[Music] welcome to the working genius podcast where we discuss anything and everything related to the six types of working genius and how it impacts your work and your life I'm Patrick lynon and I'm your host today I'm joined by the core team Cody Thompson Tracy Noble and Matt lynon how you guys doing doing great Matt back backed by popular demand Matt sure somebody you wrote a note said Matt get on that Mike so we are here these we love doing these because this is just a conversation about the working genius model and the and the various elements of it that that it's very deep there's lots of things to talk about and today's topic is what Cody the three phases the three phases now that's not doesn't sound super sexy and it's kind of vague but at the core of this model there are three phases of getting any kind of work done and that's how this model came about actually and in addition to that we're going to talk about something later called the elevation of the different working Geniuses and we're going to use the analogy of Landing a plane but first let's talk about the three phases of work yeah and I think the the reason that this is interesting is because I think maybe even before we discovered this tool we thought of work in two phases and I think that's the general like the general answer out there is hey we think of work in two stages which is well we going to lay them all out right here which is ideation the first stage of work is to ideate to come up with a new idea right and the last stage of work which we previously thought was the second stage of work is implementation so we think of ideas and we execute on those ideas right and and what was so interesting Pat when when you wrote These six circles up at the very beginning of the discovery of this model and you outline that these that there's a third missing middle step in and of itself I thought man if all you discovered aside from the working genius model and the six types of working genius if all we had discovered that day was the fact that there is a critical middle phase of work it would have helped so many teams and companies to think about and that middle phase is activation right and that's the part of work that is easy to miss and I think a lot of companies do and what's interesting is since we all have two working Geniuses sometimes we're one of our Geniuses in one phase and one's in another sometimes we have two in the same phase and for those of you who who haven't seen this on a on a written description or a graph of some some some sort the first two and I we'll just put in the model yeah let's go through this ideation is the first two working Geniuses right which is Wonder and invention so ideation is people go oh hey here's a question worth asking and somebody an inventor the one the Wonder asks the question the inventor says I have an idea and a lot of people think that ideation is just the invention but it starts actually with the question and that's what I like to say about people with a genius of wonder often don't even think of that as a genius at all but wonder is not one of my working geniuses and so I don't love to contemplate things and sit and think and Ponder other people often do that usually in at work it's Amy and at home it's my wife Laura they are wers and they can sit and Ponder for hours and that's usually where the need for an invention comes from and you're you're just you're so quick to move on because you're you you've got such a strong eye you're moving on to the invention right away yes so I think it's hard for you to sit in the question for too long it does I it really is and that's why but when Laura or Amy or anybody else comes to me and says hey I have a problem that I think is worth solving and I think it's really important will you help me invent a solution that's when I start to get excited well I I had a person email just this week that I thought this email was really interesting even in the concept of this this person is a WI a Wonder invent inventor that's my wife and what they said in the email was I can't really even separate the two are you sure they were asking like are you sure wonder is different from invention and the answer is it totally is because if you've ever met a wonderer who doesn't have invention that's really you know they just go I don't know what the solution is but here's a really great question and so this person was just their natural two Geniuses were wi they they connect that so intrinsically that you ask a question and you provide a solution but these are very very different things well and I think Elon Musk is an interesting example because I'm sure he's an inventor I don't think he's a wonderer cuz he's trying to solve a lot of problems that don't need to be solved he just loves to come up with new ideas and sometimes I think probably somebody is like would be it' be good to say do you really think we need to do that yeah and he's like I don't know I just can't help it so I think that and I'm one of those too I'm an inventor not a wonderer so I really depend on other people thinking about the bigger picture well Matt you you have invention as in your bottom your working frustration right yeah and I remember just just yesterday or or no not yesterday last week you came up with a with an idea which is a inventor trait a rare good one a rare good one and I was like Matt you must be exhausted you know like you but but you described your worst job would be sitting in a room and someone coming in and saying hey can you help can you be the person that solves this problem yeah an empty whiteboard is scary yeah right which is so funny because you you're my son and I live for that MH and you're like oh yeah yeah please don't make me do that we can see when we come in and go Matt come up with a new idea you're just like no no no why are you asking me this yeah and that's what's the beauty of this model and that that like you ideation is not your thing not at all and so it's easy to go why doesn't that person come up with a new ideas what's wrong with them it's like they don't have those gifts y so that's the first phase of work the first phase is ideation people love to talk about this thing of course let's let's go and talk about implementation next yep because implementation is critical and then we're going to tell