Gifted Workers: Hitting the target

by Noks Nauta, Sieuwke Ronner, Ingrid Joustra (Illustrator)

Living and working with giftedness is not always easy – either for the gifted themselves or for the people around them. Potentially, gifted people are original, creative, full of vitality, passionate and constructive employees. They are very valuable, both in their jobs and in society. But not all gifted people succeed in making their talents visible. They lose track and get trapped in their own pitfalls. A potentially powerfully creative personality without clear direction may best be compared to an unguided missile. Someone who cannot be coached, cannot collaborate or communicate, a know-it-all, an antisocial, elusive person. Among colleagues and employers (and among partners and friends) this behavior creates irritation, anxiety and uncertainty. Talents remain hidden and a vicious cycle starts. Gifted people lose direction in life and work, and lose their way. What a waste of all that talent…. ! This book presents eleven case studies of gifted adults, each trying to find his or her own way after losing direction. Often a trigger from the environment was needed for them to start their individual voyages of discovery. The authors − occupational physician and psychologist Noks Nauta and psychologist Sieuwke Ronner − take their examples from their personal and professional experiences. In addition to these case histories, which gifted people often recognize from their own experiences and which they identify with − sometimes smiling, sometimes crying − the authors also offer concrete tools that may help gifted people to find their talents and put them to good use. Employers, occupational and insurance physicians, psychologists, career coaches, human resource managers and others who come into contact with gifted employees, can also benefit from this book. The goal is to help recognize talent, even when it is hidden, acknowledge people's gifts and help the gifted and their talents to grow and flourish.

Genres: Nonfiction

94 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 11, 2013

Reviews

[George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another book on the topic of gifted people. It starts with 11 chapters describing different personalities and characteristics of gifted individuals and then it spends a chapter giving suggestions on how to "proceed" as a gifted person in order to find your course and an environment that would let you thrive.

I found the examples of the chapters to be either very generic or very specific. Even if I identified with one "characteristic" of the persona described, since I wouldn't fit the other, it would simply create confusion. I suspect that this could be harmful to people who have doubts about their giftedness and haven't accepted it, since inability of identification, might make these doubts deeper.

The last chapter was also very generic, describing characteristics of the gifted people and the common problems they face, but I couldn't find a more "practical" approach on how to solve them. The closest I got to this are the "four basic questions for yourself" part, where it asks:

- How do I reconnect with my own feelings and recognize what really moves me?
- Which obstructive thoughts do I have rearding myself and my environment?
- How do I recognize my inspiration and drive, and how do I regain those if I fall back into my negative patterns?
- How do I regain the connection with my environment?

but doesn't offer any suggestions or practices on how to "answer" these things.

For example, I think the Hammertime sequence, would be much more beneficial for this.

Want to connect with your feelings? try the Focusing practice (Day 17 of the sequence .

Dealing with obstructive thoughts? Internal Double Crux (IDC) to the rescue (this has saved me many times).

Don't know what inspires or drive you? IDC can also be used here, but you could try goal factoring too. For this question specifically there is also the book The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One, which has multiple (detailed) practices in order to deal with that (I've read it and found quite useful), but also Zen and the Art of Making a Living: A Practical Guide to Creative Career Design, which I haven't read, but has been recommended for gifted adults and it seems quite promising.

I had high expectations for this book, which weren't met. Others books I've read on this topic put too much effort on religion / spirituality, and I'm very glad that this book didn't go down that path. Besides that however, I couldn't find much new material, or something I can convert to a practice in order to alter my actions / behavior. It might be an interesting read if you've read other books in the category and want to get an expanded view, or review, but besides that I wouldn't assign it high priority.

[Bethk · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was donated to me, and the Broadwater Public Library at the Triple Nine Gathering in Denver by Andrew Aus, who took part in translating the book into English.

