Leveraging Employee Strengths

I'll let him talk about it a little more, but today we're here specifically to talk about working genius and that model. So with that, I'll just start out with, so Darren, tell me a little bit about yourself and what are you actively working on now?

Um, so a couple years ago I started a , a little company of my own called RP three Coaching and Renewal. And , uh, it's interesting though, as I've been coaching others on greater self-awareness and, and, and guiding them through , um, through leadership principles and, and , and leadership practices.

What I've realized about myself is that I'm not a very good entrepreneur, but I really love developing and investing in people and teams and organizations.

And so , um, I am , uh, currently I'm actually actively looking for employment somewhere within the , uh, talent development training, HR spaces with , uh, small, medium, or larger organizations to really transform culture , um, transform , uh, team and individual performance.

So with , uh, with that , um, let me go ahead and, 'cause I know we're here to talk about working Genius specifically. Yeah . So what I'm gonna do is I'm actually gonna show a, I I'm gonna show the Working Genius model

And so , uh, there's a lot of great assessments out there, but a lot of 'em are pretty complicated to, to really dig in and understand. And so you can take this , um, throughout every level of your organization , uh, not only from a personal assessment standpoint, but also , um, corporately and, and, and team wise .

And so working Genius has been around about , uh, three or four years, and it's , uh, Patrick Lynch's latest leadership model. Uh , he's famous for many of his books on organizational help and leadership from the table group. Um, but really what it does is it allows every person to discover the types of work that inspires and fulfills each person.

And so, according to the model, there's six geniuses , uh, that, and every person has two geniuses. You'll also have two competencies, which are , uh, things that you're capable of doing, but they don't really fill you up or fulfill your purpose in, in life. And then you'll also have two frustrations. So those are the things that drain us.

So our geniuses fulfill us, our competencies are things that we can do , um, but we don't really love doing them over long periods of time. And frustrations will drain us , um, even if we just work in those areas for just a little bit. And so , um, the great thing is it makes a very simple analogy called widget. And I , and I'll walk you through what each of the geniuses are.

Okay. So Wonder , wonder , which is our first genius , um, this talks about the , um, these are the people who think about what could be the possibilities. There's this idea of what else is out there, is there a need for change? What could be done differently?

And so these are, these are people who love to maybe I say, have a window in their office, and they, and we would think somebody like me who, who likes to get a lot of stuff done, I would look in there and see pe somebody staring out their window and go, they're not working. But really they could be thinking very deeply about , deeply what's the next step for this business or for this team, or, or a vision thing.

And so they're, they are thinking , uh, what is the next step? Okay. And so invention, which is the second of the geniuses, these are people who generate ideas and solutions. They are people who , um, if somebody comes to them with a problem or a question, they're like , um, you know, what, what about this? And what about this?

And what, they can just generate these ideas and, and be very creative about ways that they could solve problems. Hmm . The third genius is the genius of discernment and discernment. These are people that have this really great , um, gut feel or sense, or , um, they hear about , um, a new initiative and they go, I know how, how people are gonna react to that.

Or they may be even looking at it financially and go , um, that's not really possible financially. But what we could do is tweak that idea and then we could make this more , um, applicable. And so the fourth genius is the genius of galvanizing. And these are our motivators. These are people who inspire people to get things done and stay connected to the vision or the purpose of what they're doing and why it matters.

The fifth genius is the genius of enablement. And the, the great thing about enablement is we couldn't get any work done if it weren't for a teammate , um, who had the genius of enablement, because they get things going. They are doers. They love to be part of a team and come alongside and say, let's work together to accomplish something. And then our final genius is the genius of tenacity.

And these are the people who are just incredible finishers. They will push it to the end. They, they love to mark , uh, things, check things off their list of, of to do , and they love to finish thing because it gives them energy and fulfillment. And so once again, it's the widget model. Mm-Hmm . . But it's the six geniuses of wonder invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement and tenacity.

And with that, everybody has two geniuses, two competencies, and two frustrations. And the assessment can kind of pull that out and , and help every person to figure out which one , uh, which ones they have.

