What is Working Genius Anyway?

0:00 You another collaboration conversation where we talk about anything and everything that has to do with building pieceof Vision driven teams, because this is where you Unleash Your impact. I am, KC W impact coach and consultant and of course, the host of this show. Now Today's show is going to get started in just a few moments, but I want to take a quick pause real quick for you to introduce yourself in the comments. Let us know who you. You are where you're from. And what it is that brought you to the show. And then I also want to get really real with you and ask you a question. Okay, so here goes, have you ever made assumptions?

0:45 I'm guessing the answer is yes, because everyone has made assumptions, right? Have your assumptions ever led to either negative consequences or stagnancy? I'm betting that your assumptions more than likely have led to those things, because that is true for me. I have been guilty of making the assumption that, when two or more people are gathered together collaboration is naturally happening, or I've made the assumption that when teams get along, they are generally productive and effective. And I've also made the assumption that because we're working together.

1:28 Clearly we are All know the direction that we're moving and that is just not true. Those assumptions have lead to ineffective teams that are going nowhere, fast. And I know that we want something different than that. We want teams, who can survive can Thrive instead of survive. We want teams who are less dysfunctional and are more of the kind of team that they deserve to be a part of of these are the kinds of teams that can Propel your organization and benefit, not just the people who are on the team but can benefit the organization as a whole. Okay.

2:13 And I want to tell you about something that can help them to get to this point where we're letting go of those assumptions and we're utilizing people. Well, so we can work efficiently, productively in toward a vision. I want to tell you about how Can build that cohesive Vision, driven team. Let me read to you first a quote from Christine Caine. It's one of my favorite quotes to build a strong team. You must see someone else's strength as a complement to your own weakness and not a threat to your position or authority, okay? But I want to dig a little bit deeper. Sometimes we have this surface level knowledge of what our strengths and weaknesses are. But how Great.

2:59 Would it be if you could dig down to a deeper level and truly understand, everyone's Geniuses their god-given talent, the kind of work, that brings them fulfillment and because it brings them fulfillment. They are building capacity and you know what that built capacity helps your team to thrive How wonderful would it be if your team members knew each of their types of geniuses new? They're working competencies and new. They're working frustrations.

3:40 I am going to be providing all of that information in an upcoming Marco Polo. Share Cast. We're going to be diving into the six types of working genius developed by Patrick Lencioni. And we're going to be thinking about how you can recognize provoke and cultivate those Geniuses and support teams. So that they are cohesive and All Vision driven so that you can prepare Well, your organization forward faster and better. I want to share all of this with you. If you want to learn more, you can go to bit.ly slash better.

4:21 You better team. This will end February 28th. So registration closes February 28th. Be sure you get in before then if you want to learn more, just put in the comments, learn more and I will hit you up with more information, okay? I'm excited to begin today. Days content. So if you are ready, drop a hashtag ready. And let's get started. Hey everybody. Welcome, welcome to another collaboration conversation. I'm super excited to have you here tonight tonight. We are going to be hey, Michelle rui. We're going to be digging into the working genius. You've probably heard me talk about the working genius on social media in my emails.

5:13 If you get my emails, you've seen me talking about it there and you probably have heard me talk about it right here in. Operation conversations. In fact. That's one of the things that I talked about in the introduction video is the working genius and getting to know you're working genius for yourself but also for your team. And tonight that's what we're going to be digging into because I want to take away the question of what is the working? Genius. Anyway. Okay. So that's the big topic. What is this working genius anyway? And we're also going to be thinking why is it important for us to know about our Working genius. Now, what I want to do is start off, not necessarily by digging into the working genius, right off the bat, but what I want to do is talk about this myth of burnout, okay?

6:04 We're going to talk a little bit about some myths behind burnout. And the reason I want to talk about that is because that has been my experience this past year. So from January 2020 to all the way to December 22. I had a full year where I experienced burnout and I want to know from you guys if you have ever had the sense of burnout, have you ever experienced burnout in your career? And if you have drop me a comment or put a hashtag, yes to let me know that. That is something you have experienced.

