Talent Policy: Problems and Solutions

The identification, development and utilisation of talents have long been a central target of policy making across various domains, including education, business, sports and culture. This has involved strategic policies aimed at identifying and developing talent on a national level, and to attract and preserve international talent. Managing and retaining talent also play a pivotal role in the policies of corporate institutions in an increasingly competitive environment.

Despite its centrality in policy initiatives, the notion of talent assumed by these policies is often used ambiguously and rests on a mistaken understanding of how talent is identified and developed. They assume, at least implicitly, that a person's talent is pre-determined and that developing talent to its maximum requires identifying it as early as possible and providing those who are talented with specific, targeted training. This feeds into the meritocratic ideal that views talent as something a person deserves to be rewarded for, and as a deciding factor in distributing social welfare, educational opportunities and employment prospects.

However, these widely accepted assumptions are unsupported by the scientific research on what talent is, how it is recognised and how it develops. Such research calls for a re-examination of current talent development practices, and provides the groundwork to create potential avenues for the promotion of more accurate, effective and fair policy alternatives.

Current talent development practices

The term ‘talent’ is often referred to as an individual's potential to excel in a particular skill domain and typically applies to contexts that we find valuable, such as education, sports or music. Talent development, more specifically, is most commonly understood as the process through which an individual's potential in a specific skill turns into the expression of a future (excellent) ability. Talent development policies in various domains share similar characteristics, most notably including: (i) the importance of early identification of those that might be talented; and (ii) targeted, specific training of those who are identified as talented.

Talent-related practices rely on the assumptions that talent is fixed and can be identified reliably, and that one's level of identified talent together with suitable training is an accurate predictor of future performance.

Educational policies have been questioned based on evidence that they do not improve educational outcomes, especially for pupils who are assigned to the ‘lower’ tracks, and that they aggravate social inequality. Intensive training programmes in both sport and music have also been critiqued in terms of children's well-being. Workplace talent development programmes have been challenged as being biased, creating frustration and impeding cooperative relations between workers. We further suggest that there is yet a more fundamental issue with them that casts doubt on their very justification.

Talent development is dynamic

Underlying these policies is the implicit idea that talent can be detected in specific factors, such as genetics, social support, the quality and extent of skill training and various psychological traits such as determination and effort. However, current research into talent development reveals that talent is not fixed and detectable in such factors, but instead develops through dynamic interactions between these factors. This research highlights empirical evidence that an individual's abilities, as well as the factors influencing them, undergo non-linear and often unpredictable changes, and that developmental pathways are often highly individual.

For example, significant research shows that a child's level of cognitive skill fluctuates in relation to changes in environmental factors,12 including teacher–student interactions. Individuals who are identified as talented can therefore fail to ‘deliver’ and reach the level of performance that is predicted and expected of them, whereas those considered ‘less talented’ at an early age may obtain high levels of skill after all.

Studies have also concluded that athletes have individual and unique pathways toward professional performance. Early talent identification is a mistaken predictor of future sporting success. Those who go on to become professional athletes and enjoy lasting careers are usually those who have typically been selected at a later age. Moreover, excellent performance in the workplace is shown to depend not on multiple social, emotional and ethically related factors.

Conceptual confusion

Policy that involves detection of talent usually conflates two different meanings of talent. The first assumed meaning of talent is that it is an already-achieved high level of skill, and the second meaning assumes that talent is the potential to attain high levels of skill.

Recent conceptual analyses of talent focus on it as an indicator of the way in which a skill is developed rather than indicating a fixed level of skill. This means that those who are not identified as talented at a specific point in time may very well, nonetheless, reach excellent levels of skill success at some later stage. Talent programmes are thus at high risk of unnecessarily and mistakenly excluding a wide range of people.

When we label someone as talented this often assumes an interpersonal comparison. However, because talents are developed in a highly dynamic and individual way, at least in some circumstances, a more helpful way to understand the comparative element of talent is through an intrapersonal lens. This would imply a change of focus toward finding out which of their various skills an individual is best at, and supporting the development of these skills in suitable ways.

Policy improvements

Ethical issues of distributive fairness arise in relation to the allocation of resources and funding, especially if talent programmes utilise public resources, determine the allocation of public offices or determine rights and entitlements, such as immigration status. Talent identification may be biased against those who are already under-represented, such as women or racial minorities.

In light of this, it is important that we rethink and examine talent identification development policy and practices.

First, policy making and research into talent identification and development should engage in multidisciplinary collaborations—such as between psychologists, philosophers, public administrators and educators.

Second, access to talent development programmes should be widened to include training and support for individuals who have traditionally been considered ‘less talented’, as they may also obtain very high levels of skill.

Finally, multiple pathways and methods for developing talent should be adopted.

The authors would like to acknowledge the following funding sources. The work of Catherine M. Robb, Kirsten Meyer and Barbara Vetter was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) within the ‘Human Abilities’ Centre for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, grant number 409272951. The work of Tammy Harel Ben Shahar was funded by the Israel Science Foundation grant 848/19.