Unveiling Hidden Talent: The Art of Observing the Unnoticed
Aiga Ārste – Avotiņa, AMROP Estonia and Latvia managing partner
In our search of top-tier talent, it’s easy to be shifted by the allure of resumes and flashy credentials. Yet, beneath the surface, lies a wealth of overlooked abilities waiting to be discovered. It’s time we shift our gaze from the obvious to the extraordinary.
In the fast-paced industry of executive search, one profound truth often escapes our attention – “the world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
Being successful in your career has a little to do with how smart you are and a lot to do with how you behave. And behavior is hard to teach, even to really smart people. A genius who loses control of their emotions in investor’s meetings can easily ruin his innovative idea based startup. The opposite is also true. Ordinary guys with no finance education can be successful if they have a handful of behavioral skills that have nothing to do with formal measures of intelligence.
Your soft skills and how you behave is more important than what you know. And soft skills are often greatly underappreciated.
Knowing what to do tells you nothing about what happens in your head when you try to do it. Some lessons have to be experienced before they can be understood.
Engineers can determine the cause of a building collapse because there is agreement that if a certain amount of force is applied to a certain area, that area will break. Engineering is guided by laws. Leadership is different. It is guided by people’s behaviours. And how one behaves might make sense to him, but may look crazy to others. But no one is crazy. People having their unique beliefs, raised by different parents, born in different parts of world, experiencing different job markets, learn very different lessons.
At Amrop, we pride ourselves on our commitment to not only identifying the apparent skills but also delving into the intangibles that make a candidate truly exceptional. The ability to observe these nuanced qualities requires a keen eye for detail and a genuine curiosity about the individual beyond the CV.
In a world that often values speed over scrutiny, we must pause to question if we are truly seeing the potential that lies beneath the surface. Very often our brains prefer easy answers without much appetite for nuance. What will make me most money with least effort .Our success hinges on our ability to observe the uncharted territories of talent, where innovation, resilience, and creativity thrive. Embracing this philosophy has allowed us to uncover individuals who may not have been the obvious choice on paper but proved to be transformative leaders in practice.