6:44 Now I want to look at the working genius through the lens of burnout because it's going to give us a little bit of Rarity as to why identifying the working genius and you're at working. Genius is so important. So I want to show you something that's really interesting that I found just this past week. I'm seeing somebody say, oh yes, you feel me on burnout? Michelle rui? Yes, I think. So, let's talk about burnout for a moment. Let me show you this graphic that I recognized. Let me change the way. That that looks. Okay, I found this recently on the Gallup website from researcher been.

7:28 I think his last name is pronounced wigger, but I'm not positive. And he wrote about the myth of Burnett. Like, one of the biggest myths about burnout, but here is the research that he found from doing a survey of various employees. The survey shows that most employees Experience for not at work and here are the details behind that. You'll notice the asterisk says, please indicate how often the following is true for your job. You feel burned out at work and then you have the options. Never always very often sometimes. Rarely, never 4%, always seven percent, twenty very often 21%, sometimes 48%, rarely, 20%, 76 percent of employees. Audience for an out on the job at least sometimes, right? And chances are we all have experienced it to some degree, some more than others, right?

8:32 And there are lots of myths about why burnout happens and I would love for you. If you are thinking about like, what could be a possible myth, as to why burnout happens, put that in the comments, too. And while you're thinking about, what could possibly be Reason that we resort to burn out or we say that we are feeling burn out while you're thinking of that, I want to tell you a couple, okay. A couple that are going to be really familiar to you, especially in the world of Education. We hear so often that people are overworked, or you hear my plate is too full.

9:14 I am not here to say that. That is not true, right? I'm not here to say that we don't have. Have situations where we are overworked as Educators. And I'm not saying that we don't have situations where our plates aren't fooled because that can happen. But it is not necessarily always the cause for Burnout and we're going to talk about what really could be the cause of burnout here in a moment. Let me check these Cano. Hey, Facebook, Facebook, user, I'm seeing a happy Sunday, I want to know who you are. And all the time, Michelle rui, I know that what you're probably hearing all the time is, my plate is too full and we use that as I don't want to say an excuse, but we use that as the go-to phrase for Burnout, we hear it and see it all the time. Hey Brandi, Hawthorne and tonight, what I want to look at, is how we can shift our thoughts about burnout to what really could be the cause of burnout.

10:19 Okay. Okay, let me step on your toes a little bit though. All right and I want to step on your toes with three statements. All right. Are you okay with me stepping on your toes a little bit? Because I think it's really important that we are okay with getting a little uncomfortable because we know that discomfort is where the growth happens. If you're okay with that give me a thumbs up or a? Yes I'm okay or go for it. Casey ready for me to step on your toes a bit. Here we go. I'm going to Step on your toes and maybe three ways and some of these may not be stepping on your toes at all. Wait number one, I'm going to step on your toes. I'm going to say this self-care is not the cure for Burnout, will say it again.

11:05 Self care is not the cure for Burnout. Stepping on your toes in the second way, just because someone can do something. Well, doesn't mean they want to do it. And then, the third thing, that might push your buttons a little bit leaders. Have a responsibility to grow people in their areas of Genius. We're going to dig into each of these three things in just a moment, a little bit more in-depth. So, again, self care is not the cure for Burnout. Out just because someone can do something. Well, doesn't mean they want to do it and finally leaders have a responsibility to grow people in their areas of Genius.

11:50 So here's what I believe before. We dig a little bit deeper into those things. I want to tell you that careful explanations of Who You Are. Can shape the way you live work and interact with others. Okay. What does all of this have to do with burnout? Let me tell you my experience in the last year from that. December. Or from that January 2020, 22, December 22, 22. I found myself in this place of burnout where I felt like, man, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm valuable, I'm not producing anything that's worthy. I'm really concerned about What the role is that I have taken and if I even am a good fit for this role maybe this is not the job for me and I was ready to jump ship.

12:44 So come may 20-22, I was ready. I was starting to look for jobs. And a lot of different things happened over the course of that year, that probably contributed to my feelings beyond the job itself. But because I find such value in my work, that's where I was feeling the most burnout and I was ready to leave. But instead of leaving, I decided I just needed to take some time for some deep self reflection because I didn't know what was causing the burnout. Like even though I wasn't feeling worthy and valued, there was nothing in my job that significantly changed to make me get into this place of not feeling worthy or not filling out like I was producing anything that was valuable and then I started thinking okay so why am I feeling so burned out?

