There's a lot of ways you can measure talent.  Do they have the KSAs - knowledge, skills and abilities - to do the job?  Are the behavioral markers that drive them personally and professionally a match for the job, your management style and the culture of your company?  No doubt you could add to this list with some of your favorites, right?

But the biggest talent question of all - the one that separates the players from the pretenders - is this:

Would you send this person to represent you - to a key client, to your CEO - and trust that regardless of experience level, they would make a great impression and not hurt you?

That question is bigger than you might think. You know some great professionals, people who do a great job.  But would you trust them to represent you when it really mattered?  When risk is the highest?

The list should be relatively small. 

As crazy as it sounds, some people don't ask this question when the stakes are high.  Let's say you're getting ready for the ole' King Tut repair project and you don't have time to do it yourself.  Who gets that job?  I use that example because someone recently send a girl/boy to do a woman/man's job. More from CNN:

"Eight museum employees will be charged with negligence after a botched reattachment of the beard on King Tutankhamun's mask, Egyptian authorities said.

King Tut's burial mask is displayed at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and is considered a valuable artifact from ancient history.  There have been differing accounts of how the mask's blue-and-gold braided beard broke off since its damage came to light in 2014.  

At the time, a museum conservator said the beard detached when the mask accidentally fell during cleaning. It was quickly reattached with a strong adhesive, but the glue left a gap between the face and the beard, the conservator said.

Others said the beard loosened with age.