I would recommend this to anyone with a talent or gift, to anyone with a family member or friend with such a talent or gift. I would also recommend it to people who hire them and those who supervise their daily work. It does no good to recruit the best workers for your organization if your organization does not make use of their talents after it has them – or worse, they find that the company's competitor will find them more interesting and useful work in their organization,

The book consists of 11 chapters, each describing a person who is having a problem with his or her work environment, coworkers, colleagues, supervisors, or customers. In most of the chapters it describes difficulties in the person's home life or earlier life which contribute to or interact with the occupational challenges. I personally have been in similar situations to several of them, and have seen coworkers, friends, or team-members having similar issues. It takes a wholistic approach to resolving these situations in a win/win/WIN approach for the employer, friends and family, and the person him or herself.

After all, once your business or organization has recruited a gifted, talented individual, it is in your best interest to optimally utilize what an individual has to offer. It seeks to avoid overstressing an individual who has one talent but not another – many people do not recognize that a person may be very gifted in one area and lacking skills or abilities in another. It also seeks to make the best use of the talents that employees have to offer. The solutions offered seek to minimize unnecessary physical or mental stress placed on employees while making the best use of their skills, experience, and talents. Optimal utilization of employees a company already has allows the company to excel at its product or service, market that product or service effectively, while increasing profits.

In all cases, interest was shown in resolving the problem rather than replacing the employee, or for the employee to fix the problem in the current workplace rather than moving on to another workplace – only to re-enact the same sorts of difficulties. Solutions were sought by using help from outside the company, who were experts in their fields, with experience resolving workplace difficulties. The book is written from a Eurocentric point of view. The experts and professionals suggested may be called by a different title in another country or organization, or may be accessed very differently in various countries. For instance, many larger US companies use Employee Assistance Programs (EAP). Some people in the EAP may take the place of, or otherwise locate someone to fill the roles of organizational psychologist, career coach, or occupational physician. Help may be available to smaller companies and organizations in the US by consulting firms, professional psychologists, physicians and occupational therapists, or workplace consultants. Some of the problems involved a physical stress in the workplace, and early resolution of it lowering the incidence of repetitive motion injuries or accommodations reducing physical stress in an employee, while some of the other issues discussed in the book involved personality or psychology of an individual worker or supervisor, and the experts made concrete suggestions on working with those challenges. In short, don't get too caught up in the job titles: Nearly all of the suggestions could be utilized in the United States or other countries as well.

Most people come to work wanting to do a very good job. There are physical barriers to that, personality conflicts, work/home conflicts, or matching skills or talents with the job which may get in the way of that. It is complementary to Dr. Demming's famous “willing worker” illustration, showing how typical ways of doing a job, management's attempts to increase output often yields undesired consequences for everyone involved. It's not a matter of firing the employee and getting another one when every applicant has their own gifts, talents, and things which they simply cannot do. There are better solutions which can increase productivity and morale.

The book takes a well-rounded approach to each employee. Besides being workers, they have spouses, friends, family, and interests outside the workplace. All of these may effect morale, ability, and availability for work under different conditions. Besides looking at how the issues affect performance in the workplace, many of the scenarios look at how the issue affects the person's personal life or home as well. Solutions have to work throughout a person's life. Fortunately, many times the solution for one of these helps in both parts of the person's life; making for more work/home balance, more productive workers, and workers more likely to stay in their positions longer and develop into positions of higher responsibility within the organization.

The challenges encountered in each of the scenarios are mainly human difficulties. The issues or solutions may be particularly applicable to gifted workers with specific talents, interests, or abilities, but nearly all workers, supervisors, managers, and work places could benefit from these modes of problem solving. This book and its methods would seem to be universally applicable rather than to a select few which the title would suggest.

[Ryan O'Connor · Rating 3 out of 5]

The authors do a great job of describing the symptoms of unbalanced development in gifted individuals. The books lacks the same level of attention to analyzing practical ways (outside of seeking psychological or pharmaceutical) to overcome these asymmetries. "Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted: 30 Essays on Giftedness" is probably a better place to start understanding the exceptional needs of the gifted.

[Skara_brae · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the only books to cover the topic of gifted adults in the workplace. Still rather long on anecdotes and short on action points (chapter 12 is the must-read if you're interested in what to DO about it already).