13:39 Why don't I want to go back to work and y'all I was getting in the car and the morning and just really struggling to push the gas pedal to make me. Go to work and I've got a 35-minute drive to work. So, 35 minutes of I don't want to, I don't want to, I want to go back home, and I want to do something different, but I didn't know what it was different that I wanted to do, and I didn't know why I was feeling that way. So I began to really dig into some deep self-reflection. And this is kind of this diagram is what I anchored to careful explanations of.

14:20 Who You are can shape the way you live work and interact with others. So I went to my experiences and like I just said, I mean, I'd had a few different experiences that were unpleasant, but you know, it's, it wasn't anything that should have made me feel such burnout. So I shifted to, okay, let's look at my Enneagram. What do I know about my Enneagram? I am an ideogram, type 3. That means I'm an achiever and performer. And I know that when I don't feel like I I am producing things that are worthy or I don't feel valued, I begin to withdraw and I had withdrawn, right? And I was starting to experience burnout, but why still didn't know why that was happening?

15:06 Because nothing really had changed that much? In fact, I had been given more responsibility at work in August, that I should have been really excited about, but I wasn't okay. So then I shifted to My 16 personalities type. I am an INTP Dash a which means I am I they titled me the logician. So I'm a little bit introverted intuitive. I do lots of thinking respecting and I'm assertive. So I'm very assured in myself and I noticed you're going to hear my kids in the background. Sorry about that your it's fine.

15:48 I noticed that. Because I'm a deep thinker. Maybe I wasn't being given opportunities to deeply think and Ponder things with other people. But then I started to think wait that can't be true because I've got this amazing group of colleagues outside of work by breakthrough, Circle, ladies who helped me to pursue deep conversations about the things that I'm really interested in. Okay. So then I shifted to working genius and working genius is the assessment. At that, I decided to take next. And when I moved into looking at the working genius, this is where everything came to light.

16:29 And I realized that I was experiencing burnout, because I was not working within my Geniuses instead, I was working with in my competencies and my frustrations and it was causing me to feel anxiety. It was causing me to feel Burnout because I wasn't doing the kind of work that I love. So I want to take you now into the working genius and what that can do for people and take them from feeling drained and burned out to feeling like they are producing great work.

17:12 Before I do that drop me a comment. If any of these types of personality tests, you have Ian. And I will say before we get started working, genius is not really a personality test. It's a little bit different than all of the others. What it is instead is a way to help you identify how you do work. Well? Okay, so tell me about what you are. What is your Enneagram where are you? Where do you land in your Generations? What could be your 16 personalities type and what is your working genius? If you know what it is. So let me tell You where you can find out more about the working genius.

17:55 You can go to working genius.com. This model was developed by Patrick Lencioni. And in his work he developed this model with a group called the table group and they developed this idea of helping, you understand your gifts your frustrations and your competency so that you can Thrive at work and so that your team can Thrive at work. So that is the working genius. You can go to working genius.com, you can take the working genius assessment and find out more about, what could be your working genius? Okay, so I want to kind of move into. Let me see what my next slide is. Okay, so let's take into what are the working Geniuses. There are six types of working genius and I want to break them up.

18:50 To you. Probably heard me say working genius, working competency and working frustration. And I want to tell you more about working genius, competencies and frustrations. Okay. So here's how Patrick Lencioni. Explains it on working genius.com and in his book. And this there's a great podcast guys that you can listen to all about the six types of working genius. Simply go to this website and you'll see if they're okay. So here's welcome Franklin to the show. This is my dog Franklin and he just thinks he's a lap dogs. So I'm going to put him to the side. All right, here's how he describes it. You're working.

19:33 Genius is what gives you life? Everyone has to working Geniuses to competencies. And to frustrations, it is very rare that you will have more than two working Geniuses, okay, you're working. Genius is what? Rings. You life and joy and excitement. It is. The kind of work that you can do anytime all the time you're working, competency is the kind of work that you do, okay at. But it's not something that brings you great joy and fulfillment and then you're working frustration. That's the kind of work that really drains you. You can't do it for long periods of time. I love this analogy that Patrick Lencioni. Shares in his podcast about the working Geniuses competencies and frustrations.

