The debate of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ as distinct or joint forces that drive human development has induced and continues to induce strong opinions.

Mark Bugeja

Talent as a natural skill

The dictionary defines talent as a natural aptitude or a skill and is defined to mean ‘mental endowment; natural ability’ (Collins, n.d.). Several academics are of the opinion that talent is inborn to some degree, and that it is a rare gift bestowed to the very few. They were born with something which many others weren’t born with. Psychologist Howard Gardner, in his writings Nature of Talent echoes that anyone who has the opportunity to observe a prodigy, be it Mozart in music or Tiger Woods in golf, recognises that attainment is not just hard work, but they were born with something we weren’t born with: they are gifted.

Talent is nurtured

To the contrary, modern-day research as demonstrated by Swedish psychologist K. Anders Ericsson discredits this myth and his findings paved the way for the 10,000-Hour-Rule which shows that talent as mastery is the product of consistent, concentrated effort, applied in the direction of one’s natural inclination. In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell examines how it helped the Beatles to become superstars by acting 1,200 performances as a group in Germany between 1960 and 1964. Gladwell maintains that the key to achieve true expertise in any skill is simply a matter of practising, albeit in the correct way, for at least 10,000 hours.

Nature versus nurture

If you ask a teacher to identify their most talented student, they might reject the question and in return say their students are all equally talented. But we all know that this is not the case. There are students who can catch on quickly, some almost instantly to new skills, while others must go through the same drill time and time again to see improvement. In his book, MIT linguist Steven Pinker, renews the nature versus nurture argument and he argues that the role of nurture is overestimated because critics sought to base political ideas of equal rights and equal opportunities on a false biological demise because according to him not all humans are equal and genetically shaped hence, they have different abilities and behaviours.

Ultimately it is education, training, and exposure to new experiences that help us to make the most of our talents

Sometimes this debate of ‘nurture’ vs ‘nature’ becomes contentious and provokes so much passion because it can act as a representation of how we as humans see our realm. One might say that in truth there are three different thoughts, all of which might have some sort of correctness. These are the: ‘Nurturers’ who will say that talent is largely the product of the development and continuous and arduous training is a must; ‘Naturists’ who will argue that talent is innate, and they are the product of inherited genetics; and ‘Middle Persons’ (sort to say) who in return will claim that talent is a combination of both.

Personally, I see myself more of the middle person. Being an avid football fan, I doubt how many can become a Ronaldo or a Messi irrespective of how hard they work. Very, very few can become a G.O.A.T. since only the very few have the innate quality that have made these two formidable players who they are albeit it is also a known fact that they put a lot of hard work on the training grounds to remain at the top of their game.

Nature and nurture at the workplace

As an HR professional, I believe that every single person has their own special traits which could become an asset for an organisation once these ‘natural’ traits have been identified and most importantly developed or better so nurtured.

At my workplace we believe in raw people – someone with no experience in the job for instance in sales – but displays positive attitude during the interview specifically towards learning and development and exhibits eagerness to success, proved time and time again that whenever we created development opportunities, the majority succeeded. Besides that, businesses are paying more attention to how personality traits – nature – blend in with workplace culture – nurture. At Nectar, being a fast-paced, innovative, and agile organisation, we will require people with a strong set of soft-skills including empathy, attention to detail and courage.

It’s not the first time that your instinct will lead you to believe that the person in front of you even at interview stage, has what it takes to succeed. That said, we also believe that by creating development opportunities in which people purposefully practise, led by seasoned sales representatives or sales managers (mentoring) the bigger the probability to maximise your return on investment.

This proves why I believe in the ‘middle person’ thought whenever the debate about ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture’ pops up. As a matter of fact, HR professionals tend to talk about competencies that is the complex between innate qualities and acquired abilities that will make a member of our workforce valuable to the organisation.

Many of us are born with certain attributes or aptitudes (nature) but ultimately it is education, training, and exposure to new experiences (nurture) that help us to make the most of our talents. Put together this will lead us as to why we, HR professionals believe talent management is very crucial, today more than ever considering the huge imbalance between demand and supply in terms of human capital.