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Recognising Talent… setting our approach to a different set of lenses

Predicting individual success and potential are highly vexed issues. However, because we all have such powerful instincts about how best to do it, we all do it anyway. “The next Pele/Messi/Maradona” are phrases you hear at least a dozen times a year about different players, however, the harsh reality is only one of the twelve of the ‘next big thing’ even make it to a World Cup.

Measuring potential and success is something we (as a species) are hugely inconsistent at doing. How do we measure success?

1 Academic success and potential? A Levels, SATs etc

2 Sporting Success? NFL combine or (in association football) clubs consider signing a player the success of trials or a few good seasons at a club in the lower leagues

3 Military leadership tests? Many would argue that we’d be better of picking randomly

None of the above guarantee that the results are parallel with the truth. The majority of our can’t-miss prodigies do, in fact, miss. And the majority of successful people seem, to our eyes, come out of nowhere. So more often than not the highly respected game ‘Football Manager’ gets it so wrong and too football clubs in reality. Where did Ian Wright, Les Ferdinand, Stuart Pearce, John Barnes, Steve Finnan, Ian Dowie, Chris Smalling Alan Pardew, Michael Kightly et al. receive their world class footballing training after presumingly shining at such a young age? The answer – they didn’t. All of these were victims of young players who played non league football before someone realised they’d slipped through the net. How many of those named above have had an impact on not just football in their era but still today? How close we came to not even hearing of any of the above today?

The reason for this is that talent is not linear; it’s complex. It’s not about a number; it’s about an invisible landscape that emerges from the interaction of the person and environment — the squishy yet vastly important combination of passion, grit, opportunity, and character that can’t be summed up in a single measure.

Or can it?

A story recently unfolded that may give us a new way to peek inside that landscape. A story about a foundation set up that helps students in the U.S.A, who might not otherwise get into elite colleges. These students are often kids from tough neighbourhoods, low SAT scores and want to attend Stanford, M.I.T and Harvard etc

The way the ‘Posse Foundation’ works is firstly for the students to be put into teams of 10 or so. Throughout college and school the students meet weekly, support for each other and for other students who have already graduated to overcome the many obstacles in life. Despite their relatively low SAT scores, 90% of the Posse Foundation graduate and 50% end up on the exclusive dean’s list. 80% of the students founded or led groups and clubs. This foundation has provided colleges with a tough challenger to the way they currently think about finding talent.

This concept got me thinking, what makes a team a great team: Zambia 2012? Barcelona 2010? or Manchester Utd 1999 through to Manchester Utd today? Compare these to the England’s ‘golden generation’ of 2000 -2012 (see article: 13 March 2012 – The failures of England’s golden generation – what, how and why)

Something that struck me was the real presence of the ‘posse’ relationship found in the more successful teams. The Manchester Utd under Sir Alex Ferguson has always, without fail, been built around this concept of ‘posse’ and togetherness – others label it mental strength, but there is much more to it. Something that both Zambia 2012, Swansea 2012 and Barcelona under Pep Guardiola also advocate.

Like any posse, they add a crucial mix of ingredients to the talent landscape: role models, support, identity, constantly renewed ignition. They perform the most crucial function in the talent process: they fill our windshield with versions of our future self.

Putting the posse concept into context – imagine how successful Busquets, Scholes or Yorke-Cole would have been had they not had those around them. Scholes would not have had the movement of the world class players, Busquets wouldn’t have those to release the ball to in perfect positioning,Yorke wouldn’t have had Cole.

That’s not to say that one is only good because of others around them. Think of it another way…the player’s true potential is only seen when put with the right mix of ingredients around them – on and off the field: i.e. their ‘posse’.

So in identifying a lower league talent who perhaps isn’t at his true potential because of others around, maybe character is a more important aspect of his skill set. Those around him, how he contributes and the typology of personality he portrays are all unmeasured skill sets of present.

Think back through your playing days – is this not true of you at your best? Particular players bring out the best in you and vice versa. But when an entire team has this connection, or an entire posse, then something truly great could happen.

When it comes to identifying talent, the question is not, What’s your score?

Maybe the real question is, Who’s your posse?

                                                                          

The above has been adapted from a general ‘life’ realm to a footballing one from this article written by Daniel Coyle of the Talent Code