Your Team Makes More Sense Than You Think.

You hired good people.

 

They're capable. They care about the work. And most of them genuinely want the team to succeed.

 

Let's talk

Your team makes more sense than you think.

You hired good people. They're capable. They care about the work. And most of them genuinely want the team to succeed.

Let's talk

So why is working together sometimes so hard?

Why does one person want to keep talking about the problem while someone else is anxious to get started solving it? Why does someone keep throwing out new ideas when everyone else is trying to finish the ones already on the table? Why can one person spot a problem immediately but have a hard time explaining why they know it's a problem? And why does the same person always seem to be the one who finally says, “Okay, are we actually going to get this done?”

 

There's usually more going on than personality.

Knowing your Working Genius is interesting.

Knowing what happens when six different people bring theirs into the same room is
transformational.

That's the conversation I want to have with your team.

 

Let's talk about your team

Working Genius is the starting point

The Six Types of Working Genius® is one of the most useful tools I've found for helping teams understand how work actually gets done.

 

But taking the assessment isn't the goal.

I've never been particularly interested in giving people another set of letters, colors or labels to remember.

I want to know what the information tells us about your team.

  • Where do you naturally work well together
  • Where do you get stuck?
  • Where are you making work harder than it needs to be?
  • Who is continually being asked to work outside of the things they naturally do best?
  • Where are you depending too heavily on one person?
  • And what happens when the pressure is on?

That's when Working Genius® gets really useful.

 

Six geniuses. One team.

 

Every kind of work moves through six types of contribution:

  • Wonder asks, “Is there a better way?”
  • Invention says, “I've got an idea.”
  • Discernment says, “I think this will work.”
  • Galvanizing says, “Let's get everybody moving.”
  • Enablement says, “How can I help?”
  • Tenacity says, “Let's finish this.”


You need all six.

The problem is, you probably don't have all six sitting around the table in equal measure.And even if you do, that doesn't mean you're using them well.

That's where things get interesting.

I want to see the Team Map

When I work with a team, I'm not simply looking at six or eight individual Working Genius reports.

 

I'm looking at the team.

Let's say nobody on the leadership team has Wonder. That's worth talking about. Who is stopping long enough to ask whether you're solving the right problem? Or maybe you've got a room full of Wonder and Invention.

Fantastic conversations. Lots of possibilities. Lots of ideas.

But who's going to get everybody moving? And who's going to make sure something actually gets finished?

Maybe you've got one person with Tenacity and everybody in the organization knows that if something absolutely has to get done, you give it to her. That sounds like a strength. And it is. Until everything that needs to get finished starts landing on her desk.

Strengths can create vulnerabilities, too.

Those are the things I want your team to see.

 

Let's talk about your team

Sometimes the problem isn't the person.

I've worked with leaders and organizations long enough to know how easy it is to misdiagnose what's happening with people.

 

We say:

  • “He needs to take more initiative.”
  • “She asks too many questions.”
  • “He always wants to change things.”
  • “She never seems excited about a new idea.”
  • “He starts things but doesn't finish them.”
  • “She wants to finish things before we've thought them through.”

 

Maybe. But before we decide we've got a people problem, I want to understand the work.

  • Are we asking someone to spend most of the week doing work that lives in their frustration?
  • Are we expecting someone to naturally contribute at a stage where they're simply not wired to lead?
  • Is another team member doing something so naturally that we've stopped realizing how valuable it is?
  • Or are two people frustrating each other because each one thinks the other is starting in the wrong place?

 

Working Genius gives us a language for having those conversations without making somebody the problem.

And once a team can see what's actually happening, we can do something about it.

Here's what I'm watching for.

When I'm working with your team, I'm paying attention to more than who has which genius.

 

I'm looking for:

  • Where you have an abundance of strength.
  • Where you have gaps.
  • Where work tends to stall.
  • Who may be carrying too much.
  • Where you're relying on someone without realizing it.
  • Which combinations may create predictable friction.
  • Where your meetings are breaking down.
  • Whether you're asking people to contribute in the right places. 

 

And what all of this means for the way you lead.

