Issue No. 530 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting spotlights Patrick Lencioni’s new book, The 6 Types of Working Genius. Yes! You’re a genius! His book will help you avoid frustration at work, home, and church. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my review of Dan Busby’s new book, Before and After Jackie Robinson.
Patrick Lencioni believes that “too many people are frustrated and unfilled in their work.” His new book has solutions!
Breaking News! You’re invited to have lunch with Lencioni!
Sept. 27, Tuesday 12 noon PT (3 p.m. ET)
Bestselling organizational health guru Patrick Lencioni’s new book is available tomorrow! It’s another must-read: The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team.
So schedule lunch with Lencioni! Just register for the “Working Genius Book Launch Event” with Patrick Lencioni. (Well actually, it’s online and you’ll need to bring your own lunch—but, trust me, the event, the book, and the assessment could be transformational for you and your team.) Click here.
4 OPTIONS FOR ELIMINATING WORK FRUSTRATIONS!
[ ] Option 1: Read this review.
[ ] Option 2: Skip the review and click on the 4-minute video (below).
[ ] Option 3: Enjoy an online lunch with Lencioni (Sept. 27, Tues. noon PT)
[ ] Option 4: Lunch-on-your-own! Read the book and/or listen to the book (4 hours).
If you picked Option 1, keep reading.
You will love this hilarious story, told in the classic Lencioni business fable format. (Really, it’s hilarious!)
• It’s extremely helpful—three stages of work and six types of working genius. (Yes! Look in the mirror and repeat after me, “I’m a genius! But…I’m not a genius in all six types.”)
• It’s eye-opening—you will quickly understand why you and your team members are often frustrated with work projects.
• It’s transformational—when you learn what brings you joy and when you should say “no.” And…the Working Genius model is applicable to work, home, and church.
NOT ANOTHER ASSESSMENT! I must admit, I was skeptical.
The world needs another assessment?
Really?
I’m a big fan of what I call “The 3 Powerful S’s.” I’ve learned and leveraged the 4 social styles, the 34 strengths, and the 23 or more spiritual gifts. (Read more.) Then (oops!), I added one more S: self-awareness and social-awareness (EQ). OK…to be honest…I included a fifth assessment in my new book, Mastering 100 Must-Read Books (See Part 9, “Five Powerful Assessments.”)
True. Assessments can be helpful—but, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s the rare person that can remember their own assessment results. I’ve tested this in workshops with over 1,000 leaders, managers, and board members over 20 years. It’s only cost me less than 20 Starbucks gift cards. (Sad, actually.)
But…I’m betting that The 6 Types of Working Genius book, and the 10-minute assessment, will change the global organizational health landscape. This is not hype—it’s hallelujah!
To view an overview of The 6 Types of Working Genius, here’s Patrick Lencioni with his short-and-sweet descriptions of the three stages of work and the six types of genius (4 minutes). Click here.
Amazing! Lencioni can summarize his new book in just 3 minutes and 52 seconds! Click here.
Lencioni says there are three stages of work: Ideation, Activation, and Implementation—and that staff meetings often go off the rails because there’s no clarity on which stage is being discussed. The three stages pair with the 6 types of Working Genius:
• IDEATION: Wonder and Invention
• ACTIVATION: Discernment and Galvanizing
• IMPLEMENTATION: Enablement and Tenacity
The book and the website deliver crisp definitions and—gratefully—the theory is outgunned by the humor. This is the funniest book I’ve read all year! (Lencioni’s 2021 book, The Motive, had perfect-timing humor. But this book is hilarious!)
Lencioni’s quick-reading story follows a small team’s aha moment when they discover transformational insights about their personalities and their productivity. The book (and the assessment) will help you discover:
• Your Working Genius—the two activities that give you “joy, energy, and passion.”
• Your Working Competency—the two activities we can do “fairly well, perhaps even very well”—yet “we will eventually grow weary if we are not allowed to exercise our true geniuses.”
• Your Working Frustration—you probably already know these two, but if a good portion of your work is here, “…we are bound to experience misery at work, and ultimately, struggle or even fail.”
