PATRICK LENCIONI: What’s Your Working Genius?

25:13That sounds like the worst job in the world. And I think, what do you mean? That's the best job in the world. And that's why one man's trash is another man's treasure. There are people in the world who don't want a job that relies on invention. And there's the three of us who's like, oh, please let me invent. And for years, we've been going around managing people the way we think we would like to be managed, hiring people and saying, okay, you're not going to have any parameters. You get to come up with your own job description. And they're like, I hate this. And we tend to go like, what's wrong with you?

25:50Aren't you smart? Aren't you creative? And they're like, no, I'm wired differently than you. And so wonder and invention are the first two geniuses. And those two are called ideation. That's where new ideas come from. All righty. The next genius is discernment. We have the gift of evaluating things, using our intuition, our instincts, pattern recognition. It's not a linear way of thinking. It's just we kind of look at things and it just kind of emerges for us. And it's not magic. It's just the way God wired us that we can kind of look at a bunch of things and go, I think this is the right answer.

26:28And if somebody says why, we're like, I'm not sure. But every fiber of my being is saying this is the right thing. And I'm pretty sure it's true. The person on my team that has this that I love to talk about is a woman named Tracy.

26:43Tracy, Tracy's looking for an office space for me right now because we're moving. And she called me today and said, I found it, Pat. It's great. You're going to love it. I sent you some pictures. We're going to need to move fast. And I literally said to her, just take it. If you think it's good, it must be. Because I know that Tracy's gut is almost always right. And my wife and I'll be at home and we'll say, should we refinance the house? Where should we go on vacation? What should we do about this and she'll say, ask Tracy. And you know what's amazing? Tracy said when she was a little girl, her friends would always go to her and go, ask Tracy.

27:19She just knows what to do. And I can say this about you, Megan. You know this is true, that somebody can go to you and you can go, yeah, I feel my gut tells me this and people can rely on that. Yep. True. When I get in trouble is when I ignore it, which of course I have. And it always comes back to bite me. And I'm like, when will I learn? I do think I'm getting better at that, but it's challenging in a very concrete world to not be able to express the concrete rationale for something, at least not right away. Sometimes it'll come later. You know what's funny? Remember that first job I had? Well, let's go through these and we'll go back to that because it's so interesting because discernment, I love to use my discernment.

28:00And when somebody says, prove it to me, show me the data. I'm like, oh no. So the next genius after discernment comes galvanizing. That's like after something's been discerned, like, yeah, this is a great idea. We feel really good about it. The inventor invented the discern to discern. They went back and forth and like, okay, we're ready to go. Then the galvanizer comes in and says, let me get people excited. Let's get the troops in the room. Let's talk about it. Let me pitch it to them. Let me make a plea for their commitment to this. And they love to sell. They love to inspire. They love to remind.

28:33Well, here's the thing. I don't love to do that. I can do it. It's one of my competencies. But as the CEO of my company, I thought I was supposed to be the chief galvanizing officer. So I'd come into work and every day I was getting dragged into over galvanizing and it was crushing me. And I finally looked at a guy on my team who had galvanized. I said, you should be the chief galvanizing officer. And he goes, well, I'm not old enough to do that. And I don't have enough experience. I said, no, no, no, it's a gift. And he goes, I would love to do that. I said, okay, every morning you're going to get people excited about all the things we're doing.

29:03You're going to remind them, you're going to pitch them. And it's not that I don't have to do any of it, but please don't lean on me to do that all the time. His job satisfaction went up. My job satisfaction went up. We got twice as much done in less time. And it was because we understood that let's let people lean into their geniuses. I love this. I love it. So d and g are the middle steps the last two steps are called implementation and that's Enablement so this is this is we're gonna land the plane we're getting down to like 10 000 feet We're gonna have to put this plane on the ground and we're like, okay next plane and they're like no We have to land this one first And so it starts with enablement.