Um, you know, and they're not small really tinier startup , usually 5 million to 75 million in revenue, let's say. I , so within those type of companies, how well do you think they understand the, the, you know, when you're looking at the work in Genius model, how well do you think they, they have people kind of earmarked for certain roles that they're really good at and they have a lot of passion about?

Do you think it , I I'm not sure if it's a percentage or what are your, just, I guess, what are your thoughts there around how well a company has people lined up, you know, kind of the right person, right seat kind of a philosophy too.

And so they're actually working frustrated or they're work spending most of their work and their competency. Um, what would happen if we could, as organization, organizational leaders , uh, begin to reshuffle the job task within the job descriptions to match up to everybody's genius?

Well, what's gonna happen is people are going to be more productive and they're gonna be more fulfilled because they are doing the things that actually gives them energy. In fact, there's a, there's a great stat from a , from , uh, CNBC, they did a study in 2022 that revealed that 40% of the workforce is considering quitting.

Now, mark, you just think about it, if you have 40% of your employees , um, that walked out the door today, that would leave you in quite the bind. And you would have to, you would have to look very deeply at yourself of go, why? Okay, there , there was an issue here, but let's say they don't quit.

But now you think of it from the perspective of, I've got 40% of my workforce , um, or the people that I'm leading who aren't fulfilled in their job and they're not, and , and they're not fulfilled. And so they're thinking of quitting, so now they're not being as productive as, as they could be.

This is, this is the whole issue of talent, why talent retention continues to be such a big challenge for employers and HR people like yourself. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. You know, employee engagement, and again, the , the , the numbers, and I know them fairly well, but I may be off a couple of percentage points here and there, but , um, about third , about a third of the organization, about a third of the employees in any organization, and I I kind of emphasize any organization, the one that looks at employee engagement every year, and they've done it for 20, 30 to 30 years,

is Gallup. So one of the largest polling agencies in the us . And over the last 20 or 25 years, the needle has barely shifted on the amount of employees who are truly engaged. It's about a third.

So, and then the last group, just to finish off the thought on engagement, then you have about 13 to 15% of the employees who are actively disengaged. And those are the ones who are poor performers. They are, they possibly could be in the wrong job, but these are poor perform performers. Low quality , if they're in customer service roles, are usually upsetting customers.

They are usually , um, they're usually low performers to where the company is always trying to deal with them from a performance standpoint.

And, and the challenge, and I had a conversation with a business owner yesterday, it's fascinating because the , the major irony in corporate America, or probably corporations world worldwide, is we spend, if you look at the basic of the 80 20 rule, we're spending 20% of the time we're spending 80% of the time on our 20% of low performers.

And so, as, as a leader or a team leader or a manager or organizationally, when we can start to look at, at our team and , and, and recognize, well, we've had turnover in three or four positions, but we'll just hire somebody to do exactly what that person who left did. Um, what if that's not the, the right fit?

It's the same thing from a football analogy of, of you've got two offensive linemen that, that go down with knee injuries, and you put two more in there, and all of a sudden they don't block as well. Mm-Hmm. , they're , they're , you know, your , your offense is less productive. Why? Because we're not maximizing them to their potential for whatever their position is.

And so , um, we as, as leaders, have got to be very, very good at, at looking at our team, looking at our people, looking at, I guess what you would call the puzzle pieces. Mm-Hmm. and, and being able to reshuffle them in order to get all the work that needs to be done , um, and have them the most, most fulfilled that they can be.

And if so, what has that done from the organization, from Optim , you know, productivity from engagement? What have , what have you seen there?

And , and then we start plugging the people in to , uh, kind of the widget model for every project. Mm-Hmm . . And when, when that happens, now what happens is you're making sure you're utilizing the genius of every person on the team for the specific task or , um, work things that have to be done in order for the project to be completed.

Now, would the project get completed if you had people working in their competency or frustration? Yes. But are they gonna , are the employees gonna bring their best when they're not engaged? Probably not. Right. And you would rather people be doing what they were, are really gifted at , um, on every project because they'll stay engaged, they'll be fulfilled, and they're gonna do their best. Mm-Hmm.

