Patrick Lencioni’s Six Types of Working Genius helps position leaders to put the right people in the right roles based on their natural gifts. Often, for a workforce to reach its full potential, it must tap into the innate unique talents of each and every employee, much like a basketball team or a band.
When everyone is in a role that suits them, it leads to:
- An energized team
- A focused workforce
- A greater sense of fulfillment
- An increase in overall productivity
If you would like to use your team’s Working Genius, your first step is to know the six types of geniuses that Patrick Lencioni maps out.
What are the 6 Types of Working Genius?
Lencioni’s six types of Working Genius all have their own strengths and weaknesses, but when put in the right roles, everyone will work to their maximum capacity.
The 6 types of Working Genius are:
1. Genius of Wonder
A person who is a “genius of wonder” is someone who loves identifying problems to solve. While not necessarily problem-solvers, they can identify areas for improvement and are never afraid to ask:
- Why?
- Why not?
While a genius of wonder may not have all of the answers, these out-of-the-box thinkers have the keen ability to ask the right questions to identify problems that need to be solved. If paired with the Genius of Invention, these geniuses can do wonders for your business and leverage their natural gifts and ideas to identify problems which, if solved, will bring about more efficiency and will better serve needs.
2. Genius of Invention
A “genius of invention” is someone who is naturally creative and knows how to transform ideas into workable solutions. Often, problems need new and novel ways to be solved. If you need someone on your team to come up with solutions to problems that are truly unique, this is the right person for the job.
In fact, the geniuses of invention on your team are those who excel when:
- Taking on new challenges
- Coming up with solutions
- Working on a blank canvas
3. Genius of Discernment
Some ideas have “workability” while others are not very practical. Who figures out workability? A Genius of Discernment. Trusting their instincts, a Genius of Discernment will:
- Use their intuition
- Assess ideas and situations
- Use their “gut” to guide decision-making
If you need to know the best solution to a problem, there’s no better person equipped for the job than a Genius of Discernment. Unlike many team members, this group of people will tell you when an idea isn’t a good move and provide insights and feedback that others cannot.
4. Genius of Galvanizing
If you need people to build momentum for your team, a Genius of Galvanizing will help you reach your goals. These individuals make sense of great ideas and are the people who:
- Implement these ideas
- Get your team behind ideas
Every idea needs someone to champion the cause and get people rallied behind it, and that’s exactly what a Genius of Galvanizing will do.
5. Genius of Enablement
Keeping things “going” is a lot harder than it sounds, but not when you have a Genius of Enablement on the task. These people are the ones who make things happen. When others need help, these geniuses jump into action and lend a hand at critical moments.
People with the Genius of Enablement are people-oriented and want to help realize a vision. This genius provides the support needed to move solutions into the initial stages of implementation.
6. Genius of Tenacity
Finally, when you need to get things to completion, a Genius of Tenacity is best suited to the task. A Genius of Tenacity helps:
- Keep projects moving along
- Stop projects from falling to the wayside
- Complete even the most complex to-do lists
Armed with this knowledge, it’s time to learn how to use all of these geniuses in your business.
How to Leverage the Working Genius Concept to Grow Your Business
Now that you have a better understanding of the Working Genius concept, you can leverage this tool to grow your business, bring people together, and build momentum for a new project or initiative.
What we’ve found is that of these six geniuses, typically each person has:
- Two that are their geniuses, which give that person joy and energy.
- Two that are their competencies. These are the things that they can handle if they’re really focused, but that require more energy.
- Two that are their frustrations, which are areas that they do not enjoy and drain their energy quickly.
Think of the Working Genius concept as a coffee cup.
- When you’re in your zone of genius, it’s just like having a good cup of coffee with a good lid and it stays hot for a long time. Your energy levels stay high, and you’re more productive as a result.
- When you’re in your zone of competencies, it’s like taking the lid off the coffee cup. You start off okay but soon start losing your energy, and your productivity and happiness start to suffer.
- When you’re in your zone of frustration, it’s like having a slow leak at the bottom of the cup. You can handle these tasks for a little while, but you will run out of energy pretty quickly.
The goal is to identify each team member’s geniuses, competencies, and frustrations. Once you’ve done this, you can leverage the Working Genius concept to:
Put the Right People in the Right Seats
Having a deeper understanding of each employee’s strengths and weaknesses will allow you to put the right people in the right roles. You may find that currently, some of your employees are in roles that aren’t suited to them.
For example, let’s say that one of your team members really excels at coming up with solutions and ideas, but they’re not great at bringing people together. If they’re in a leadership role, they may be stuck in their zone of frustration (galvanizing) and struggling to find satisfaction in their work.
When your employees aren’t in their zone of genius, it does not benefit your team or your business in the long run. If times are tough, it’s okay to do what you need to do for the short term, even if that means putting team members outside of their zones of genius. However, over the long term, you should be working to get each team member into a role where they will excel and find joy.
Identify and Fill Skill Gaps
The Working Genius concept can also be used to identify skill gaps in your team.
For example, you may find that your team is full of Discernment and lacking Tenacity and Enablement. As a result, you have a pipeline of unfinished projects that seem to never get completed. If you bring Tenacity and Enablement geniuses onto your team, you can bring these ideas to fruition.
For another example, if your team lacks Wonder and Invention, you’ll likely not be coming up with new products or services. You’ll be a follower in your industry and will fall behind your competition.
Finding and filling skill gaps can help improve efficiency and productivity, but it can also help your team feel more fulfilled and happy in their roles, resulting in better employee retention.
It’s easy for team members to feel frustrated and deflated when they don’t feel like they’re making any progress. That’s why teams need a mix of ideation (Wonder, Invention, and Discernment) as well as activation (Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity) to bring these ideas to life.
Without ideation, innovation and creativity stalls. But without activation, these great ideas will die on the vine and never come to fruition.
Keep Employees Happy and Productive
When the right people are in the right roles, they feel energized, inspired and motivated because they’re doing the things they love.
Utilizing the Working Genius tool also eliminates guilt and judgment because every team member is aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Each person has their own role, and they trust other team members to handle the tasks they do not excel with.
No one genius is better than the other. They all work together to help your team achieve its full potential and maximize productivity.
We all have different frustrations and geniuses, and that’s okay. Learning how to play off of each other’s strengths and weaknesses is the key to success.
Final Thoughts
The Working Genius concept can be a powerful tool in boosting your team’s productivity and morale while supporting your business’s growth. The first step is to help your employees find their zone of genius. From here, you can adjust their work responsibilities and switch them into roles where they excel and thrive.
As a Certified Working Genius trainer, I can guide you through this process, helping you get the right people into the right seats, as well as identifying and filling in gaps.
To learn more about leveraging the Working Genius concept or to schedule an appointment, click here.