Business Insight Zone

This is what I get for waiting to do a job “the right way.” For months now I’ve been meaning to write a review of Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. It’s a good book, albeit with flaws, that has lots of important ideas about “deliberate practice.” But the review I have in mind would probably rival my Russian-novel-esque treatment of Edward Hallowell’s CrazyBusy, and who has the time for that?

So, for now here are pointers to three items on Talent is Overrated that I’ve found useful:

1. You don’t get better at writing essays by writing more essays. In this post, G. Brett Miller draws on his U.S. Army experience to confirm Colvin’s observation that the military, at least in peacetime, does a much better job than the mainstream of corporate America at performing deliberate practice. Key quote:

When I left the military and joined the corporate world, what struck me most was how little practicing — and how little learning and improving — anyone did. For anything.

It’s worth pondering Miller’s comparison of the typical corporation to the military in wartime.

2. Software coder Mark Needham offers a straightforward summary of the concepts of the book in his detailed book review. Although he uses some examples from the world of computer programming, nontechnical readers will also get a lot from his clear exposition of the book’s principles.

I particularly like Needham’s call “to create shorter and more effective feedback cycles for individuals to help them to get better.” This is a real challenge for companies that are married to annual reviews as the main (or only!) means of regular feedback, but it’s a challenge that must be overcome if the principles of deliberate practice are to take hold in an organization.

3. At his Three Star Leadership Blog, Wally Bock takes Colvin’s book down a peg in “Talent is Overrated is overrated and overpriced.” Bock praises Colvin for laying out important precepts — talent is overrated, and you will need a lot of time working on your skills — but suggests that readers might be as well served to read Colvin’s FORTUNE articles on the subject (to which he links), along with a related item from the Harvard Business Review.

Bock also says that, in the book,

There’s too little attention paid to other factors that influence success like coaching, family support, developmental assignments, and luck. There’s virtually no discussion of the fact that for leadership and other business skill areas, learning and doing intertwine.

I liked the book better than Wally did, but I do agree that Colvin didn’t do as much as he might’ve to explain specifically how his paragons of business deliberate practice, Jeff Immelt and Steve Ballmer, used deliberate practice to ascend the heights of corporate success.

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I’ll give a more detailed critique of the book soon. Meanwhile, what are your thoughts?

• If you’ve read Talent Is Overrated, what do you think of it?
• Even if you haven’t, what do you think of the premise that deliberate practice can improve business performance?

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Related:

• Deliberate practice in a nutshell.
• Deliberate practice in the working world.

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Category: Books, Productivity, The business brain