When you start digging into things like character, though, the notion that people have high character or low character is very strong. What's crazy is that my thinking is not a new insight. The very first large-scale study of character, still one of the largest ever, was done in the early 1900s by Hugh Hartshorne, an ordained minister and a scientist.

We've become so used to the concept as a measuring and sorting tool, that it and its correlates - below-average, above-average - are everyday speech. We don't even question the language, although the challenges we face require a different mindset.

That was one of my most surprising discoveries when I dug into the history of average-ism: When you actually get the data, it rarely captures anyone. Which then begs the question, why are we using this as a reference standard for human beings?

We need to develop people rather than process them.

Talent - really, everyone agrees, it's multidimensional, and often overlooked in standard assessments. That's not hard for people to accept.

Education and the workforce: I think these two things go together in terms of human potential.

Right now, for instance, we resist giving people extra time on exams or for assignments, as though it's unfair to the faster students.