Jalen Brunson and The Talent Paradox: Talent is essential to success, but success is not determined by talent
Talent is essential to success, but success is not determined by talent
41 points. ZERO Turnovers. Dominating playoff performance. MVP chants.
Passed on by every NBA team.
Teams focus so much on acquiring the most talented people that they lose sight of the intangibles that actually drive success in any highly competitive field. The humility to prepare. The commitment to continually improve. The confidence to perform in the most critical moments. These traits epitomize Jalen Brunson and his performance last night.
In sports, people love to focus on what someone could be, rather than focusing on what they've already done. Jalen Brunson was the most accomplished college basketball player of the last 20 years and the leader of 2 National Championship teams at Villanova, yet was not drafted until the 2nd round of the NBA draft. Even with all that success, he will never be the tallest or the most explosive player on the court. In that 2018 NBA draft, teams focused on what Brunson didn't have and what he couldn't do. Last night, he showed those teams what he can do. Execute. Lead. Win.
Success is not always about what person or team has the most talent. Oftentimes in life as we see in sports, it's about the intangibles that drive people to reach their potential and achieve success at the highest levels.
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The following is an excerpt from my newly released book, Finding Intangibles, available now on Amazon.
Although I wrote a book about how teams should prioritize a person's intangible traits over talent in any hiring process, adopting a ‘Finding Intangibles’ approach to team building does not mean excluding or diminishing the role that talent plays in any talent acquisition selection process. It is called talent acquisition after all, and I am not denying that talent is not vitally important in achieving success in sports, business and life.
For teams that are satisfied with just being good enough, they can accomplish that by collecting individual talent or getting lucky. But Finding Intangibles is not about building a team that can win, or hit their sales numbers, or set records in their industry or game they play. This is about building teams that are striving to achieve greatness and chasing championships. To realize that type of success, talent is merely a minimum requirement.
This doesn’t mean to ignore talent. Teams should typically consider talent first before finding intangibles. But it is vital for teams to understand that while talent is an essential and important piece to success, it is not the only piece. It takes more than talent.
This is the paradox of talent. Talent is essential to achieve success. But it takes more than talent to achieve success. Success is not determined by talent. It’s determined by character.
Talent is Essential to Success
You can have all the heart and character in the world, but if you don’t have talent, you probably won’t be any good or successful. You have to have talent. This is why talent and physical skills provide a great place to begin any evaluation process because they set a baseline before beginning to consider other factors.
Character makeup is not a substitute for talent. Answer the talent question first, but after that, character becomes extremely important and will have the greatest impact on the success or failure of any individual in an organization.
Most teams rely solely on talent and only evaluate pertinent data on the performance of players. There are organizations in every sport and industry that acquire players strictly based on talent and ability. These are the same teams that fail to realize their potential or achieve any type of consistent success.
The reason these teams keep making the same mistakes is because they rely on the same processes each time. There is little to no progression or adaptability to improve the old way of doing things, and there won’t be if no changes are willing to be made.
Part of the problem is that very few people have been taught what questions to ask, what to look for, and how to uncover a person’s character. Each of these add to an effort to more accurately assess the chance a certain player has to be successful and understand where the potential weaknesses and strengths are outside of the player’s performance on the field.
Teams go wrong by focusing on strictly collecting talent and believing that great talent is all it takes to win and overcome any obstacle or opponent. This can be true in some cases, especially if playing in an unlevel playing field where talent can overwhelm the competition. But what about in arenas that are ultra-competitive, like that of college athletics or professional sports?
Judging a player’s talent is the easy part. Every coach or recruiter typically possesses a good understanding of what they are looking for and can notice talent pretty easily. But everyone can do this. Evaluating talent doesn’t give much of any advantage to any organization or team because teams rarely miss on their evaluation of talent. They miss on judging the human factors.
Success is Not Determined by Talent
A lot of players have talent. And while talent is certainly a part of success in any field, the individuals and teams that win big and win consistently are the ones that possess character. Character allows people to overcome adversity, show up every day to fulfill their roles, and fight through the random events and setbacks of a season. This goes for teams as well as individuals. Teams are collections of people that need intangibles such as chemistry, good communication, and people accepting their roles in order to achieve their highest level of performance.
Talent does not overcome adversity. Character overcomes adversity.
The 2003-2004 Los Angeles Lakers team looked like it could be one of the best teams ever assembled in NBA history. They had a Hall of Fame coach in Phil Jackson, two Hall of Fame players in their primes in Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, added even more firepower that off-season by signing future Hall of Famers Karl Malone and Gary Payton, and had won the last three NBA championships. There had never been an NBA team with this much talent ever, and they appeared certain to win their 4th title in a row.
The conclusion of a tumultuous season ended in shock, with the heavy favorite Lakers losing to the underdog Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals. Lakers Point Guard Derek Fisher reflected on how winning takes more than talent and the intangible factors needed to win
"I think it taught all of us a lot about the fact that you can't just put guys on a team and think that you're going to win just because guys have accomplished certain things in their careers. Which is why it's always been weird to me that Phil's always been questioned about how good a coach he was. Because if it was just about talent we would have won a championship that year. There has to be a willingness to believe."
At the highest levels, everyone is talented. Some are more talented than others, this is true. But the difference between most players at the highest levels in terms of their talent, skills and ability is minimal. Teams are made up of real people, subject to adversity, complacency, and the realities of competition. The teams that win are the ones that possess the intangibles to handle adversity, avoid complacency, and take a consistent approach to the mundane process it takes to win at the highest levels. It’s what separates those that have talent that is the true determinator of greatness and excellence.
Thinking it is only about getting the most talent is where a lot of teams go wrong. People tend to think talent, skill and ability are the only things that matter, and that collecting the best talent leads to winning. But in my whole career I’ve never seen this to be the case in my own experiences as a coach or watching sports.
If this is so obvious, why don’t all teams do it? The answer is simple. Finding the intangible traits and human factors is not easy and it takes hard work, which is why building a talent acquisition process that prioritizes the character and unseen traits makes organizations more effective at selecting the people that have success at a rate slightly better than the competition. This slightly better hit rate on players quickly becomes a huge competitive advantage that compounds every year and with each hiring cycle.
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The book Finding Intangibles is available on Amazon now
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