Hidden Talents in Harsh Conditions
Willem Frankenhuis
Book a demo →from €2,250 for your whole company
Book a demo →from €2,250 for your whole company
This one runs as a masterclass: Willem Frankenhuis takes your colleagues through the research and the thinking behind it, with live questions throughout.
Willem Frankenhuis, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Utrecht University (formerly at Radboud University), in the Netherlands. As an evolutionary and developmental psychologist, Willem studies hidden talents, abilities that are enhanced through adversity.
All sessions by Willem →It is well-know that growing up in adverse conditions can undermine development, learning, and health. However, people also develop intact, or even enhanced, mental abilities that are adapted to stressful conditions.
Little is known about these “hidden talents”. Willem examines whether two mental abilities are enhanced among high-adversity youth. This interactive session provides insights into how people who grew up under stressful circumstances develop in their further lives.
Willem uses biology and psychology in order to get a better picture of the social-cognitive development of these children and adults. He also addresses the question of what early exposure to stress means for the development of certain (knowledge) skills. And how we can benefit from some of the consequences of such early life adversity.
During the expert session, Willem Frankenhuis engages the audience through a Q&A session, real-life case studies, and interactive exercises using the Mentimeter app. Participants are encouraged to share their experiences and hidden talents, as well as suggest research areas.
Willem emphasizes recognizing and valuing individuals' unique strengths, even those that emerge from adversity. He also discusses creating inclusive workplaces and objectively quantifying these skills for societal benefit.
Understanding that individuals, even those with challenging backgrounds, possess unique strengths and abilities that can contribute significantly to their personal growth and professional success.
Actively seeking out and valuing the hidden talents of diverse team members, ensuring equal opportunities for all and creating a socially safe environment where communication about vulnerabilities is encouraged.
Embracing the idea that difficult experiences can lead to the development of valuable skills, such as empathy, creativity, and problem-solving abilities, and striving to recognize and harness these talents in various contexts.
In this expert session, Willem Frankenhuis delves into the exploration of discovering and leveraging hidden talents in individuals for personal growth and societal development. Willem uses a hypothetical case of Jim, who faces difficulties focusing at school despite his sweet nature and enjoyment of physical activities, to initiate a discussion on various approaches to help him integrate better into the classroom environment.
Willem then shares insights from a study conducted in Brazil, which demonstrated exceptional performance from children selling goods on the streets when tested in their natural context. This finding emphasizes the importance of recognizing and developing untapped skills and abilities, as they can significantly impact future opportunities and overall well-being.
Next, Willem poses a question to the audience about the hidden talents they utilize in their day-to-day work. He provides an example of empathy, which can be a valuable strength derived from past experiences, particularly when dealing with emotionally challenging situations.
Throughout the session, Willem highlights various strengths and abilities that can emerge from adversity or unique life experiences, such as intuition, empathy, and the ability to remain calm under pressure. He stresses the significance of recognizing these skills and finding ways to apply them in different contexts for personal growth and professional success.
Willem's research background lies in anthropology, with a focus on understanding hidden talents or abilities that develop due to difficult circumstances rather than impairments. He discusses studies demonstrating heightened emotional recognition abilities and memory skills in individuals from adverse backgrounds.
Willem emphasizes the importance of reproducibility in their research and aims to leverage these hidden strengths alongside deficits.
As the session continues, Willem encourages participants to share their own experiences with adversity and how those negative experiences have shaped their abilities. He emphasizes empathy, creativity, and problem-solving skills gained from such experiences.
Willem also invites suggestions for hidden talents that should be researched and shares a survey link for feedback.
Throughout the session, Willem underscores the importance of recognizing and fostering hidden talents not only for individual growth but also for organizational productivity and societal contribution. He mentions organizations like ATI Talent in the Netherlands that focus on employing individuals with unique backgrounds and testing their skills to find suitable jobs where they can thrive.
As the session concludes, Willem emphasizes the significance of communication within organizations and creating a socially safe environment to encourage the sharing of hidden talents and vulnerabilities. He acknowledges the challenges faced by individuals coming from disadvantaged backgrounds in corporate environments and encourages awareness of biases and stigmatization.
Willem concludes the session by reiterating the importance of recognizing hidden talents and creating inclusive workplaces, emphasizing that this is relevant for all organizations, not just one specific company.
No prior knowledge is assumed. It is built for a general working audience, and people who already know the subject get the research and the practical side rather than an introduction. What the hour itself covers: It is well-know that growing up in adverse conditions can undermine development, learning, and health. However, people also develop intact, or even enhanced, mental abilities that are adapted to stressful conditions.
A masterclass. Willem Frankenhuis takes your colleagues through the subject and the reasoning behind it, and answers live questions. It is practical in what people take away, without the hour turning into an exercise class.
Willem Frankenhuis is one of the experts we auditioned ourselves, and we produce every session so we see how each one lands. Participants rate this session 3.9 out of 5, across 30 responses, and rate Willem personally 4.0 out of 5.
It is interactive, and the block higher up on this page says exactly how for this session. Nobody has to speak up who does not want to: the chat and the polls carry most of it, and the questions can come in anonymously.
It runs 45 min / 15 min: the talk, then live questions. All you do is pick a date. We brief Willem, produce the session, host and moderate it, run the Q&A, and send you the report within an hour of the end.
A team, a department, an employee network or every single employee at once, with no cap and no per-seat price. It runs inside your own Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet, or on a branded page we build. No integration, no login, no company device or e-mail.
The session is delivered in English, Dutch. You can add high accuracy live subtitles in 8, 16 or 24 languages, so everyone follows in their own. That is a paid option, priced by the number of languages you need.
No, and that is by design. There is nothing to install, nothing to integrate and no connection to your systems, so there is nothing for IT to validate: we join your own Teams, Zoom or Meet as a guest speaker, or we host a page and your people open a link. No software, no accounts, and no data of yours that we can reach. It is why hundreds of companies, among them some of the largest technology and financial firms in the world, were able to start within a day.
We never receive or hold personal data about your employees. Because the session runs in your own environment, attendance and identity stay with you, and what we report back is aggregated: numbers, ratings and survey answers, not people. That is also why IT approval usually takes minutes rather than weeks.
You keep the recording and can share it internally. You also get attendance over time, participant ratings for the content and the speaker, the survey answers, and the topics your people asked for next.
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