Becky Ruppert McMahon, President & CEO, Cleveland Leadership Center
What happens when a group of early career professionals gather inside the innovative and inspirational headquarters for MAGNET? Nothing short of genius.
On October 15, the OnBoard Cleveland Class of 2025 spent a few hours with Michelle Karp, founder of M Karp Consulting, digging into their skills, abilities and preferences in areas like communication, problem-solving, leadership, and collaboration. The conversation centered on finding what type of work makes these emerging leaders thrive – and what causes frustration. Given the diverse backgrounds and experiences represented in the class, there was no one-size-fits-all answer.
To find individualized answers, the group walked through a framework built by Patrick Lencioni, founder of The Table Group and a pioneer in the organizational health movement. Pat’s passion and purpose is to work with teams around the globe to help them become more cohesive, effective and successful. Ever heard of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team or The Advantage or The Ideal Team Player? Those are just three of Pat’s 13 best-selling books on team and business management.
Notwithstanding his own tremendous professional success, during 2020, Pat began questioning why he occasionally felt drained and frustrated by his own career. In the process of figuring out his why, Working Genius was born.
Working Genius is an assessment that helps people identify their natural strengths and areas of expertise. The deceptively simple, 10-minute assessment is based on the concept that human beings have six types of natural gifts – or working geniuses.
- Wonder: the natural gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation.
- Invention: the natural gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions.
- Discernment: the natural gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations.
- Galvanizing: the natural gift of rallying, inspiring and organizing others to take action.
- Enablement: The natural gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or project.
- Tenacity: the natural gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion to achieve results.
How those six geniuses show up, however, differs from person to person. The Working Genius advances the concept that each person has two natural talents and two areas of frustration among the six working geniuses. When people better understand the types of work that bring them energy and fulfillment, and avoid work that leads to frustration and failure, they can be more self-aware, more productive and ultimately, more successful.
As one OBC participant shared:
“The Working Genius results were really helpful in self-reflecting on my leadership, and also gave me tools to consider how to work with and divide tasks with others.”
Too many people feel frustrated, underutilized or misunderstood at work. Far too many teams experience failure, get stuck or are confused because they don’t know how to tap into the people around them. Who wouldn’t want the chance to lead a more fulfilling and successful work life? Or to hire and develop employees that work well together and maximize their productivity?
If you’re interested in learning more, reach out. CLC would love to help you harness your team’s Working Genius.