20:25 He Compares it to coffee mugs and I wanted to do that for you now. So you can kind of get a visual of this but you're working genius. Imagine like this thermos that has like a heavy-duty thermostat has a nice solid lid on it and it will keep your coffee or your tea hot for hours upon hours, right? That you're working genius. You will be able to stay in that work for long periods of time and you won't Tire of it. You're working. Competencies could be compared to maybe a coffee cup. That has you know the paper coffee cups that you get at Starbucks and it's got a lid on it and it's got a little sleeve, right?

21:11 So it'll stay warm for a good period of time, but it's going to lose its heat a lot more quickly than your thermos and then Finally, you're working frustration. He compares to a paper coffee cup with a lid but guess what? It's got a hole in the bottom and no sleep and it's just draining. That's your working frustration. Now, here's the deal. We have to do all kinds of work. There is no work that you cannot get away with not doing. So, I want to give you an example of that. I have taken on the role of ESL director for our district this year and I have to do a lot of work that requires tenacity.

22:00 It is a job that requires me to check things off of a list and go through many kind of what I feel like our mundane tasks and that is a frustration for me it drains me really quickly but I have to do that kind of work so guess what? But I'm going to strategically position myself, so that I'm able to do more of the work that fits within my working genius. So that I have the energy to do the work that is within my working frustration. And I also know that I'm going to rely on people who maybe have the genius of tenacity as they're working genius because it's not mine.

22:46 So remember earlier I told you about stepping on toes a bit I want to go up to that in just a moment. But before I do, let me tell you about the six types of working genius. And I'm going to go through each of these really briefly. And what I want you to do is just kind of think which of these could be your working Geniuses, which could be you're working frustrations. If you want to truly find out, go take the working, genius assessment on working genius.com and you also can join my shirt cast that I shared about. That in the beginning you can go to bit ly / better you better team.

23:27 I'm going to be sharing about each of the working Geniuses in micro sessions in this Marco Polo, Share Cast and you will get to know what people say about those with this work. With these working, Geniuses how you can provoke and cultivate these Geniuses and others and how you can support a cohesive Vision driven team, okay? So, here we go. There are six working Geniuses and they go generally in this order, which you will notice spells out the word widget and we need all of these working Geniuses to get work done to bring projects to fruition. The first genius is the genius of Wonder someone who truly loves to question Ponder possibilities and wonder about things.

24:19 There is the genius of invention. These people love to invent and create ideas ideas flow easily from them. The genius of discernment. You might notice people with this genius who are able to discern things, they're able to take the ideas and discern. What's going to work? What is going to be valid? What is going to be reliable people? With the genius of galvanizing? Are the people that rally others are Around things they are the people that truly galvanized others to take a stance or to take action people with the Genius of enablement, Love to get the work done by supporting others. They like to come in and help.

25:06 It is a genius for them. It's not something that they're doing because they want to get something out of it. They truly want to help people along in a process or project. And then finally, those with the genius of tenacity, are your People who check things off the list. They are the people that allow us to get work actually completed. Okay. So those are the six types of working genius. There's so much more I could tell you about them. Remember, everyone has about two working Geniuses. That also means you have to work and competencies and to frustrations my to working Geniuses are what wonder and invention my to frustrations Our tenacity and galvanizing.

25:53 So what does that mean? Let me go back to stepping on your toes. Self-care is not the cure for Burnout. I can take 20 baths a week. I can go work out every day. I can have a glass of wine every other day if I wanted to, that self-care is not going to help me to alleviate the burnout that I experienced last. Last year. The reason why is because I have to do the kind of work that fills my tank. Otherwise, I'm going into work every day and I'm doing the wrong kind of work that drains me.

26:35 So when I go home and I try all of these self care routines, nothing's going to work quite. Like the kind of work that I love to do. And that is wondering invention. You get me in front of a boy. Board, a clean, white board and you say let's start Vision casting and it lights me up. I can do that kind of work all day long. Self-care is not the cure for Burnout, but what is is helping people thrive by allowing them to work within their working? Genius. Just because someone can do something. Well, doesn't mean they want to do it. Okay, I can Galvanize and I can Galvanize. Well, even though it is something I don't want to do and I don't like to do it.