And so , um, you know, something as simple as , um, if , if that were part of your hiring process, or if you have a team that's underperforming, or you have a team that just seems to be going through the motions , um, how can we generate some energy around a project?

Well, let's have everybody take the assessment, understand the model, and then see where they would plug into a project doing whatever the specific tasks are, and they plug into those and they're like, I would love to be doing that, and I would love to not be doing some of the things that are in my job description. Hmm .

But somebody else on that team may sit there and go, oh, well I would love to do those things as part of your job. Can we trade? Right. And so , uh, so that's how we maximize the most. So it , it is a tool, but it's also a work , a work system in that when you have a project, you would take it through all the stages of work, the ideation stage. Mm-Hmm . the activation stage and implementation stage.

And really, for me, once I understood the model completely, I began to, to recognize, no wonder I hated brainstorming meetings when I was leading a team. Hmm . I never wanted to do them. I never wanted to lead them. Um, because I am a , I'm a td, I, I love to get things done, but I also have this ability to discern things very well. Mm-Hmm . And , and listen and analyze a situation.

And so , um, that's, that's part of activation and implementation ideation, the wondering about what's out there and creating and talking about ideas and filling up the whiteboard with all these , um, thoughts and ideas where no ideas a bad idea , um, that gets old to me really quick. Right. So you put me, put me in an ideation meeting, and I can hang with it for a while, but here's the cool thing.

I at least know there's purpose to it because it's eventually gonna come to me as a discerner Mm-Hmm . . And so now they bring me their great idea that that was built off somebody's wonder who, who talked about it with the invention. And the invention person now goes, here's, here's what we think can address this issue or address this problem.

And I could be like, well, financially we can't do it, but we could tweak it or we could make it possibly better have you .

And so , um, and then you just work it through the whole model of passing it now onto the people who are gonna give it energy and passion, which are the galvanizes, and then eventually into the implementation stage of our enablement and tenacity, people who are going to actually be , uh, kind of at that 1000 to zero feet on the ground. Right . So there's also elevations within, within every stage of work.

Um, when you, when you know that about yourself, then you can basically design your work and design your days around your strengths, but also be able to go , so I need to hire somebody who's going to fill in for my gaps. Mm-Hmm . I need to hire somebody with the geniuses that I don't have so that the team can be more successful than just me doing all of it.

So , um, where do you think are, are there any situations where you can find that, you know, the , the power of working genius, either it's gets diluted or gets derailed or failed. Are there any situations where you've seen that it just, it it , it's, it's just didn't work the way you would hope it would work and the way it should work organizationally?

So the second one would be leveraging the geniuses among your team on every project. And then the last, the , the key to success in my mind is, is work the widget. And so if you will just start, Hey, the problem is , um, we're not meeting our sales goals. Okay. Have your wanderers start asking why. And so as they ask why, they're gonna start thinking deeply about why we're not meeting our sales goals.

Okay. So then you give it to our invention people. What are some, what are some possibilities? And have them come up with it, with it. So starting to work the widget and then bring it to your discerners. Do you think this idea would work to help our sales productivity go up? And then the galvanizer are gonna rally everybody.

And then your enablement, tenacity people are the ones who are gonna be out there actually completing it.

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And , and so in a lot of cases, thinking about the working genius model, they're , they may only have, in certain departments, they may only have , um, one or two people or three people in a department. Right? Not like a Fortune 500 company where you may have thousands of people in a department.

So what happens there naturally, because people will automatically gravitate to a couple of factors to where they're , they're , they're actually genius in

Um, that could be as simple as if , if you have this organizational , uh, culture of working genius, or your , or people are aware of it, they're aware of what their geniuses are , uh, but maybe, you know, for your position , um, as leader and , and owner of HR Catalyst, maybe you have to step outside of your , the organization , um, or , um, step outside and basically say, Hey, I know you are really good at

discerning ideas. I've got these four ideas about what would make , uh, HR Catalyst more successful. And so I want, I want you to kind of talk through that, discern through those four ideas that I've just come up with or, or to address these issues. And so it's better to borrow a genius when you can.