a story about a guy at Nike and and what his feedback was but implementation is these are the people that just love to get get going and Implement and get things done execute right but it's not just the person who likes to get things done there's also the E so Tracy one of your Geniuses is in implementation but it's not te that's right tell us about that yeah I have the genius of enablement and this is I respond more to the person so someone comes along let's say it's a g comes along and says we're moving forward on this I will stand behind the person it's less about the getting it done and it's more about I'm G to support you right but but that's necessary the way I think about it I can only carry something so far yes when when Liam ask asks me for something and I try to get it done for him I can only carry it to a certain point until it becomes more in tenacity which is one of my frustrations that's right and I I can carry it a little bit further because my tenacity is in my working competency yeah so I feel like I get the implementation piece but without you and Matt so many projects never get going because you have to come along and say I will help get this going but neither of you really love finishing it that's right well and Pat you you often describe the difference between enablement and tenacity is enablement the person with enablement cares a lot about the person which is what Tracy was just saying yeah and and that tenacity is the cares more about the execution of the project right and so you know some people can go like hey I'm I'm implementing or or what do you mean that enablers kind of get it off the ground it's like they're responding to the the galvanizer we'll talk about in a minute and they want to help and like you said stand behind them and support and then at some point you know it has to go to let's finish this thing and it's not about the person anymore it's about getting it done it's it's about checking the box and I'm not so much I'm not interested in checking the box right and as long as but you'll do it as long as you know it's helping somebody but if you think that person is no longer interested it's like well why would I care about this then you know Connor Matt's twin brother identical twin brother he has te tenacity but not e cuz see some people will say well don't you have to have them both Connor does not just love to help people he loves to get things done MH and so when somebody comes on say hey will you help me with this he's not going to go yeah sure he's going to go is it really going to get done can I help you finish it because if you're not going to finish it I'm not going to help yeah totally though it's so interesting how identical twins you love to help but not necessarily to finish he loves to finish but not necessarily to help and Cody and I we don't like to help or finish and the implementation phase is both of our working frustrations that's right you know it's funny I I've said this to my wife multiple times I didn't have the working genius tool before we got married I just got lucky because she she has you know her hers our DT discernment and tenacity but with some e in there so it's a i i really hit the working genius marriage jackpot with with her without ever knowing that that was true yeah now another thing we should say about this is according to our data and I'm sure we'll do a podcast about this later but most people in the world live in this in the implementation phase the most common combination yeah is ET right by far yeah isn't that crazy isn't that crazy it's not surprising though it when you think about the fact that something we're going to talk about a bit most of the time in the world is spent in ET when you think about how much time is used in these things ideation you can ideate for 5 or 10% of the time and then 90% comes in the next two phases and and the bulk in implementation but they're all critically important so let's talk about the the middle phase yeah the middle and tell us about the story at Nike Cody well yeah to talk about the middle phase so you know you have wi wonder and invention and then you have enablement and tenacity in the in the last the the last phase implementation and I think so much of work tends to happen that way where an inventor responding to a Wonder would invent something and then people just go and carry it out and you know you we we see this happen all the time that there was this missing middle step that include the middle two Geniuses which are discernment and galvanizing and so we probably within the first two weeks of coming up with this model so we had had no assessment we had we had no questions we just had the concept we got some people on the phone from Nike in The Innovation Center and I was like telling them about this model Drew all six circles up there I think even at the the time we were using different words you know we were using different words than enablement and and I threw it up there and and they said oh my gosh so this whole team around Innovation at Nike said oh wow this is a huge problem for us we we have been thinking of work in implementation or ideation and then implementation we would think of new ideas new sneakers new products and we'd throw them over the wall and some of them wouldn't work and and actually one of the phrases we used early on is there's a lot of startups that have this concept called fail fast you know right and that's just a bad way of avoiding the middle steps which are discernment and galvanizing and and so when you think about this like the inventor invents something the very next thing cannot be enablement which is let me go help you with that but this happens so much it happens all the time they say and and even at our company we I would say hey I have an idea and Tracy and Karen would go okay what do you want us to do and we realize nothing we need to talk about it some more we have to discern this thing like at Nike they were taking this new sneaker concept or something and throwing it over the wall to the implementers and going here you go you guys and they were like okay I guess they want us to do this half the ideas didn't work and the implementers were frustrated at the ideators for giving them ideas that weren't fleshed out the ideators were frustrated at the implementers cuz why how