Building on talent, talent management, and many other titles came-up and will continue to do so. What do we mean by “talent”? When we search and read about this topic, we find that it is all revolving around three things. Aptitude, Competencies, and Capabilities, which at the end create talent. I would call it here the triangle effects or the triangle of talent. Almost, all researches came to one conclusion about talent. It is not inherited! Hence, you are not created to be a sales person, nor a financial manager. In fact, you might have some innate abilities that help in the process or boost it, but definitely, you are not what you think you are. In other words, if you are not good at something it does not necessarily indicate that you are not good at it for good. They problem could lay in your approach to the task or previous experience that affects your aptitude.
To discuss this in details let us go back to the triangle of talent and think of it for some time. If we were to make a circle arrow on the triangle, where would you consider the start and the end of it? Is it going to turn on like a clockwise or the opposite? As I have mentioned before you might be not as good as you want to be at something because of a previous experience or the way you are approaching it makes you feel it is difficult for you. If you think of this, you will find that it is all falls in the first triangle to the top “Aptitude”. Yes, it is about how you act towards the situation. Bad previous experience or some difficulties might case a change in your aptitude towards a task. On the other hand, good experience or ease in accomplishing a task will affect your aptitude positively and will make you do it again with more confidence each time. As a result, your capabilities in this specific task will increase rapidly as well as your competencies. This will result to an increase in your satisfaction level and of course a positive attitude towards this task and the circle will continue enhancing and sharpening your talent.
If we agree that the arrow starts right at the top of the triangle going to the right or clockwise, we can say that the secret is how to change our feeling about something so we can try it again differently. The answer is deliberate practice, which might be tough and difficult for some time, but it is the only way to do something better. You may have noticed before how that works when you become very good at something or in the process of becoming very good at it. You start finding short cuts, new approaches, and ways that are more efficient. The exact will happen with these things, which we do not like, but it could take more time.
Time is expensive! Yes, when it comes to time people tend to find it a limited resource. Therefore, they use it wisely. They choose to invest their time at what they do best and not at what they do not. For an example, if you know that you are a good accountant and at the same time you can do some sort of risk evaluation. You were asked by a company x to review five balance sheets and send them the results in one month. At the same time company y asked you to review and evaluate the risk associated with five projects. The greatest you have done before in one month is the review of three balance sheets. In another month you was able to evaluate the risk of two project. Which company you would work for? Of course the one wants you to review the five balance sheets. Why! because you are better in accounting than in risk evaluation. Therefore, the odds that you will be able to complete five balance sheets is bigger than the odds that you will be able to finish five projects of risk evaluation. This is a simple calculation of time and return most people do it without even noticing.