Are you a genius, or just very talented?
And why all successful companies need both types of people.
A work colleague of mine recently told me a quote by philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
This quote has been bouncing around the internet for a while now, in fact, even US President Donald Trump tweeted it back in 2014:
When I heard this quote, I instantly connected to it and reflected on what it means in the startup world. Here is my take on what it means, and also why you need both types of people in your startup if it is to succeed.
Genius vs Talent
Talent is easy to discuss/understand. Anyone who goes to college/university is already talented because they have proven themselves to be of higher intelligence than the majority of the population. Then the really talented people step up and excel at college/university, receiving the higher marks, the better jobs after college/university et cetera.
This was (kind of) who I was. I was highly talented in maths through high school and into university, and that was pretty much it. If anyone threw me a challenge, I would be able to solve it. Thus, I could “hit the target” that others couldn’t. For a long time, I confused my talent with being a genius. I was wrong.
Genius, however, is the next level.
The ability to see things that others can’t/don’t see is where entrepreneurs thrive, and it is these founders, with their vision, that are the true geniuses. Anyone that has started a company to build a solution that does not currently exist in the world is attempting to hit a target nobody else can see. I say attempting because I think the quote can be tweaked slightly as follows:
“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius sees a target no one else can see.”
I believe there are plenty of geniuses in the world with great ideas, but most of them have failed because they weren’t able to build a team of talented people around them to see the vision through and hit the target.
Taking the most well-worn example: You could argue that Steve Jobs was a genius and Steve Wozniak was incredibly talented. This is in no way diminishing Woz because my point is that they each needed the other to be able to complete the whole picture of Apple and make it the success it became.
When you look at this article by hiverhq.com, which discusses the 7 kinds of people you need to succeed, it’s easy to overlay my theory on the article’s content by breaking up the 7 kinds of people as follows:
Genius: The Visionary Strategist and The Mentor.
Talent: The Know-It-All Expert, The Superstar All-Rounder, The Ultimate Optimist, The Expert Communicator, and The Hacker.
A genius without talented people is an idea that just dies, whereas talented people without a genius will not be able to cause progress and discover new things.
Do you need to become a genius?
The internet is littered with articles about how to become a genius, however, what’s interesting is that most of the articles talk about studying harder (ie. becoming more talented). Knowledge is great, but going to the next level and being considered a genius takes more than just exceptional talent. It takes an incredible ability to see the world in a different way to just about everyone else. Sometimes that might be able to be ‘learned’ through a lot of experience in a certain industry, but I believe it’s a mindset that starts well before then.
However, as I mentioned earlier, being successful isn’t about simply being a genius. It’s about the team that you have around you, where each person has complementary skills to make the group more powerful than the individuals.
When you look around your founding team, do you know who’s playing what role? Who is the person that can see the things the other team members can’t, and who is the person that can bang out a solution that the other team members can’t? Maybe between you, there are certain parts of the business that one member is the genius at, whereas other parts have someone else as the genius? In the end, the overarching vision for the company needs to come from the genius of the company or the Visionary Strategist as mentioned above.
