Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World, by Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross (St. Martin’s Press, 288 pp., $29)
An article about the social psychologist Robert Cialdini. An interview with Matthew Weiner, creator of the television series Mad Men. A Science article titled “The question of animal emotions.” Google Scholar. This was my answer to economist Tyler Cowen and tech entrepreneur Daniel Gross’s current favorite interview question from their new book Talent: “What are the open tabs in your browser right now?” The authors contend that this question captures a person’s intellectual habits, level of curiosity, and how he or she spends her free time, all at once. In other words, the answer provides a direct insight into a person’s demonstrated preferences.
Talent presents new insights into the process of hiring. The book is thorough yet breezy, providing useful tips for how to develop a talent-spotting mindset with insights from psychometrics, management, economics, and sociology, among other disciplines.
Talent search, of course, is not just about hiring for jobs. It also involves decisions about who should get scholarships, auditions, athletic positions, and co-authorships. The authors note that the challenge of talent search isn’t relevant only for the selectors but also for those who hope to be selected. Just about everyone is involved, either hoping to identify talent in others or show off their own. If you hope to be “chosen,” then it’s useful to learn what others are thinking about talent in order to exhibit the desired qualities.
The ability to pinpoint talent is more important than ever. Cowen and Gross note that in the U.S., from 1980 to 2000, the main cause of income inequality was whether a person graduated from college. But from 2000 to 2017, income inequality primarily existed within educational groupings. In other words, talent appears to be more responsible than education for economic returns.
Cowen and Gross each describe how often they reject proposals, and they conclude that “talent and not money is the truly scarce variable.” But where does it come from? They acknowledge that talent can differ between individuals, but they also stress the importance of practice. Indeed, those with the potential to cultivate serious talent sometimes practice to the point of obsession. Discussing which attributes predict eminence in a field, psychology professor David Lubinski has said that passion for work is key, and that highly creative people tend to be “almost myopically” fixated on work.
Relatedly, Cowen and Gross observe, “If you are hiring a writer, look for signs that the person is writing literally every day. If you are hiring an executive, try to discern what they are doing all the time to improve networking, decision-making, and knowledge of the sectors they work in.” Developing the habit of practice and self-discipline—the authors describe it as “sturdiness”—is critical for talent acquisition. “Sturdiness is the quality of getting work done every day, with extreme regularity and without long streaks of non-achievement,” they write. “If you are a writer, sturdiness is a very powerful virtue, even if you do not always feel you are being extremely productive.”
Accordingly, the book cites research indicating that perseverance is a stronger predictor than passion for success. When it comes to achievement, persistence pays off more than pure passion.
The authors’ favorite interview question about browser tabs is meant to tap into this question about whether a person spends his or her free time practicing. What the book describes as “downtime revealed preferences” are more interesting than “stories about your prior jobs.” For instance, asking what newsletters or subreddits a person reads is o
