Today, the term high potential is widely used in business. However, there are many different names and definitions. Emotional, behavioral, logical system: the field is wide without necessarily applying to everyone. Between stereotypes and the latest research discoveries, aren’t high potentials more different than superior?

 
Many names for a complex concept

Talking about giftedness means taking the risk of getting one’s feet wet. Proof of the vagueness that surrounds the concept is the number of terms that have been used to name it.

“Gifted”, “high potential”, “precocious”, “zebra”, “giftedness” and so on. People gifted with “above-average” intelligence have been referred to by many names in recent decades, and the controversy continues unabated.

The definition of “gifted” (whose intelligence is well above average) is both reductive and vague. The definition of “precocious“, which refers to a child whose maturity and development are usually at a higher age than his or her own, loses its meaning as an adult.

The term “giftedness” was coined in Quebec in 1980 and refers to the possession and use of natural abilities in at least one field of aptitude, at a level that places the individual in the top 10% of his or her age peers.

Today, they are commonly referred to as “high potentials” or HP for short. This term implies potentiality, resources that may or may not be exploited.

Jeanne Siaud-Facchin proposes the term “Zebra“. According to her, it’s the only equidae that man hasn’t been able to domesticate, the only one on the savannah to have stripes that paradoxically allow it to blend in with the crowd. In a sense, to be different yet the same.

 
Stereotypes for an evolving concept

Officially, a person with high potential is diagnosed by an intelligence quotient above 130 (out of an average of 100) on the Wechsler scale, i.e. according to the WISC or WAIS test.

However, today’s specialists agree that this fact alone is not enough, and above all, it does not sum up the specific characteristics of giftedness.

Although it took some time for companies to take an interest in the phenomenon, studies on the subject have evolved considerably over the last few decades.

There are many specialists who have conducted large-scale psychological, sociological and neurological studies. And even though neurological evidence has emerged, stereotypes are still deeply rooted in the population.

Psychologists still receive far too little training on the subject and, while schools have come a long way and are more attentive to children showing signs of precociousness, high-potential adults have few people to turn to, so little support and little chance of being spotted.

They often find themselves alone in the face of their difference, their specific way of functioning, without really knowing what the source of this is, being most of the time incapable of recognising themselves in the caricature of the gifted person.

High potentials are a long way from the stereotypical image of the child who can play the violin at the age of five or read at the age of three.

A qualitative, not quantitative, difference

The Latin meaning of the verb “Intellegere” is “to be able to grasp and feel”, not “to be able to understand”. If high potential can make a person highly intelligent, it is perhaps above all in the primary sense given to it by the Latin.

For it is not so much a question of being quantitatively more intelligent, but rather of having an intellectual and emotional functioning that is qualitatively very different from the average: a particular ability to ‘grasp and feel’ the world.

Cognitive, behavioural and emotional specificities are far more salient than intellectual facility, and are underpinned by blatant, sometimes even painful, hypersensitivity.

This is why the term ‘high potential’ has been gaining ground in recent years: this qualitatively different perception of the world is more akin to potential.

The individual’s personality, life path and the obstacles he or she encounters may or may not enable him or her to use this potential, to develop his or her gifts or not.

Being particularly ‘gifted’ in certain areas, having a particularly strong reaction to stimuli, demonstrating unique logical systems are not synonymous with success and happiness, far from it.

In conclusion, the terms used reflect these profiles: multiple and complex, which we find difficult to classify in a single category. Today, the term high potential is the most widely used, even though the concept remains fluid. Strangely enough, the human sciences and scientific research have recently turned their attention to the question of the gifted. Hence the books and articles on the subject. But stereotypes persist. What is now clear is that being gifted does not mean having a cognitive superiority in terms of quantity, but having qualitatively superior abilities and a specific way of functioning.

About the Assessment Center

The Assessment or Development Center are methodologies that use a professional situation. The objective is to carry out a precise diagnosis of the strengths and areas for improvement of a candidate or employee. The objective is to carry out a precise diagnosis of the strengths and areas for improvement of a candidate or employee.

In the context of recruitment, this stage enables the company to advise on a suitable integration plan for the individual’s personality and skills. Also, having a global vision of talent is essential to prepare a new organisation within a company. In the case of internal mobility, the assessment includes specific recommendations on a development plan.