come you can't make these brilliant ideas work and what they realized there was nothing going on around discernment and galvanizing and that's such a critical step that's what I said it's like this middle phase of work is as much a discovery as the tool itself because there's so many teams we've worked with now where they do have a Wonder inventor as maybe like the founder they you know they they thought of this idea oh the world needs this business and then they surrounded themselves with implementers and then there was this ongoing frustration on these teams where like you said the people on the implementation side are on the verge of burnout because they're executing on every idea and the inventor is frustrated like why aren't these why aren't we getting enough out of these and it's because first we didn't the inventor what the inventor wants Pat and this is what you want is I want you to help me know if this idea is good right feedback vetting Now Matt you don't like to invent but your number one genius is discernment M so you would prefer tell how does that work for you and think about me as an inventor well I love evaluating your ideas and anytime I get to kind of think about the Merit of an idea and give feedback I love giving feedback right and remember the those first few days of coming up with the model and and the questions that went with it remember how we were downstairs in the colleage oh yeah that was that was such an incredible time because you were just thrown out ideas and Matt and I and and Cody we just sat there and we discerned and it was that was some of the most fun work I've ever had in 25 years so much fun because we realized you're the inventor Pat so come up with a question out of the blue pull it out of your ear and then I'd put it on the board and Matt and Tracy would sit there I think you were you guys were just having a baby at the time and Matt and Tracy would go oh that's a great question oh no no that one won't work no what about this you can tweak it this way and we were like this is exactly the model totally invent inventors need discerners that's right it's that Loop that that is so much fun right well when you have a team that's tapping into their Geniuses the way we we did in that basement with those questions is like what here's what happens when you don't have this framework is somebody throws out an idea I've seen this happen on teams and we've done it ourselves before we had this I you know this concept is you throw out an idea and somebody's like no I don't think that's it I don't think that's the right question and then the inventor goes well you think of a question no do you have a better idea right and and you're looking at Matt who has no invention he's like no I don't have a better idea I just know that that's not the right one and so when we can tap into the other people's genius like you didn't care you were throwing out ideas and we were Discerning them and then it was like we were tapping into all of our strengths at that point you know when I think about Tracy as an editor she's the discerner on my books mhm because and I I have discernment too but when you're inventing it's hard to discern your own stuff sometimes so Tracy does does the idea of writing a book from scratch appeal to oh gosh that sounds awful right how about you Matt yeah awful right and yet I love it that's right but when I write it my audience is Tracy my editor and it's the reader eventually and everybody else but I really am writing to please Tracy because I know that if she reads it and likes it I'm like oh that's so cool but sometimes she'll go I just don't like this chapter I don't like that character I don't think this is working anymore and that's a a huge service to me think about how many authors many are not successful write something that they think is brilliant and then send it to a publisher and they publish it yeah and it doesn't work cuz there was no discernment think about how many movies get made because some writer or director comes up with the I have this great idea for a movie and then sends it says to somebody fun to this movie and let's get started and it's like oh no no you need some discernment which is why so many crap movies get made cuz nobody is pushing back and saying this isn't going to work well it's it's iterative I think a lot of people think of discernment as like a buy sell decision like a like a shark tank of hey that's a great idea versus or that idea sucks or that idea is good versus oh you know what let's improve that yes the discerner can help the inventor improve the idea going oh you haven't quite thought about this or I don't think this is going to work and so it's not a hey this let's thumbs up ideas and thumbs down other ones it's a real refining process absolutely and then it has to go to the next genius like the second critical piece of the activation stage once the inventor discerner Loop finishes and the discerner goes this is great this is I think this could be a great idea then you need someone who galvanizes it and and what's sad is if you miss so first if you have an inventor and no discernment you can Galvanize a lot of the wrong things right so it has to be in this order but if you have a inventor with discernment and you get the best ideas in the world and no one to Galvanize it it's not going to work no matter what yeah I will say as I sit here today that your galvanizing of the working genius model was so critical cuz when you came back in or or we shared this with you you were like this is bigger than anything we've ever done we should build a whole company around it we are going to pour into this and we needed that cuz otherwise we might have launched a little thing and said this is okay and thrown it in as part of something else and you said no no this is huge and you were the one who got people inside the company excited about it you were the one that got people outside the company excited about it and when I look back galvanizing was a huge part of the success of this model and in the past we might not we might have just whiffed on that on so many levels because this is this is actually how the model came about as well because our company was lacking G and I was doing it all the time I didn't like it and it was frustrating me and that's the question that prompted