29:42So the galvanizer goes out and says hey everybody we need your help The person with enablement says yes Yes, what do you need from me? I'll do it. They're critical on a team. They're like they're that utility player that says whatever you need i'll do it you just let me know i'm there so enablement is great and they're not it's not just because they're nice it's a genius they actually wake up in the morning and say if people ask me for their help for my help i will be so excited to say yes and and we're like what makes them go it's like thank god they are like that because we're not and then the last one is tenacity which is the person doesn't just say yes i'll help it says what need what do we need to do to actually get it done right and to finish They love finishing.

30:22They love the last steps. They love landing the plane and saying, there, it got done. Well, imagine, you guys. People take this. A team will take it and look at the team map, and they'll go, we don't have anybody on our team with tenacity. Or we don't have anybody on our team with wonder. I was working with a group of executives at a big tech company, multibillion-dollar tech company that hadn't come up with a new idea in 10 years. All of their revenue came from old stuff. They were so frustrated. And so were their employees. So I did this with their executive team. And none of the executives had wonder as a genius.

30:56In fact, most of them had it as a frustration. So nobody ever said, gee, maybe this isn't right. I wonder if the market's saying something different. They were always like managing their to-do list. And only one executive at this high-tech company had invention as a genius. And he was the lawyer. Uh-oh. Do you know what they did? They put him in charge of new technology development and acquisition. Wow. Not because of his background, but because he had a passion for new ideas. And that's the thing about this working genius. When you know what a person's genius is, suddenly their job description doesn't matter quite so much.

31:35Wow. You have a gift at that. We should let you use that gift for yourself and for the benefit of everybody around you. And this is what's going on in these organizations. And people that we're talking to, they're like, I finally understand what I'm meant to do. Not necessarily the field I'm supposed to be in, not necessarily my job description, but the work that gives me energy and where I can contribute the most. So those are the six types of working genius, starting with wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement, and tenacity. We're going to be a little bit selfish here for a second, Pat.

32:07And we're going to tell you what our two types of genius are. And we want to know, like, what does that mean? What should we do with our lives now? You know? Are we normal? Are we normal? Okay. So mine are invention and discernment. Those are mine. We're twins. Whoa. And remember, there's 15 different combos, permutations and combinations. Oh, wow. Okay. So you and I just happen to be the same combination. And I'm invention and galvanizing. Okay. I was going to guess that, Michael. Yeah. I was going to guess that. So this is fun. So invention and discernment is, we're called the discriminating ideators, which means most of the ideas we come up with, we vet them in our heads.

32:53So by the time we put it out there, they're actually pretty well thought of. So we're doing both in, we're coming up with a new idea and evaluating it simultaneously. Now, Michael, you're an inventor and a galvanizer. that's called the evangelizing innovator. And that is you're always coming up with new ideas and you love to pitch them and to inspire people to act on them. In fact, the connection between a new idea and the pitch of it happens simultaneously. And I know so many - That's so true. Yeah. And I know so many people like you, Michael, and here's true. This is something true about all the IGs I know.

33:37When you first meet them, you can't really believe that they're sincere. They're so over the top in their excitement around things that it's easy to go, this guy can't really be like this. You know, our friend, our friend, Daniel Harkavy is like that too. And, um, and when you first meet them, you're like, can he really be that enthusiastic? And then you know them for a short period and you're like, he really is. And then when you come up with an idea though, if somebody comes up and says, well, I think you need to tweak it. You're very open. Like, oh yeah, great, right. We could tweak it. So there's not that pride of ownership, but you just love to come up with new ideas and present them to the world, which is why you have a podcast and you've done all these other things.

