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We spend a remarkable amount of time trying to get better at work that drains us.
We tell ourselves we should become more organized, more analytical, better at follow-through, more comfortable rallying a room, or more adept at generating ideas. Sometimes that growth is necessary. But what if maximizing your potential has less to do with fixing your weaknesses and more to do with understanding the kind of work you are naturally built to do?
That was the idea that stayed with me after reading Patrick Lencioni’s The 6 Types of Working Genius.
Lencioni’s framework suggests that while all work requires six different kinds of contribution, only a couple of them naturally energize each of us. The goal is not to avoid everything else. It is to recognize where we do our best work so we can spend more time there. We achieve that by building teams that compensate for the rest.
In other words, embrace your wiring.
Six Ways Work Gets Done
Lencioni breaks work into six fundamental activities:
- Wonder: Seeing unrealized potential and asking whether something could be better.
- Invention: Generating new ideas and solutions.
- Discernment: Using judgment and intuition to evaluate whether an idea will work.
- Galvanizing: Rallying people and creating momentum around an idea.
- Enablement: Helping and supporting others as they move the work forward.
- Tenacity: Pushing the work across the finish line and ensuring results are achieved.
Most of us have two that Lencioni calls our Working Geniuses, two Working Competencies that we can perform well are not necessarily energized by performing, and two Working Frustrations that drain us.
Naturally, I wanted to know mine.
My friend Jennifer Berkowitz, Managing Director of R&J Advisory Group, Inc., introduced me to the model and encouraged me to take the assessment. I did. My two Working Geniuses came back as Invention and Enablement.
Invention did not surprise me. But understanding what Lencioni means by Invention helped clarify something about how I work. I am not naturally the person who sits with a situation and asks, “Why is it this way? Why isn’t this better?” That is closer to what Lencioni calls Wonder.
My instinct kicks in once the question is on the table.
What if we did this instead?
What if we changed the model?
What if there is an entirely different way to solve this?
That is Invention.
I have spent much of my career helping companies imagine alternatives to the obvious path. Creating possibilities from a blank page feels natural to me. That is Invention. Doing this is when I feel alive.
Enablement surprised me.
But the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became.
Much of my work is not executing MY ideas. It is about helping CEOs, executives, coaches, and teams pursue THEIR ideas. I am energized by being of service to others. I don’t need to lead the climb; I’m happy supporting and cheering on others to reach their pinnacle.
I may enter a conversation thinking like an inventor, asking, “What else could be possible?”
But I often leave it acting as an enabler, asking, “How can I help you make that happen?”
Once I saw those two tendencies together, a pattern I had never consciously named became hard to miss.
Competence Is Not the Same as Genius
This may be the most important distinction in Lencioni’s framework.
You can be good at something and still be drained by it.
Organizations often miss this. Someone performs a task well, so we give them more of it. Eventually their role becomes dominated by work they do well but that leaves them depleted.
We mistake competence for fit.
The same problem occurs when we try to turn every high performer into a well-rounded one. We devote enormous energy to fixing weaknesses instead of asking a different question: What would our people achieve if they did what they loved?
That does not mean ignoring weaknesses or refusing necessary work. It means recognizing that the greatest return may come from amplifying genius rather than correcting deficiencies.
Build for the Gaps
The idea becomes even more powerful when you apply it to a team.
Every meaningful project needs all six geniuses. Someone has to ask the big questions. Someone has to invent solutions. Someone needs to judge which might work. Someone has to create momentum. Someone needs to support implementation. And someone has to make sure the work actually gets finished.
Very few people enjoy every stage.
So perhaps the goal should not be to make your inventor better at Tenacity or your person with Tenacity more inventive. It may be to put them together.
The colleague who continually questions the plan may be bringing Wonder. The person poking holes in your exciting new idea may be applying Discernment. The teammate relentlessly asking whether the work is finished may possess exactly the Tenacity the rest of the group lacks.
What feels frustrating from one seat may be genius from another.
That shift can change how you think about hiring, project teams, leadership roles, and even the people who sometimes irritate you most.
It can also change how you think about yourself.
So here is my challenge: take the Working Genius assessment and find out where your own natural strengths lie.
Then look at your calendar.
How much of your week is spent doing work that taps into your genius? How much is spent doing things that drain you?
Then look at your team.
Where are people operating in their genius, and where are you asking them to spend too much time in work that drains them? Do you have people in roles they may be good at but that drain them? Which gaps are you trying to fix through development that might be better solved through team design?
The best organizations do not win by making everyone good across the board. They win by understanding where people create disproportionate value, putting them in positions to do more of it, and surrounding them with others whose strengths complete the work.
That is not just a better way to work.
It is a better way to build a business.
Join Outthinker to amplify your strengths and build a stronger team.