I plan to inspire one of my granddaughters to take the assessment. She's a part-time team member at a local coffee shop and I'll enjoy watching her in action with her team members! (And speaking of coffee, don’t skip the metaphors describing how the three categories are like a coffee thermos, a regular coffee cup, and a cup that has a hole its bottom!)
Last week, a friend who is just changing jobs (I’ll call him “Joe”), shared his assessment results (a customized 18-page report):
• Joe’s areas of Working Genius: Invention and Galvanizing
• Joe’s areas of Working Competency: Wonder and Discernment
• Joe’s areas of Working Frustration: Enablement and Tenacity
Note to Joe’s new boss! If you’re looking for Joe to bring a project to the finish line (Tenacity), he may be frustrated. (Read the book to learn how to reconfigure his role so it leverages his areas of Working Genius.)
There’s so much more in this fast-reading book:
• A fascinating example of the six types of genius at work in a church committee meeting! (Meet “Mrs. Church Lady!”)
• How working in your God-given area of genius will dramatically improve your team’s work and your organization’s morale.
• Why “cultural fit” is a big factor—if a team member is currently in the “Frustration” area.
• The four kinds of work conversations: brainstorming, decision-making, launch, and status review and problem-solving (aligned with the six types).
• Genius Gaps: what happens when your team has a lack of Wonder, or a lack of Invention, etc. (Brilliant—and just three pages.)
• Why when you’re working at the wrong elevation of a project, you’ll need a barf bag!
• How the 6 Types of Working Genius will improve engagement and employee retention. (That alone is worth the price of the book.)
Bottom Line: Do we really need another assessment? YES!
To order from Amazon, click on the title for The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team, by Patrick M. Lencioni. Listen on Libro (4 hours, 11 minutes).
NOTE: To take the 10-minute “Working Genius” assessment (not included with the book), visit the website where you can also view a sample report, listen to Lencioni explain the genius model, and listen to the podcasts.
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) When hiring new people, the CEO in the story leveraged the six types of Working Genius to focus on the skills needed for each position and then identified them in the people they interviewed. The result? “…we’d never hire again without using the six types.” How does your organization ensure that the people you’re hiring will not be assigned to roles that align with their areas of Working Frustration?
2) Sure, everyone assumes when you’re new on a team, you have to do the grunt work and pay your dues—before you’re assigned meaningful work. Pushing back—with very strong words (!!)—the CEO changed the culture with this: “What I mean is that people paying dues is ********. Especially if it means doing things they’re not good at in order to prove that they’re worthy of doing what they’re great at. . . . Does that make any sense?” What’s the culture in your organization? Are your new hires doing work that aligns with their areas of Working Genius?
Mastering 100 Must-Read Books - Part 1: How to Read a Book!
Book #1 of 100:
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life
For your team meeting this week, inspire a team member to lead your “10 Minutes for Lifelong Learning” session by spotlighting Book #1 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.
Your “Leaders Are Readers Champion” can suggest this format: a five-minute summary and then one or two questions for a five-minute discussion. (See the study guide in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books.) Your team will love Book #1:
The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life:
How to Get More Books in Your Life and More Life from Your Books,
by Steve Leveen
The author asks, “When should you give up on a book?” He writes, “A few years ago I gave up on Crime and Punishment. I found it not enough crime and too much punishment.” Generally, Leveen votes for the 50-page rule: “…if you don’t like it after fifty pages, close the book and move on.”
• Read John’s review.
• Order The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life.
• Download the 100 Must-Read Books list.
NOTE: Don’t miss Part 3 in Mastering 100 Must-Read Books. “The Mount Rushmore of Leadership Legends (Patrick Lencioni)” features reviews of four books by Lencioni (Books #22-25). Also featured is Book #15, The Advantage, by Lencioni, which John named his 2012 book-of-the-year.
How to Work a Room! Have you ever read a book on how to work a room? Guy Kawasaki suggests you “buy this book if you want to be a savvy socializer,” and adds, “buy a second one for a shy friend!” Read How to Work a Room, 25th Anniversary Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Making Lasting Connections—in Person and Online, by Susan RoAne. Read John’s review on the Pails in Comparison blog.
PEARPOD | TELLING YOUR STORY. Does your communication team have the right mix of Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement, and Tenacity? We can help you assess. Contact Jason Pearson at Pearpod (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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