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Identifying Your Team’s Working Genius

Every person on your team has natural gifts that can help your business grow. The question is: Are you tapping into these gifts and maximizing their potential?

Speaker and New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni developed the Six Types of Working Genius tool to help leaders put the right people in the right roles.

Because when everyone is focused on tasks that energize them and that they excel at, the entire team is more productive and fulfilled.

Understanding your team’s working genius is the first step to using this concept to help your business grow.

Understanding the 6 Types of Working Genius

According to Lencioni, there are six types of working genius:

1.  Genius of Wonder

The Genius of Wonder, like the Genius of Invention, is all about problem-solving. They are visionaries who are always looking for new ways to improve things and help people reach their full potential.

This type of working genius is never short on ideas. They’re always asking two important questions:

  • Why?
  • Why not?

These geniuses may not have the answers, but they ask the right questions. They allow other types of working geniuses, like the Genius of Invention, to tap into their natural gifts to find solutions.

2. Genius of Invention

The Genius of Invention excels at creating unique ideas and solutions. They’re naturally creative individuals who can transform ideas into workable solutions.

This type of working genius will help your team find new and novel ways to solve problems.

3. Genius of Discernment

The Genius of Discernment trusts and listens to their instincts. They use their intuition to assess situations and ideas and use that intuition to guide their decisions. They’re adept at identifying the best solutions.

These working geniuses provide insight and valuable feedback to inventors. They’re comfortable letting other team members know when something isn’t a good move.

4. Genius of Galvanizing

The Genius of Galvanizing has a natural gift for bringing people together. They take the great ideas created by wonderers, inventors, and discerners, and move them forward.

Galvanizers inspire others to organize and start putting plans into motion. Their goal is to get everyone on board and move full speed ahead.

5. Genius of Enablement

The Genius of Enablement excels at helping the right people do the right tasks. They have a natural gift for working with others and instinctively know when others need help.

They jump in and help in any way possible to get things done.

6. Genius of Tenacity

The Genius of Tenacity ensures that projects get done. Galvanizers and enablers get people together and help get the ball rolling.

But it’s easy to lose steam and allow projects to fall to the wayside. That’s where these working geniuses come in.

The Genius of Tenacity won’t stop until their to-do list is done and the project is complete.

As you can see, each of these geniuses brings something to the table and complements the others. They play off each other’s strengths to drive growth and improve efficiency.

Grow Your Business by Putting the Right People in the Right Seats

Now that you understand the types of Working Geniuses, you may wonder how to use this tool to grow your business.

What they’ve found is that of these six geniuses, each person has:

  • Two that are their geniuses. These are the things that give the person joy and energy.
  • Two that are their competencies. They can handle these things if they really focus and put their minds to it, but it takes more energy.
  • Two that are their frustrations. These are the areas that they do not enjoy and that drain their energy.

The first step is to identify each member’s geniuses, competencies, and frustrations. Once you’ve tackled this task, you can use the Working Genius concept to:

Put the Right People in the Right Roles

Now that you know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses, you can put them in the right roles. You may find that some of your team members are in roles that don’t really suit them.

For example, you may have a team member who excels at coming up with ideas and solutions, but they’re not great at bringing people together. If they’re currently in a leadership role where they’re expected to rally the team, they will likely feel frustrated and unhappy in their work.

It does not benefit your team or your business to put people in roles in which they do not excel or enjoy. When your team members are excited and motivated to come to work each day, you will naturally see growth because new ideas are being generated and moved forward.

Identify and Fill Gaps in Your Team

The Working Genius concept can also drive growth by helping you identify gaps in your team.

Maybe your team is full of Discernment and is lacking Enablement and Tenacity. Bringing these geniuses onto your team can help move your great ideas to fruition.

Identifying skill gaps can do more than just spark innovation, efficiency, and productivity. It can also help prevent your team from feeling frustrated and unfulfilled.

It’s easy to feel defeated and deflated when it doesn’t seem like your team is making any progress. You need a mix of ideation (Wonder, Invention, and Discernment) and activation (Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity) to bring viable visions to life.

Improve Employee Happiness and Productivity

When the right people are in the right roles, they’re naturally happier and more productive. No one wants to spend the day working on tasks they despise. But when your day is filled with things that you love, you feel driven, inspired, and energized.

The Working Genius tool also helps eliminate guilt and judgment because everyone is aware of each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Those who excel at Wonder and Invention won’t feel guilty for not having Discernment. Discerners, on the other hand, won’t feel guilty for not bringing new ideas to the table.

Each person has their role, and they trust other team members to handle the tasks they do not excel with.

Final Thoughts

Identifying your team’s Working Genius can drive growth and help build a healthy, happy work culture. But making this identification on your own can be a challenge.

As a Certified Working Genius, I can walk you through this process to help ensure that you have the right people in the right roles.

To learn more about identifying your team’s working genius or to schedule an appointment, click here.

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