34:14So I love that. This is really fun. You're both inventors. You both love coming up with new ideas. Yes, that's definitely true. We're very similar on a lot of tests and Megan has half my DNA as my daughter. So I guess that's to be expected. the bottom ones for me yeah tell me about your working frustrations yeah my working frustrations are tenacity and enablement me too okay those happen to be mine and and this and this is crazy but it isn't because the kind of people that do what we do um and my son will tell you this he he's he's our one of our producers on our podcast and and when i'm on other people's podcasts, a lot of people who do what we do that like curate ideas and come up with new ideas and share them with others have similar working geniuses.

35:03So this is not common. It just happens to be common with a lot of people who do what we do. So the thing about you is this, this is, this is almost painful to hear, but it's, it's not a moral issue. And that is the two things that you don't love to do are what we call, and I'll explain this in a bit, enablement and tenacity. Enablement is coming alongside and just saying to somebody, yes, I'll help you. Just whatever you need, I'll do it for you. Now, we love to help people, but not necessarily on their terms, right? Exactly. And as a follower of Jesus, I feel like, but I'm supposed to say yes, but I can't say yes if I don't have a chance to evaluate whether I really think they need that.

35:44And there are people in the world, and it's a gift, it's a God-given gift, who you can say, I just need this. And they say, I will give you what you want. right now, the way you want it, no questions asked. And I don't have that. My wife says to me, hey, I need your help this weekend. And right away, I get this pit in my stomach. I'm like, what do you need, honey? And she says, I need you to help me clean the garage. And I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay. And the first thing I say is, can I design what the garage is going to look like? And she's like, no, I don't want your invention. And I'm like, can I ask why you think we need to to to reevaluate the garage and she's no i don't want your discernment i just want you to stand in the corner and when i hand you something i want you to put it where i tell you and that is crushing and she has friends that are like oh yeah i'll do that i'll just come over we'll chat i'll do whatever you ask me to do my wife is that way yeah and every team needs them every family needs them but it's not my thing now the tenacity that both of you guys is is the finishing is the finishing.

36:48And it's like, I don't love, I love the beginning of things. I love getting things started. And then I like to move on to the next thing. And there are people in the world who to them, that's anathema. They hate that. They're like, if I can't finish, if I can't see the end of it, if I can't cross it off the list, plow through the obstacles and hit my target, then I don't even want to do it. And I'm the opposite. I'm like, well, if I have to keep pushing through to the end, I don't really want to do it. And so we need one another. we need one another to get things done but we are not so the et is called the loyal finisher that's not who we are that is not who we are just the polar opposite of that

37:38where can people take this assessment if you go to workinggenius.com workinggenius.com. There's two G's in the middle there. You can get it there and take it there. Teams can do it. They can do it. It's$25 and it takes 12 minutes. And then you get this amazing report. I'm looking at mine right now with all this incredible information. If you don't happen to find yourself fortunate enough to have Pat on your podcast to explain your results to you, that's okay because he's already explained it in the report. Would you recommend, Pat, that people take the test first and then read the book? Take the test.

38:14Take the test. The book allows you to go deeper. But what we've found is if you take the test, so much of it makes sense. There's just enough description. And there's plenty of places to go deeper, the book and other things on the website. But just understand who you are because most people do it. And within five minutes, they look at it and they go, well, crap. This explains a lot. We had a guy who was doing a performance review. he was getting reviewed and he knew he'd done very poorly for, for, for the year. And so he knew his, his boss was going to give him a bad review and his boss's boss came to the review too.

38:47He was going to be there. And so the night before he did the working genius and he looked at it and he goes, well, no wonder. So he, he comes to the performance area and says, before we get into the stuff from last year, can you guys read this? And they looked at the report, takes minutes to read. And they were like, well, crap, you're in the wrong job. No wonder you, you'd had such a terrible year. And he goes, I know. And they go, well, we have this other job you should do. You'd be really good. And they didn't even talk about his failure. They said, let's get you in the right direction. So this guy got a promotion rather than getting dinged because his manager just wanted to know who he was.