And so , um, whether that's somebody that, you know, has that genius, or it could even be , uh, within your team or within your organization, you're borrowing , uh, geniuses by taking 'em to lunch and going, Hey, here's , here's the problem. Yeah . Can you come help me come up with some ideas? Because you're really great at invention and you, you can come up with solutions, right? I'm not an inventor.

Um, I like discerning what's already out there or discerning an idea. And so , um, yeah. So it's always better to borrow and , uh, you can do that in a , in a lot of creative ways , um, in order for even one individual to work the whole widget themselves just by having strategic conversations.

And what you think the logical thing to do is, okay, well this person's really good at sales, let's promote them to be a sales manager, sales director. Is that why in some cases, unfortunately, the , the great salesperson always killed their quota.

Every year, year in , year out, you put 'em in a sales manager or sales director, you may be talking about terminating them within a year or two, and you're just like, what in the world happened? Is that possibly going back to the genius model? Is that possibly why something like that may occur?

The selling or the why of what they're doing matters. And so , um, they may be a great person at just going out there and getting it done. You know, you , a lot of times our top performers , um, will be enablement or tenacity people. Why? Because they want to go out there and get it.

But you throw somebody like that into a, into a, into a galvanizing capacity , um, where they're supposed to motivate, well, they're probably already just very self-motivated themselves because they have the genius of tenacity, right ? And so we wanna make sure we're putting our people in the best positions for them to perform at their best and within their genius.

And , um, and the great thing about this model is, is you could be the CEO of a Fortune 100 company and have any of these. And so you can lead from wherever you're at , um, whatever your geniuses are. The key to, to leadership though, I believe is self-assessment of knowing, okay, these are what I'm good at. And so I wanna surround my people with the, with people who are good at what I'm not good at. Okay? Right.

In , in working genius , we call this the gap. So if, if , uh, you can have a gap in your widget, so let's just say you've got a , uh, technology company that , um, has very little , uh, people of wonder and invention, right? Well, guess what? That technology company is gonna get left behind really quick. Why? Because they're only going to go out there and produce what they've always produced.

And technology moves so fast that you need a lot of people with wander and invention in a technology company, right ? Why? Because technology turns over so quickly. I actually have a friend who works for a massive technology company and was talking to him about this, and he goes, ah , we hire a lot of people , um, either with wandering invention or enablement and tenacity because it turns over so quickly.

The turnover is so quickly. And so their strategy is, let's just throw a bunch of programs or a bunch of things out there. We don't discern 'em , we don't galvanize 'em , we don't think about what could go wrong. And then, then if a few of them catch on, then we will go back and do the process there of making those things better. Whereas, and that's just one of their strategies of how they do it.

Um, but he's like, a lot of times you get a lot of people who are frustrated, they come, they come to him and say, why did this fail? Right ? And he's like, well, because I'm a really good discerner, and I could have discerned that idea and told you, here were the pitfalls of this.

And it was fascinating because of course they make, you know, microchips and, you know, the microchips, these little, these little things you can put on your pinky finger fingernail, and they're the most powerful microchip, you know, compared to something 20 years ago.

Um, if, if you're missing discernment, then you're not going to refine these great ideas. And so there , there's a great chance that they'll fail or they'll, they'll get kicked back. Um, if you don't have , um, galvanizing, then , um, people are going to not be inspired. There's gonna be no momentum or no excitement.

If you don't have enablement, well, you, you just don't have the help or the team, the team or the support to get something finished, to get something going , uh, implemented. Um, and then if you don't have tenacity, then how many projects are out there that are just left unfinished because we got busy, we got busy doing something else. And so those are , those are , yeah.

Those are the gaps or the , and the consequences when you, when you don't utilize the , the widget model.

And of course the tenacity is, and the enablement , enablement and tenacity gets down to 5,000 feet, 1000 feet. So it's really about getting things done, whereas the, the ideation, the wonder and invention are much more strategically focused.

