New Podcast & Book Review! A Pod, Then A Book about 6 Working Geniuses
A Pod,
Then A Book about 6 Working Geniuses
Victor O.
Kolade, MD | AIAMC Roles: Member of Board of Directors &
Executive/Programming Committees
Did you ever watch a recorded podcast and quickly see that
the guest was talking to you? It seemed that way when I watched Craig Groeschel
interview Patrick Lencioni about the latter’s book,
The 6 Types
of Working Genius (1). In 30 minutes a ‘new’ concept about teaming had come
alive for me, and I resolved to get the book. It took time to get and later to
read the book, but meanwhile I collected my thoughts on the subject onto slides
for possible oral presentation. (Many thanks to Dr. Oluremi Ajala for talking
through the concept with me.) I then started working on the application of
Working Genius to Medical Education for the upcoming 2024 AIAMC Annual Meeting
poster session and things got even clearer working on that.
There is more to the book than the matching website lets on. The book has two
parts; it opens with a ‘realistic fable’ that illustrates how Jeremiah
Marketing (JM), the CEO of an advertising company, arrives at the six Working
Geniuses from the ‘Three Stages of Work’ (ideation, activation, and
implementation). Concurrently JM tries to make sense of his intermittent grumpiness
at work. This grumpiness has followed him for years through different work
scenarios, such that promotion now seemed like a curse.
Six
Working Geniuses
1.
Wonder is about thinking, pondering, and
contemplating things (p. 94); questioning the status quo.
2.
Invention means coming up with something
novel; an idea, product, or company (p. 95).
3.
Discernment represents having great
instincts and intuition and judgment; the ability to determine which ideas are
good versus premature.
4.
Galvanizing is ‘rallying the troops,’
getting them excited and encouraging them to keep going (p. 97).
5.
Enablement refers to making a project get
off the ground, helping or supporting others on their terms.
6.
Tenacity describes getting things
finished whether obstacles to such success exist or not. The fable goes on to
illustrate the application of Working Geniuses to family life and volunteer
work.
The first part of the book closes with the junior staff at JM’s
marketing company being introduced to the six Geniuses concept. They soon realized
that Genius-based assignment is more productive than promotion of people who
have ‘paid their dues’ into roles that do not center on their true genius. Consider
this example of how this works. JM’s company was meeting with a new client.
Post that meeting JM realized the scope of work and deliberately expanded the number
of people on this work team who had the Tenacity genius to see projects
through. The company’s reputation blossomed, and JM was soon invited to be a
productivity and morale consultant to a tech firm!
Details
of the Six Geniuses Model
The second part of the book
reviews the model in detail. It suggests that everyone has:
·
2 types of true Genius.
·
2 areas of competency that they can function
successfully in for a while; and
· 2 types of work that drain one’s joy and energy; prolonged work in the areas of ‘frustration’ may lead to failure.
A feature of the model is that the Geniuses may be responsive or reactive to an external trigger (Wonder, Discernment, Enablement) and/or disruptive – initiating or provoking change proactively (Invention, Galvanizing, and Tenacity). If people have two true Geniuses, both geniuses can responsive, both can be disruptive, or one be responsive and the other disruptive. (Does this seem like any colleagues you know?) Team maps can show the Geniuses in which a team is strong or weak. There is an assessment available for a few on the author’s website.
If there are scenarios in which any of the types of Genius is missing aka ‘Genius Gaps’ there are ways to fill them, including strategic hiring. He suggests specific Geniuses are needed to drive various work conversations like Brainstorming (Wonder, Invention and Discernment), Decision-making (Discernment, Invention and Galvanizing), Launch (Galvanizing, Enablement, Discernment and Tenacity) and Status Review (Galvanizing, Enablement and Tenacity). This task/genius interaction helped me understand why I have found some meetings (or even sections of meetings) more boring than others!
Lencioni argues burnout may be caused by spending most of one’s work time in areas of frustration rather than Genius. Taking that to heart, I rotate my work tasks (education, research, clinical) assure I’m spending time in my genius areas.
Have
I seen Working Genius relate to medical education?
Without realizing it we applied the genius concept to the
choice of chief medical residents one year. We typically had two third-year
chiefs; one was chosen for his demonstration of Tenacity (he was the only resident
in his cohort to publish his intern case report poster). There appeared to be a
tie between two other candidates; the one chosen appeared to have the
Enablement genius. The third candidate was named Wellness Champion – evidence
that our wellness work in National Initiative VI has been sustained till date –
and has done admirably well Galvanizing her colleagues!
Overall, I am glad I found the podcast that introduced me to
the book. And that the book had much more to say about Working Genius. Having
participated in the 2023 AIAMC Annual Meeting breakout session on the
Enneagram, I recommend the six types of Working Genius as a simpler way to
profile an individual (or a team) and leverage individual strengths.
Reference
Lencioni P. (2022) The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations and Your Team. Matt Holt, Dallas.
Dr. VictorKolade is
Clinical Professor of Medicine & Regional Clerkship Director for Internal
Medicine, Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine, and Core Faculty for the
Guthrie Robert Packer Hospital Internal Medicine Residency program.