Book Review: The 6 Types of Working Genius

Several years ago I was listening to the At the Table Podcast with Patrick Lencioni and heard the episode “What Is Your Genius?” What I heard intrigued me. A short time later, they launched a second podcast called The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni dedicated to exploring this new model called, The Working Genius. Then in 2022 a book featuring the model was released.

I have been a fan of this model since I heard about it on that first podcast episode. It made so much sense to me and helped me to understand so many things about how I worked, how I responded to different types of work and how to recognize reasons for gaps in teamwork.

In his book, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team, Patrick Lencioni begins the book the way he does most of his books and that is with a fictional story. This fictional story that he shares in the first three quarters of the book mirrors how Working Genius came about and its application. He then gives a more detailed overview of the model in the last part of the book. I really appreciate how clearly he is able to present his content through an engaging, easy to read, and entertaining story. By the time I got to the non-fiction overview of the model, I felt like I already had a pretty decent grasp on it from the story itself, but found the overview helpful to tie a nice bow on details.

In the book, Lencioni explore 6 different stages that all work requires, whether that work is on a job, at home, or even as a volunteer. Those areas of work are:

• Wonder: Where work starts with asking questions and wondering why things are like they are.
• Invention: Takes the questions and problems raised in the process of wondering and invents ideas and solutions to address the questions.
• Discernment: The instinctual judging or assessing of the workability of an idea or invention, determining whether it will work and ways to make it better.
• Galvanizing: Rallying people to begin working on the discerned idea, invention, or process.
• Enablement: People jumping in to help work on the project however that help is needed.
• Tenacity: Doing what it takes to make sure the work gets fully completed.

He then goes on to explain that each person has two of these six things that they enjoy doing and that fuels them. He calls these their Working Geniuses. There are also two of the six that absolutely drain a person. Those two he calls their Working Frustrations. The remaining two are Working Competencies. Those are aspects of work that a person might be very good at, but over time they can start to become a little draining. He offers some great analogies on how this works a little like different types of coffee cups. He also gives a lot more details about each of the different types and how they work.

In addition to the book, The Table Group also offers an assessment that individuals and teams can take to identify your own Working Geniuses, Frustrations, and Competencies at WorkingGenius.com. When I took the assessment I discovered that my Geniuses were Discernment and Wonder (another reason the name of this website seemed so fitting). My Frustrations were Galvanizing and Enablement. The geniuses didn’t really surprise me. They definitely sounded like me and are things I enjoy doing. Galvanizing as a frustration didn’t surprise me either, but I had to consider enablement a little more. While I do definitely do a lot of jumping in to get things done, I realized a couple things about this. First, I tend to bristle if I’m told exactly how to do something. I don’t mind helping but I like to figure out the way I think it should be done (wonder & discernment anyone?). I also realized that at times I have to do a lot of this and Tenacity work in my job because none of our team has either of these as strengths which is probably why we often suffer with follow through. Although I am good at these things they drain me and can at times even leave me feeling resentful. The Working Genius book and model helped me to understand that and be able to put language to it. One of the things Lencioni says in the book is this: “For so many people, one of the biggest stealers of peace is having to do work that doesn’t suit their natural, God-given strengths. But because most of these people don’t realize that, they end up feeling really bad about themselves (aka guilty) for not being better at what they are doing. That kind of guilt is unnecessary and leads to serious problems in the lives of workers and the people they love.”

I enjoyed this book and the podcasts so much and could see the value in them to the point that I chose to become a Certified Working Genius Facilitator. I would encourage you to read this book and check out this model. If you want more information or would like to know about how it can help you and your team identify your sweet spots in the process of work, please use the contact page to reach out to me. I’d love to talk with you more about this great model.

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