Because the question isn't: “Do we have the right Working Geniuses?” The better question is: “Given the people we have, how do we work together exceptionally well?”

 

Let's talk about your team

The danger isn't having gaps. Every team has gaps.

The danger is not knowing where they are.

 

If nobody naturally provides a particular type of contribution, the work doesn't magically disappear. Someone has to do it.

  • Maybe you assign it intentionally.
  • Maybe you develop a process around it.
  • Maybe someone steps outside his or her genius when necessary.
  • Maybe you bring another person into the conversation.
  • Maybe it tells you something about a future hire.

 

There isn't one answer. That's why I don't want to simply hand you a team map and tell you what it says.

I want to talk about what it means.

What this looks like in the room.

 

Yes, we'll talk about the Working Genius model. And yes, everyone will understand their own geniuses, competencies and frustrations. But that's where we're going to start—not where we're going to finish.

 

We're going to put your team map on the table and talk about your actual work.

  • Your meetings.
  • Your projects.
  • Your leadership team.
  • Your roles.
  • The places where you're getting stuck.
  • The people who work beautifully together.
  • The people who don't.
  • The work everyone loves doing.
  • The work nobody wants to touch.

 

And the things that keep happening in your organization that you've never quite understood. There will probably be some laughter. There may be a few moments when someone says: “Oh. That explains a lot.” Good. Now we have something useful to work with.

 

And then we ask the most important question.

What do we do differently on Monday?

 

I don't want your team walking away with a binder that goes on a shelf. I want you noticing things.

  • Maybe you change the way you run a meeting.
  • Maybe you stop inviting everybody into every stage of a project.
  • Maybe you let someone else finish it.
  • Maybe a leader stops assuming everyone should approach work the way he does.
  • Maybe you redistribute a responsibility.
  • Maybe two people finally understand why they've been driving each other crazy for three years.


Those are meaningful changes.

And they're often surprisingly practical.

Let's talk about your team

Working Genius and hiring.

There's another question that sometimes comes out of this work:

 

Are we missing something on this team?

That's where my years of hiring and building teams become particularly useful. I would never hire someone simply because of a Working Genius result. That's not what the tool is designed to do. But if we discover that your team consistently lacks a certain kind of contribution, that's worth knowing as you think about roles, responsibilities and future hires. The goal isn't to collect all six geniuses like baseball cards. The goal is to understand what work needs to happen, who you have, and what you may need next. That's a much better hiring conversation.

 

Why I use Working Genius.

 

I've spent years working with business owners, executives and leadership teams. I've seen a lot of assessments. Some are useful. Some give you interesting information about yourself but don't change much about what happens when everybody gets back to work. I like Working Genius because it gives us a simple language for talking about something very practical:

Work.

  • How it starts.
  • How ideas develop.
  • How decisions get made.
  • How people get mobilized.
  • How we help one another.
  • And how things actually get finished.

It gives us a framework.

My job is to help your team figure out what that framework means in your business.

 

Working Genius team intensives.

 

I work primarily with leadership and executive teams that want to understand not only their individual Working Genius results, but what those results mean for the team as a whole.


Half-Day Team Intensive

A focused session where we'll understand the model, examine the team's results and begin identifying the strengths, gaps and dynamics affecting the way your team works together.

Full-Day Team Intensive

This gives us room to go deeper. We'll work through the team map, but we'll also have time to bring your real organization into the conversation—leadership dynamics, roles, meetings, projects, workflow, pressure points, vulnerabilities and the specific issues your team needs to work through. I don't believe every team needs exactly the same thing.

We'll talk first.

I'll learn what's happening in your organization, and we'll decide what would make our time together most valuable. 

 

Talk with Joe

One last thought.

You don't need everybody on your team to think alike.

 

In fact, you don't want them to. You need people who notice different things. Ask different questions. Contribute at different stages. Get energy from different kinds of work. And sometimes see the world very differently from you. The challenge is learning how to put those differences to work.

Knowing your Working Genius is interesting.

Knowing what happens when six different people bring theirs into the same room is transformational.

That's where the real work begins.

Joe Denner

Certified Working Genius Facilitator
Leadership & Team Consultant

Let's talk about your team