this whole model that's right well it's it's been interesting I mean not just cuz I'm a GV thank you but for that by the way but not just cuz I'm a galvanizer I enjoy that and honestly because I'm a discerner galvanizer it's like oh if that's the right idea and I think it is then I need to go tell everyone about it mine just happen to be connected in that activation stage which I love yeah you're you're an activator aren't you're you're the guy that has two Geniuses in the same face but I've I've now worked with teams in fact just a week ago a team that is great has a great inventor the collective discernment on the team is really high and they had all all frustrations in in galvanizing and it was like they were coming up with brilliant ideas and they thought this is legitimate mindset of people who who don't recognize the the value of galvanizing is if we come up with the best idea people will like it and they and they'll get rallied around it the world is a meritocracy and everybody recognizes Talent no it's not like that no and so it really is a critical step that even if you if you're on a team and you have all the great w you answer the right question you have an inventor you discern it and make it really good if you don't have someone that's out there rallying the troops around it internally and getting people focus around it and I will say this galvanizing is not a one-time event no you know this is constantly R circling the wagon and it's not doing it yourself it's getting other PE enlisting the the aid of others and pushing them and that's the thing we used to I always felt like I was pushing all the time and I don't want to be the chief pushing officer mhm and writing the book right now by the way and we talk about at one point the CEO in the book says I don't want to be the chief pushing officer and they make another guy that job really and that's what you are here Cody you're the chief pushing officer and I am so happy that I don't have to be now I have to push you right because that's my job yep but you're not too hard to push and Cody's galvanizing has been super important I mean for me and Tracy as enablers his galvanizing is what provides us with like the excitement and direction that we get to respond to at least when we were coming up with this model and everything we get to respond to his galvanizing right it's a it's it you need it yeah you need it you need that it's energy right everyone needs that energy and Cody brings a level of energy unlike anyone here right well what's interesting too is as a galvanizer I can tell you the the worst the the worst experience as a galvanizers is when you're trying to inspire people to move and there's no enablers in the room and they don't the same way that the inventor likes the discerner and the loop that goes on in that you know refining Loop galvanizers need enablers because it's like I can go out there and give my best speech around what we need to do with this and if everyone just stares back at me blankly I'm like oh no I what do I do here and it's part you know people always ask like describe a little bit more it's it's part inspiration I think it's like you can inspire people to act and it's part pushing and and and disrupting and pushing people outside of their comfort zone and saying like no we need more you know and and I half of me I like the inspiration part but not the pushing cuz I feel guilty Tracy hates this right Tracy because I hate both yeah having to push but having to push people like Tracy how would you like to make somebody do something they don't want to do I will not do it right and this was what like oh my gosh that's that's how this model came about is that there were so many people like that in the organization Now Matt you actually can Galvanize if you're called on to do it it's one of my competencies yeah right but you it's not your favorite thing not my favorite you would rather just judge it and have other people get on board and then then help Pi keep going so I think the the the big piece here is like okay work has three phases yep and and not everybody's our connected not everybody's Geniuses are like oh conveniently you're I have I'm part ideator part activator ID yeah Tracy and Matt are both part activator part implementor you just happen to be both in the activation right and some people can be a WT or an i e or it you know so they can skip that whole phase but I think when you look at this holistically and you say we have to think of work in three phases I think more often than not if you think about companies in the world some of them are really good idea companies some of them are really good execution companies and the best companies in the world do all three they do ideation activation and implementation yeah activation is the one that's that that's more of the art that people don't see now this brings us to our next thing which is and we we alluded to this right Tracy that we spend different amounts of time and Matt you said it's there's more people in the implementation phase than any M and that's because that is closer to the actual work work as we say now it's all elements of work but like getting it done so we thought about it there's actually an elevation of the six types of working genius starting at the very highest elevation which is call it 50,000 ft imagine you're in an airplane and somebody and and the the W says hey maybe we should land the plane eventually here maybe we should we should land it they're asking the question that's at 50,000 ft a little lower is the inventor that goes okay I think we should land it in that airport down there so they come up with the solution okay so people go okay now we're getting a little lower and then the D says wait a second is that really the right place to land is our fuel good for that do they have enough things around there if we land there we going to have something to eat and get what we need let's let's talk about this a little bit more and then they go back to the inventor it's like is there another airport around there that we can land in they're like oh okay yeah you're right let's land it in this other nearby airport now they go okay we're good on that so we better get ready to land now we're down to 20,000 ft and the galvanizer says okay if you guys if that's really where you