39:22He didn't even know it. But as soon as he showed this to him, he said, okay, this explains everything. Wow. So we just think that everybody should know what their geniuses are. Unwrap the gifts God gave you and help others do it too. I would think that it's really important if you're at work and in any role of leadership, whether you're the CEO or divisional manager or department manager or whatever, is to be thoughtful about the collection of employees or the team that you're building so that you've got all of these working geniuses, or at least the ones that are necessary, represented. Absolutely.

39:58In fact, what we say is the best combination of geniuses for a CEO is just the self-awareness ones. In other words, just know who you are. And we've had CEOs of all types, but then they sit down and they go, okay, I need to surround myself with people who fill in my gaps. And I need to celebrate the fact that they're better than me at things. And this is about your working genius, but I actually think it's just as much about your frustrations so that you can go to people around you and go, just so you guys know, I suck at a few things. And you probably already know that, but now you can tell me that because I'm agreeing with you.

40:29And let's make sure that I don't do things that I suck at that are going to hurt the organization. And people are like, it increases the vulnerability and the openness about strengths and weaknesses. That's fantastic. You know, the thing that occurs to me too, as you're talking, Pat, is that when I know what my working genius is, and when I'm working inside of my working genius, I'm going to come home a different person than if I'm working in something that's my frustrating, is that what you call it, the frustrating genius? Frustration. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. If I'm in frustration and I come home, I'm not going to be the best version of myself.

41:03No. So that's why all these different domains of life are so interconnected and why we have to pay attention to all of them. Yeah. You know how this affected my wife? Because she was involved in this tool because she loves this kind of stuff like I do. But she's been raising our, I mean, I have been too. I'm very involved in raising our sons, but she's been full time doing that, even running a Bible study and doing other things, but really doing a lot of the stuff every day. And after she, when I wrote the book and she read it, I said, what'd you think? She goes, it was great. And I'm so mad. And she goes, and now I realize I was doing things outside of my area of genius for 20 years.

41:39And what's funny is during all that time, I was like, Laura, just hire somebody to do that stuff. Just outsource it. I know it's not your thing. And she goes, no, I felt too guilty. But I would be a bad mom. Because moms are supposed to love getting things done on time and paying the bills and getting the laundry done and getting the kids to school. And my wife, you know what her working geniuses are? Wonder and invention. Wow. So she's at the higher end where she loves coming up with new ideas and questioning things. And yet she was spending all of her time doing the other stuff. And one, she could have outsourced it if she didn't realize it.

42:16Or two, she could have at least given herself a break and some grace and said, hey, I'm going to make mistakes in this area, but I'm doing my best. It's not my genius. I shouldn't feel guilty. So I want people to avoid unnecessary guilt and self-judgment or even judgment of others. We judge other people. We say, how come you can't come up with a new idea? A pastor wrote to us and said, listen, he took the genius, working genius. For 20 years, I thought I was a fraud. I said, why? And he goes, I couldn't write a sermon to save my life. He goes, my friends can go for a walk in the woods and come out with a four-week sermon series, and I couldn't do it.

42:52And I looked at his working genius type, and I said, do you like counseling people? Do you like grief counseling and helping people? And he goes, oh, yeah, I'm great at that. Of course you are. Do you know there's other pastors who could write a homily, but they can't even talk to a person who's in grief? Because everybody has different—one pastor is not a pastor, is not a pastor. A CEO is not a CEO. A mom is not a mom, is not a mom. We have to understand that none of us are good at all of it. But there's so many people walking around out there feeling guilty for not being everything. And what a relief to know, oh, God just didn't give me those gifts.

43:23And that's why we need each other. He made us to need each other. Life is a team sport. Yeah. So is it. I love that. Okay. So we are running out of time, sadly, because I feel like we could just talk to you all day. I wish we had hours. But we have some questions that we ask all of our guests. and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. So in - Kind of a lightning round. Yeah, kind of a lightning round. Like - And I don't know what these questions are, so this is - I know, this is gonna be fun. Okay, so in just a couple of sentences, tell us what your biggest obstacle is currently for getting the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life.

