Discover Your Talents and Strengthen Your Team
On September 27th, celebrated author and management consultant Patrick Lencioni is launching his latest book, “The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team,” and everyone here at Cramer is excited. We are huge fans of Patrick and his team at The Table Group, who specialize in organizational health. Not only do we read his books and listen to the podcasts, but we are also Certified Working Genius Facilitators!
What is the Working Genius Model?
When it comes to work, we are all blessed with certain God-given gifts. And when our jobs give us the opportunity to utilize these gifts consistently, we have more energy, we feel more fulfilled, and we are more successful.
The Working Genius Model lays out six types of gifts that every team needs:
- Wonder – The natural gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation.
- Invention – The natural gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions.
- Discernment – The natural gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations.
- Galvanizing – The natural gift of rallying, inspiring, and organizing others to take action.
- Enablement – The natural gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or project.
- Tenacity – The natural gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results.
To help individuals identify their talents, Patrick and his team developed a short assessment. In a few minutes, it reveals:
- your two areas of Working Genius that come naturally to you and give you energy when you use them.
- your two areas of Working Frustration that do not come naturally to you and drain you of energy.
- your two areas of Working Competency that you might do fairly well, but don’t give you particular joy.
This assessment isn’t a personality test or a career aptitude test. It’s a guide to help you understand your working style and maximize your effectiveness.
Why We Love This Model
As insightful as the assessment is on an individual level, it is even more valuable when used by a whole team. Here at Cramer, we know all our colleagues’ Working Geniuses and use this information daily.
We delegate more efficiently because we know what strengths everyone brings to the table. To take a project from ideation to implementation, we need all six types of gifts. When we call on our teammates for help in one of their areas of genius, they bring enthusiasm and energy that keeps the project moving.
We appreciate each other because we know how our gifts work together. We share our gifts generously with our teammates knowing they will do the same for us. Also, we are less judgmental when others struggle, and more patient with ourselves when we have to do the kinds of tasks that don’t come naturally to us.
We communicate more effectively since we have a common language to discuss our work and our skills. Because we understand the six types of gifts and the differences between Working Geniuses, Working Competencies, and Working Frustrations, we can quickly address challenges in our work and find solutions.
How We Facilitate This Model for Our Partners
When you engage Cramer & Associates to facilitate a Working Genius Assessment, we interpret your whole teams’ results to identify gaps and opportunities. We help you create strategies that will play to everyone’s strengths and increase the likelihood of success for your organization.
Perhaps you’ve felt that your organization has plenty of great ideas, but that you struggle to implement them. We might discover that most of your team members are great at Inventing and Discerning but are not so Tenacious.
Our analysis can help you reorganize your team for better results and greater impact. You might have a Galvanizer struggling in an isolated position, when they would be happier and more effective if they could interact daily with a larger team. Or maybe you have some creative Wonderers you can tap into when it’s time to make a big policy or program change.
The insights we share can also guide you when you are ready to make that next hire or recruit a new board member. If you know your team needs gusto and drive to push projects to the finish line, you can seek out people with the gifts of Enablement and Tenacity.
There are so many benefits to the Working Genius Assessment. We hope you will order Patrick’s book to learn more! Once your team takes the assessment, they will spend less time feeling insecure about their weaknesses and more time celebrating their strengths.
Get in touch with us today and find out how we can make the Working Genius Model work for your organization!