want to land yep it is I'm going to get everybody ready okay we need to call the call the airport we need to get our gear down we need to make sure everybody's ready table's up exactly all that and then now we're down to 5,000 ft mhm and the and the enabler goes okay we're Landing okay I'm going to help get everything ready and I'm going to I'm I'm whatever you need from me and then at the very end we're at 100 feet and the tea is like I'm going to land this freaking plane y so it's like this process and more of it is spent Landing the plane preparing for landing getting people excited and and and ready and so that's kind of how this works so if you're a w and a t you're operating at 50,000 ft and 100 ft mhm that's that could be pretty jarring for them yep right and so it's really interesting to think about this because when you have your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground both of them that's a stretch yeah whereas I kind of live with my head mostly in the clouds and my feet poking out of the clouds bringing it down but then when it comes to actually Landing the plane that's not my thing well I think it it is interesting that when we got you know 80,000 data points back and we see that there's a dispropor a good majority of people not majority the the biggest combination is ET I'm like thank the Lord because the whole world of work like if we had everybody in the top altitudes here the world would be a entirely different place roads would be half finished and we couldn't get anywhere and there'd be nothing in stores if if I I think if I were if I grew up when they were settling the West i' would have been like that guy that guy's worthless yeah he keeps us entertained sometimes but he can't do anything yeah exactly they're like build a fence Pat and you know let's talk I got a good joke about a fence do we really need a fence let's think of another idea so it's it's an interesting thing we need a lot of ENT some organizations don't need as much as others some are primarily ENT and I think that point is worth saying is is there every job you every team every industry needs a little bit of all these even if you're at a factory and you're a line worker on a factory that is mostly an ET job right like we you you help and you finish it and do it the way that that you're asked but if no one is in the 50,000 foot if no one's in the ideation phase if there's not a single person's job who it is at that factory to say are we could we do this better or is there a more efficient way for us to do this or are we even making the right thing anymore you know like could we have a better if you don't have that then you're going to get you're going to get swallowed by your competitors because anybody who spends the time who thinks you know what we we're a we're a factory company we don't need invention here there any team any industry can benefit from tapping into all of these stages of work you know I'm always fascinated by like products that haven't been change like we are a paperclip company you know I mean like we make paper clips it's like there is not a heck of a lot of wondering and invention going on but there is about like can we do this better do we have the right approach to this but so that's going to be very little W and I yep probably not a heck of a lot of DG too but then another company's manufacturing like like varesk is one of our companies very it's called well they're inven new things all the time and so there's a lot of w and a lot of I involved in that lots of D and lots of G now at at some point they got to go manufacture their test their desks and tables and everything chairs and everything else they do but so just because it's a factory doesn't mean it kind of depends on what you're doing and what's changing and what's not at the same time if you're a think tank there's not a lot of ENT going on yeah but I do think it's important for us to think I mean the reason we called it the six types of working genius for the same for a good reason and that is that all of these represent a stage of work yep and I think the tendency is to go like oh implementation that's that's the real work that and the truth is that might be the most visible and the most time intensive and the most laborious type of work but all of these are required and getting anything done you know I want to use another example planning a family vacation I mean it was always a a a grind in our family there were six of us we always went with another family and there was 11 people to organize but somebody has to say you know maybe we should do a vacation with just our family or maybe we should do something where we spend a little bit more time that's the W part M the inventor goes oh I know the perfect place and they go online and they find oh yes we could find a house there and then the D needs to go whoa whoa whoa wait a second we are going to be there's 12 of us we can't all fly on that PL you know and we're going to have to drive six hours to get there that's going to be miserable oh okay how about this place yeah that'll be better that's the ID thing and then the G needs to go let's get the families together get them excited about this MH now then somebody goes I'll help us pack I'll book the the the the flights or whatever else I'll rent the car and the te is like I'm going to make sure that the list gets done so that when the vacation comes up we haven't forgotten anything it all is critical and there's some families that just do the E and the T and they're like why are we here again it's like shut up I got us here and the others that do the wi this sounds great but nobody vetted it and we're 600 miles away from anything and so you need all of this or or it collapses totally and I just think it's so good to understand that in all facets of life that we we need each other that was the one of the major takeaways after we discovered this is no one of us has all six Geniuses life is a team sport find out where you slide into this and what what ideation activation implementation how you can contribute I think that's going to make a world of difference for people in their job and their lives all right I hope this has been interesting I want to thank you guys for being here and we will talk to you next time next week on the working genius podcast God bless