44:02My biggest obstacle is worrying about things that are not really the source of my frustration and going back and understanding the real historical roots of my frustration and focusing on those. I distract myself with like, I have to fix this. I have to fix this. I have to fix this. If I could only fix this, I'd be happy. It's like, nope. It's not about that stuff. It's about go back and deal with some of the core issues you have and quit trying to distract yourself by stuff that's - Good answer. That's such a great answer. Okay. How do you personally know now in this season of life that you've achieved the double win?

44:41oh you know i mean you you pause there because first of all i don't know if you've ever completely get there but it's the thing we're looking for is peace right peace and and that's what everybody wants people i want to be happy and it's like you know i think you really want peace because life is sad sometimes but even in the midst of sadness we can have peace yeah so when you have those moments of peace. And whenever I tell that to people, like, yeah, that's really what I want. Because happiness, euphoria, you can't ever sustain that. But there is the possibility of sustainable peace. And when I have those glimpses of it, I'm there.

45:18I'm looking to have that all the time, regardless of external circumstances. How do you know that you're at peace? Like, what are the clues that your body gives you or your thoughts or whatever? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's like true rest. And true rest is like taking that breath and realizing everything is fine. And I know this sounds like a cliche, but being in the moment, like one of the things I do way too much is think about the future. I'm always thinking about the future. You know, the Bible says, you know, Jesus said, hey, the world is, the future's got plenty of problems of its own.

45:53Just all you have right now is now. And I think when we live in the moment and we're at peace in the moment, that's when it is. Because I've spent my whole life worrying about the future, and that's a great recipe for stress. We are kindred spirits. Yeah. We can relate to that. All right. What is one ritual or routine that helps you do what you do, especially get the double win? Okay. So I have an app called Amen, which is - Yes, I'm familiar. What's that? I've heard of this. Yeah, and it's free. And literally every morning I wake up and I hit play, and it reads the daily reading, the psalm, and the gospel reading.

46:40And it takes like seven minutes. And it's easy because it's just like the habit. So every day I start with that because I need some structure way to do it. If I have to do it on my own, it's just not going to happen. So every morning I wake up, I hit play, and I listen to seven minutes of Bible, and that starts my day in the right direction. Fantastic. I love that. Well, Pat, it's a privilege to know you. I'm honored that you agreed to come on the podcast, and you did not disappoint. This was powerful, rich, and I think our listeners are going to take away a ton of value from this. So thank you for being so open-hearted and giving us your best.

47:21Absolutely. Well, I could talk to you guys for hours. This is not work. It's fun and it's raw and it's good because that's how God made us to live. So thanks for having me on here, you guys. I really appreciate it. I hope your listeners take something helpful away from it. I know they will. Thank you. Thanks again.

47:49that was a really fun interview yeah it was it was surprising to me okay so i i don't know pat you you know pat so this was my first experience of talking to him um directly and the thing that stood out to me was his incredible humility and vulnerability. Yeah, me too. I was just like, wow, he doesn't need to share any of this. And he was talking about kind of his own journey of healing and looking at his childhood wounds and kind of how previously those things came out sideways. I mean, who can't relate to that? Everybody raises their hand. And I didn't know any of that. I didn't know any of that either.

48:26I didn't know much. And the funny thing is, it's kind of been our journey too, kind of our whole family's going through this similar kind of thing. And it's really helpful or validating to hear that somebody else of his stature struggles with a lot of the same things. And the fact that he's so open and vulnerable about it, and this is a good lesson for all of us to take away, that draws me to him. Right. And I think the other thing to take away is it's never too late. But it's easy to think, well, my career is already established. My kids are almost grown. And you have kind of a list. And it's like, well, I wish I would have done this in my 20s or my 30s.

