In these lecture-slides, young adolescents and nascent entrepreneurs are enabled to identify their own talents by making use of the proto-type of a talent.

1. Ing. Matthijs H.M. Hammer M.Sc.
Senior lecturer Entrepreneurship
School of Business, Building & Technology
Research Center For Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Saxion University of Applied Sciences
PhD Researcher
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
Department of Product Innovation Management
Delft University of Technology
Use the prototype approach
to enable your potential
Talent Identification;

2. … Why this is a dog …

3. Menu
• Introduction
• Theoretical framework
• Research design
• Findings
• Conclusions & Impications

4. Exercise 1A
Please work for yourself. Do NOT Co-operate with
your neighbours.
Task:
• Write down what your talents are.
Please use the hand-out (Form 1) provided.
After completion, transfer the answers to Form 2.
Do NOT write down your name.

5. Introduction
• What talent does a student have?
• What does he need to meet the 20th Century
competences and survive the ever changing
future?
• It is experienced as difficult to know where
the talents are; no USB- or RFT-port available,
• What alternatives we have to seek for help?
• How about the innovative approach?

6. WHAT IS A TALENT?
•Give examples!
WHAT IS A TALENT?

7. Theoretical background
Some definitions of talent:
 Old Greek: a weight or sum of money of that
weight. Later the disposition or ´gift of God´.
(van Dale, 2009)
 Best & Brightest. (Knegtmans, 2009)
 Exceptional disposition (Wikipedia, 2010).
 Spending hours of time deeply engaged in an
activity (Feldhusen 2001b, p65)
 Relative.
 Talent (Dutch, English, French, African, Catalonian,
Russian, German, Romanian, Icelandic, Czech, Danish,
Norwegian)
Hu: tehetség, Fi: lahjakkuus

8. Facts
• Training has more effect than Genetic
factors.
• Top talent = (talent * mentality) / ego (T. van
het Hek, 2000)
• Talent is gained by internal motivation and
long, effective and focused training.
• Be willing to is more important than be able
to. (Knegtmans, 2009)

9. From a scientific point of view
• Talent is not precise described.
• Studied in predominant the fields of:
1. Sports
2. Management
3. Education
• Synonyms used for talented human
beings:
– Gifted
– Excellence
– Capacitated

10. Psychological determinants
of excellence
Commitment
Quality Practice
Goal Setting
Imagery
Planning at all levels
Distraction control strategies
Perceptions of pressure
Performance evaluation
(Abbott et al, 2002, p.23)

11. Development of talent
detection
From 1920’s: Physiological and Anthropometric
Correlates of Success.
After WWII: Fundamental Movement Skills.
Last decades: Psychological Determinants of
Excellence.
Mid-nineties: Shift in paradigm started, talent is
no longer was the domain of the gifted children
and adults (Treffinger and Feldhusen, 1996)

12. Physiological and
Anthropometric measurements

13. Fundamental Movement Skills

14. Fundamental Movement
Skills

15. Psychological Determinants
of Excellence

16. But …
• Still selecting cherries,
• Making use of scales and checklists,
• Identify them on young age,
• (parents) Giving massive support, if wanted
or not,
• One has to enjoy an activity before entering
the deliberate practice; a forced
development of skills rarely turns into a
world class performance.

17. Broad agreement on talented
en giftedness:
• involves more than just a high IQ;
• have both, non-cognitive (e.g. motivationally
driven) components and cognitive components;
• environment is crucial in terms of whether
potentials will perform;
• are not a single thing: there are multiple forms
and therefore one-size–fits-all assessments or
programmes are likely to be too narrow;
• measures for identifying or evaluating these
individuals need to be proposed to
operationalise theories and then they need to
be evaluated rather than merely being assumed
to be valid (Sternberg, 2004).

18. What do you see?

19. Prototyping
+ +

20. Prototyping

21. Prototyping
• Object or pattern recognition (Matlin, 2002)
• Feature-analysis model and recognition-by-
components model (Biederman, 1995)
• Combination of attributes associated with an
object or pattern (Solso, 1999)
• Methodology of cognitive psychology for
talent identification (Solse, 1999, Bartel &
Wiesenfeld, 2013)

22. Findings
Identified cognitive psychological prototype of
a talent:
• Vastly joyful when applying
• Applying without discernable effort
• Better than others, acknowledged by peers
(Hammer, 2015)

23. What to develop?
• Your talents!
But:
1. what are talents?
2. How to distinguish them (your talents)?

24. What are talents?
Knowledge
Application
Behaviour
Talent
Source: N. Vloon, 2002
Structure
Context

25. Why are talents important?
Entrepreneurial dynamics; Effectuation

26. Position of human capital
Human capital / talents

27. What suites You?
• What do You like?
• What distinguishes You?
• What is appreciated?
• Problem:
• You don´t know for yourself.

28. Identify Your talents
Use tools as:
– 360° Feedback
– Personal SWOT
– Explicit Your context (write down at
exercise 1b)

29. Exercise 2
5 minutes each
•You: tell Your Neighbour about your job (or
sports).
•Neighbour: write down where he is positive,
explores fun, smiles, is exciting, etc. Ask for
examples, achieved goals, feedback from
colleagues.
•At the end, ask for his perceived personal strong
points and weak points (about 3 aspects each).
Exercise 1 b and 2, are determining
your relevant talents.

30. Difficulties in SME’s
SME-issues:
– No HRM-department
•job coach
•assessment centres
– No broad scope of specialists
– Limited places to work (fte)
•job rotation
•spare time for development
•exemplary roles

31. Development in SME´s
• Training in the same context, maintain the
talent.
• Training in a different (future orientated)
context, increase the talent, makes it more
valuable.
Exercise 3
Exercise A
Please write down your talents
as you see them now

32. Summery
1. Determine what your motivation is; what
make you have fun.
2. Determine your relevant talents.
3. Determine what is your goal.
4. Create training activities in another
professional context.
5. Do it! (with motivation and drive)
Please hand-in form 1

33. Thank you for your attention
Questions
&
Discussion