Working Genius: team productivity and engagement

Why we use it

We build the Working Genius assessment into executive coaching and team performance work to help leaders:

• Improve communication: understand and respect each team member’s genius, reducing misunderstandings and building collaboration.
• Maximize productivity: align individual strengths with tasks, so people work in roles that energize them.
• Resolve conflict: see where productivity or communication breaks down between different working styles, and turn conflict into confluence.
• Boost engagement: let people contribute their best by placing them where their natural talents fit.
• Drive innovation: use the different geniuses on the team for diverse perspectives and better decisions.

What sets it apart

As its publisher, The Table Group, puts it, Working Genius is 20 percent personality and 80 percent productivity. Simplicity is at its core: it breaks all work into six fundamental activities, so individuals and teams can quickly see which types of work give them energy and which drain it.

Most personality assessments help people understand their natural tendencies, then stop short of showing how to apply them at work. Working Genius fills that gap. It shows teams how to use their strengths to improve dynamics, streamline projects, run better meetings and make smarter hiring decisions. It is a productivity tool for teams as much as a personality assessment.

The six geniuses

• Wonder: pondering the possibility of improvement, asking whether things could be better.
• Invention: creating original ideas and solutions.
• Discernment: evaluating ideas with judgment and instinct.
• Galvanizing: rallying people and generating momentum.
• Enablement: providing support and helping where it is needed.
• Tenacity: pushing work through to completion and results.

Everyone has two geniuses, two competencies they can sustain for a while, and two frustrations that drain them. Knowing which is which is what lets a team stop asking its Wonder person to be its Tenacity person.

What teams get from it

• Understand why past endeavors succeeded or did not.
• Clarify which types of work give them joy and energy, and which are draining and difficult.
• Avoid unfair judgments about each other’s motivation.
• Let go of guilt over struggling with certain types of work.
• Improve dialogue and directives in team meetings.
• Make quick, concrete adjustments to roles and responsibilities.
• Get more done in less time by matching tasks to talents and avoiding friction.

What you receive

• A detailed report of your combination of geniuses, competencies and areas where you need support.
• A team map that shows the strengths and the gaps across the team.
• A facilitated workshop or coaching sessions to implement the insight, with an action plan tied to your goals.
• Follow-up so the changes to roles and meetings actually hold.