49:04But it's OK if you didn't. Unless you're dead, it's not too late. Well, it's kind of that old thing about the best time to plant an oak tree is 40 years ago. Second best time is today. Right. So if you didn't do it before, no problem. And if you don't have the double win right now, or if you haven't had it for the last few decades, it's never too late to start. I think another insight I got from him too, and this is something I know, but he just said it, and that is that he's still pursuing the double win. And is there ever a point where you really get it? Right. You know, it's a constant pursuit.

49:39You know, it's not like you're going to get there and stay there. Yeah, exactly. You know, you can't just one day say, oh, I'm healthy, check. You know, I mean, if you're really looking at it. Or your marriage. You're always tweaking things. You're always adjusting seasons of life change. And you have to keep changing your strategies to make it work now. And, you know, I often say, I don't know if there's one day that I've ever like nailed it. Yeah. Like just 100 % nailed it. But I loved what he said about peace was the indicator and being able to be in the present moment was how he knew when he got the double winner when he was close to it.

50:15And it's funny because I'm seeing a theme start to develop among our guests. Me too. And that's fascinating to me. I think it's fascinating that that's the language people are using. Right. Unprompted. That's the thing that they want. Yeah. Is peace. You know, happiness is probably another thing. Love is probably another thing. Joy, you know, to the extent that that's different from happiness. But peace is that thing that I think all of us are pursuing. Certainly that's what I want when I'm feeling anxious and laying awake in the middle of the night. It's just like, I would give away half my kingdom for just peace.

50:50Yeah. Well, I also really appreciated the conversation about working genius. Me too. There are a number of different assessments that are kind of trying to get at this same thing, but I think what all of them have in common, and certainly explicitly his does, is the freedom to be who you're made to be. And that really that's where your highest and best contribution is going to be. And I think that distinction between, it's not just how much you're working, it's how you're working, what you're actually doing. Because when we talk about the freedom compass and spending the majority of time in your desire zone, and then ultimately getting the double win, it's not just about working less.

51:29It's also about working in your desire zone, in the things that you're made to do and how you're made to do them. Well, you took the words right out of my mouth. And this is a new insight for me today, is it's not just the quantity of work, but it's the kind of work. And as you know, we were queued up. We were planning to talk to him about his book, The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family. We'll have to have him back on and talk about that. I know, we'll have to talk about that. But the truth is, how you work at work is probably going to impact your family more than any single thing you could do.

52:00Yeah. Because yes, you want to spend time with your family. You want to give an appropriate amount of attention to work. But if you're doing the wrong kind of work and you're coming home burned out or frustrated or angry, irritated, that doesn't bode well for the family. Right. So I think we did kind of talk about the family, or at least this is the precursor to having that rich family life that you want to have. Well, we say this all the time. It's like life is not a bento box. These nine life domains don't live in little hermetically sealed containers. They all kind of blend together. It really do.

52:30And what happens in one affects the others. And since most of us spend the vast majority of our waking hours at work, then obviously how we feel about what we're doing, whether it fills us up or drains us, is going to leave us energized and able to be in alignment the rest of our life with our values and what matters most, or it's going to undermine us. Well, again, the book that you want to buy of Pat's that's appropriate for this conversation is The Six Types of Working Genius. But take the assessment first, and you can find that at workinggenius.com. Megan and I have both taken that. I want to get Gail to take this.

53:14Yeah. That'd be awesome. I thought you were going to say you want our team to take it, which I also think would be awesome. I think it'd be great, too. Yeah. It's great. Well, guys, we hope you've enjoyed this conversation with Patrick Lynch. you own as much as we have. Let me just encourage you, if you haven't already, subscribe to this podcast and leave us a five-star review. But only if you feel like the content is valuable, but that will help us to get noticed by other people, to spread the word. And we think this is a message that everybody needs, this whole pursuit of the double win, where you can win at work and succeed at life.

53:49We'll see you next week.

53:55Thank you.