, what this model allowed me to do was basically say, oh, it's a brainstorming meeting. Mm-Hmm. . Well, then you wander and invention people get in the room and, and go over it, and then come back and tell us why you started this, and then, and tell us what some possible solutions are. Run it through the stages of work there, down the , down the left side of the page.

And when you do that , um, now it actually frees me from having to sit in a brainstorming meeting and being bored to death or being frustrated or being like, can we just quit talking about it and go do something? Mm-Hmm. , because that, that to me is the tenacity person. It's like, right, let's quit talking about let's go do it. Yeah . .

But if I know, hey, these really smart people with these giftings and geniuses we're , we're doing this and now they're passing it to me to discern it. Now I have purpose around my work. I can discern it. Mm-Hmm . And they , then they pass it to me to help finish it. Oh , there's purpose in there. There's fulfillment in that.

And I , and a, I trust my team, I've leveraged my team and , um, I, I really believe it's gonna solve , uh, a lot of talent retention issues as well as create an organizational culture of trust, which is part of Lencioni's Pyramid.

Um, I, I would say my , my one of my last questions I wanted to ask you is if there are business owners, business leaders who are, who are actually listening to this kind of excited about it, what would you say are the, if you were gonna just list the top three reasons an organization should start using Working Genius as an assessment tool Mm-Hmm.

as a recruiting, you know, just lots of facets of the HR world they can use it in . What do you think of their , what are the top three reasons they should look at actually seriously implementing , uh, a , uh, the tool of a working genius?

Once, once it's kind of unpacked and it's easy to follow. And so it's, it's not something that, that everybody can kind of get lost in the weeds on.

And so , um, so if you want fulfilled and protective employees, if you want to an answer to your talent retention issues and you want to create a culture that, that people love working at and, and build trust among your teams, then , uh, you should definitely look at working genius.

Um, a lot of that comes out in the trainings, but there's also , uh, working genius podcast that , that people can Mm-Hmm . , uh, start tracking on , um, or even , uh, grab the book. And if you've never read a a Lencioni book, he's gonna tell a , he's gonna tell a big, long story. Yeah . Uh , that's very engaging, and then he's going to unpack the model at the back end .

So yeah , he's, he's a really great fable writer.

What are, what are three recommendations you have for our August ? Well,

And, and really it un it can unpack , um, just a healthy mindset and healthy rhythms for, for you to make sure you're addressing the five drivers of peace in your own life. And so , uh, that's been very impactful to me. Mm-Hmm .

And then , uh, another leadership book, and that's pretty much all I read is either leadership or , or spiritual Health Books is, is , uh, leadership wise , canoeing the mountains by , uh, Todd Bolsinger.

Okay. It's all, it's all about adaptive leadership and, and he, he models , um, or he uses , uh, Lewis and Clark and their expedition to explore America, basically, of how they had to adapt in their different leadership roles. Um, the same way that, that we as leaders of businesses, of organizations, of nonprofits, of churches , uh, we have to be able to adapt well to our, to our , uh, situations we find ourself in.

So it's on a adaptive leadership.

And last question for you is so given, and I don't, I have no idea what your age you are, Darren , but I would say , what would you, what would you recommend if, if we could wind the clock backwards here, what would you tell your 16-year-old self about the , maybe some things that you've learned along the way and some experience spaces and, and just moving on in your life and, and what have you, what would you

tell your 16-year-old self today? Um,

And whether you can take that all the way down from a parental role to a sibling role, to, to a , to a job role, to a , to a volunteer role, lead yourself. Well. And as you do that, that will build influence with others.

Working genius, maybe get you to facilitate , um, them through the training of it, or they want to talk to you about maybe an opportunity? How can people get in touch with you?

Uh, you could definitely find , um, me and get in touch with me through , uh, my website, RP three coaching.com, and or email me at Darren Hollingsworth and then the [email protected].

And , um, look forward to staying in touch and look forward to seeing if I can help you and in any way within your, your next to find your next right adventure.