 80% performance

Talent can be measured and predicted

The science of talent identification is already about 100 years old. There have been developed a lot of reliable and legally defensible methods for identifying potential and also predicting future displays of talent.   

According to these methods and their results there are consistent personality attributes associated with top performers in all areas and industries. 

Talented people tend to have higher levels of ability, likability and drive. 

Ability also inclueds 'learnability' - the capacity of a person to learn new things, which is a function mainly defined by IQ and curiosity. Likability has very much to do with emotional intelligence, so it´s a soft skill describing which has to do with the capacity to interact. Drive is the level of ambition, the desire of a person to compete and also the ability to stay dissatisfied with one’s achievements. 

Motivation is a talent 

Although motivation is sometimes celebrated as a 'talent leveler' - supposed to be something that can be trained and enhanced at will - it is quite important to know that it has a strong dispositional and genetic basis. 

As an example who might consider that so called stable personality characteristics (extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness) account for about 50% of the measurable part in motivation. That means that we are able to predict any observable difference in people’s motivation from a very early age. 

Considering that motivation is partly inborn, it´s not that easy to change the level of ambition in a person. 

The remaining 50% of variability is due to environmental factors. This is why it could be extremely complicated to transform a lazy and unambitious individual into an intense and competitive person, as well as it would be hard to slow down someone’s ambition when they are naturally driven. 

And still: 

Combining talent and hard work 

So maybe we could agree on the assumption that talent is never enough. In of the cases hard work leads talent in the long run since just possessing talent doesn’t do anything. 

We need to apply a certain talent in a right way in whatever we do and applying our talents always requires us to work hard on our goals. 

Some were born very talented and score good grades. But then there are people who aren´t originally 'genius' but they have managed to get A’s in every field. That would be called the result of effort. 

I think we should strive to make a conscious effort to use our talent and effort in a systematic manner to get the perfect results.  

I go with Einstein here: 

I hope you enjoyed the read and would be happy to get your comments on it.

Cheers,
Marly - 

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