27:29 I can and people might say that it is my working genius, but it is not. It does not bring me great joy to Galvanize people and rallied them around things. Instead it can Wheatley exhausts me. So when I have to go into work and I'm responsible for galvanizing people, and that's what I'm doing for a majority of my day. I'm leaving work done and really struggling to want to get up and do it again the next day. Okay, give me a thumbs up, if that's making sense to you. Are you thinking? Wow, yeah. Sometimes I got to work and I there are things that I have to do that. Just completely drain me.

28:12 Even if I do them really. Well, I'm an extremely organized person. I like to check things. I do check things off of a to-do list because I have to, I don't love to do it, don't love to do it. That's tenacity for you leaders, have a responsibility to grow people in their areas of Genius. There is so much research and work out there from experts and authors about This topic of leadership, we know that in the words of John, Maxell Maxwell. We are expected to add value to others.

28:55 I have his book right here, five levels of leadership and I want to tell you just a little bit that I read earlier. He says leaders become great. So this is level four people development leaders become great. Not because of their power but because of their ability, To empower others. How better is it to add value to someone? Then to know what they're working Geniuses are and to allow them to do the work within their working geniuses. That is how we add value. In order to add value to others, we need to know our people and that means we need to know where they Thrive at work.

29:41 What are their areas of working, genius? Okay, let me bring up another, fantastic author, give me a thumbs up if you know of this book the multiplier effect by Liz Wiseman. Liz, Wiseman is one of my favorite authors and guys, this book is just full of Old. I mean, it's full of sticky notes right now but it is full of gold. And what she says about multipliers is that we attract and optimize Talent multipliers lead, people by operating as Talent, binders whereby they tap into people's natural talents regardless of their seat in the building. Oh she's dropping some truth right there. Let me read that one more time because It's just so good. Multipliers lead, people by operating as Talent finders whereby they tap into people's natural talents regardless of their seat in the building.

30:44 #Mike drop guys. Put that hashtag might drop in the comments. That is such great knowledge, such great wisdom. But how do we recognize the talent or recognize the genius? How do we provoke that genius and how do we cultivate it? Guess what? We need to know people's working Geniuses in my Share Cast better? You better team. Cast. That's what we're going to be talking about. Even if you and your team cannot take the working genius assessment, like it's just not feasible for you and your team, you can identify what you believe could be there. Working Geniuses, what brings your people, great joy, and then provoke it and cultivate it.

31:36 And just a way that allows your team to thrive instead of just survive I've and for them to be more cohesive and vision driven I love what been wigger time, I think that's how you pronounce his last name in the article that I mentioned earlier. The Gallup article, he says this when people feel inspired motivated and supported in their work, they do more work and that work, is significantly less stressful on their overall health and well-being. Here's what I'm pitching to you. What? I am confidently saying.

32:18 And caring my flag for is that identifying the six types of working genius with your team and knowing what you're working Geniuses are and what your teams working Geniuses are. That is the deeper work that is going to build capacity in your buildings because your people are going to feel inspired motivated and supported in their work when you've recognized their native genius provoked it in cultivate it. Okay. Can I get a hashtag? Amen. Like this is the deeper work. So here's what I'm going to ask you to do as we wrap up, I want you to drop a comment. Ain't letting letting me know what was most useful for you and if you want to learn more about the better, you better team Share Cast event.

33:09 Let me know that to hashtag learn more, just put learn more in the comments and I will get you more information about that or you can simply go to better use, bit.ly slash better. You better team and you can learn more there, okay? I've given you about 25 minutes. It's of sharing about not just burn out but what could cause burn out. I've maybe stepped on toes a little bit and I hope that I've brought some truth that has resonated with you. Until next time I'm hoping you have a fantastic week and I will catch you on the flippety-flip. See you later guys.

33:58 I want to give a big thank you to you guys for tuning in and I would love for you to do me two solid favors number one. If you've enjoyed this or any other shows, please hit subscribe. I've got a lot of great, gas and content coming up. And I don't want you to miss any of it too. If you know, of someone who may be interested in building cohesive Vision, driven teams that collaborate. Well share this This show with them. And until next time, I want you to go off and have the great collaborative conversation, that helps you and the people you work with two completely. Unleash Your impact. See you later. This show with them. And until next time, I want you to go off and have the great collaborative conversation, that helps you and the people you work with two completely. Unleash Your impact. See you later.