You’re probably familiar with the saying that if you want to go fast, go alone. But if you want to go far, go together. A surefire way to go far is by learning to spot and cultivate talent. This is an essential skill that will help you build strong friendships and business relationships. Moreover, it will drive you and your peers toward rewarding experiences and opportunities that foster connection, engagement and empowerment to achieve great things together. The sooner you become proficient at learning to spot and cultivate talent, the more successful you—and others—are likely to be at achieving success.
How To Spot and Cultivate Talent
To spot and cultivate talent you’ll want to consider taking the following five actions:
- Invest time in people
- Play to people’s strengths
- Create opportunities for people to shine
- Connect talent to other talent
- Encourage autonomy and creativity
Invest Time in People
Time is the most important commodity you have and you should invest it wisely. You might be inclined to think that you should be extremely discerning when it comes to whom you invest in, but I’d argue the opposite—at least initially. To clarify, it’s important to provide your friends, colleagues, and even strangers, with opportunities to demonstrate their talents. Your initial investment of time can be minimal, but without an initial investment of time, you’ll never know the capacity of that individual.
Sometimes this can be as simple as engaging in a quick meet-and-greet and asking someone where they excel, what they’re passionate about, or how they like to spend their time. While you can be direct in asking someone about their talents, folks sometimes underestimate or undervalue their skills, gifts and talents. In this case, it’s important to follow up any direct inquiry with paying keen attention to an individuals’ behavior, quality of work and interactions.
In addition, you can discover underutilized natural abilities or hidden talents associated with hobbies. For example, in an office meeting, you might ask for a volunteer to self-identify if they’d like to show off their photography skills for a colleague’s retirement party. This method works equally well for making the same request to a group of friends planning a surprise birthday party for a mutual friend. Ultimately, the setting or environment will help you determine the optimal way to identify or uncover someone’s potential talents.
Trust but Verify
As important as it is to invest time into the discovery of potential talent, it is equally important to verify the competency and quality with which the individual performs. If you find yourself underwhelmed by the outcome, this is where you become discerning with your time and minimize further investment. But if you’re surprised, intrigued or impressed by the outcome, you’re on to something. It is under these circumstances that you should continue to strategically invest additional time and energy into the individual. Everyone offers value and brings gifts to the table. It is up to you to discover what those gifts are and how you can leverage them.
Play to People’s Strengths
Once you’ve discovered someone’s talents, find ways to play to their strengths. It doesn’t matter whether this is your best friend or a subordinate at work. Whatever it is that you are trying to accomplish—from a high stakes presentation to a fun-filled entertaining friends night in—you will be more successful if you have the right person in the right place doing the right thing at the right time.
It’s especially satisfying for others to know that you see them and recognize their skills and abilities. Further, trust begets trust. By paying attention to people, recognizing their talents and skillsets, and consistently playing to their strengths, you boost their confidence. Playing to people’s strengths sets them up for success.
When people feel good around you they’ll enjoy your company. In addition, they will want to continuously engage in opportunities you present for them to shine. You can learn more about how to play to your own strengths and those of others here.
Create Opportunities for People To Shine
One of the keys to learning to spot and cultivate talent is creating opportunities for people to shine. While opportunities to shine can certainly be created to initially discover talent, you’ll want to regularly engage in creating opportunities for people to shine after you’ve discovered their talents. Additionally, it goes beyond just creating opportunities to shine. You’ll be more effective if you go one step further and formally recognize individuals for their talents as appropriate.
Acknowledge and Celebrate Talent
How you choose to formally recognize and celebrate the talent and contributions of an individual depends on the situation and environment. You could do something simple like handwriting a thank you card. Or, you could publicly acknowledge the individual during a gathering or meeting. As an example, you might choose to nominate a team member who went above and beyond for an award.
However you choose to acknowledge the individual, it should be genuine and thoughtful. Further, it should take their preferences into account. Your actions speak louder than words, so you should also consistently treat that person in ways that demonstrate your respect and value for them and what they bring to the table.
Connect Talent to Other Talent
While individuals desire to be individually successful, it can be even more rewarding to enjoy collective success. This is accomplished when you connect talent with other talent. You can build something much bigger with a team than you could ever build on your own. Creating opportunities for people to shine can be about more than just highlighting one individual and their talents.
Real and powerful opportunity comes from building a strong network of individuals who can leverage their unique superpowers collectively. By helping individuals expand their networks, you exponentially broaden their potential to achieve success on a much grander scale. Moreover, you are contributing to their legacy building and yours. You can learn more about the importance of building a legacy in this other article I wrote.
Encourage Autonomy and Creativity
Now that you know how to spot and cultivate talent, you’ll need to sustain interest and efforts to consistently engage that talent. One of the most effective ways to do this is by avoiding micromanagment [you can learn here about the dangers and signs of micromanagement and tips to avoid it]. Instead empower individuals by giving them autonomy and encouraging their creativity and innovation.
By consistently creating space for autonomy and innovation, you build trust and safety. If you’re a manager, trusting your team is critical to everyone’s success, including your organization’s. Learn more about what it takes to be a good manager here, in addition to trusting your team.
Of course, trust isn’t just important at work. Trust is at the foundation of any friendship or relationship (personal or professional). Regardless of whether you are trying to spot and cultivate talent in your professional or personal life, you’ll get much better results when you enable individuals to truly lean into to their talents and skillset. Autonomy and creativity can only thrive where there is safety and trust.
In Summary
You can achieve success for yourself and help others achieve their own success by learning how to spot and cultivate talent. Spotting and cultivating talent can be accomplished by investing time in people, playing to their strengths, creating opportunities for individuals to shine, connecting talented folks to other talented folks, and encouraging autonomy and creativity. When you consistently engage in spotting and cultivating talent, you can make an exponential impact that leads to collective success and legacy building for all.
CHECK-IN
1. How do you cultivate the talent around you?
2. Where do you struggle the most when it comes to cultivating talent?
3. How have you formally recognized a friend or colleague’s contribution to a successful endeavor?
