What Aging Tells Us about Talent at Work

What aging tells us about talent helps us become more successful.

“How old are you?” seems a simple question. What aging tells us though is that it is not. People are different, very different. This affects success.

We age at different rates. In a study, a group of 954 38-year olds had biological ages ranging from 28 to 61. This age is a much better sign of our health than the number of years we have lived is.

What aging says about talent is even more important. It gives us tips. These tips make it easier to find talent.

Simple Standards Do Not Mean Accurate Standards

The study above used 18 biomarkers to calculate biological age. Some are well-known such as blood pressure and cholesterol. Others are not such as the length of parts of chromosomes.

What aging tells us is that it is not easy to find the differences in us. Just because we understand a simple standard better does not mean it is a better one. One standard is easier than eighteen are.

It is these simple standards such as results that lead us to err. It is overcoming the natural tendency to pick out one reason why someone is talented. It is looking at many.

We Differ Greatly

What aging says is that people differ greatly. They are very different. They are more different than we think they are. It is not that people are right or wrong, bad or good, but rather just different.

Thus, for any human attribute, there are wide differences. It can be awareness, sensitivity, intelligence, extroversion, conscientiousness, athleticism, altruism and many more. We interpret facts and events based on these differences.

What Aging Says about Assessing Talent

Hiring research shows we hire people we like. The more we like someone the more likely we will see talent in him. The more he is like us the more talent he has.

It also means we are likely to see differences as signs of lacking talent. If people do not fit in, we do not hire them. They are different. Different is bad.

What aging tells us is that talent will become harder to find. That is because people are so different. Different people are not talented.