The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Discover Your Working Genius with Patrick Lencioni: A Game-Changing Assessment

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Discover Your Working Genius with Patrick Lencioni: A Game-Changing Assessment Workinggenius.com Tablegroup.com About the Guest(s): Patrick Lencioni is a renowned author, speaker, and consultant in the field of leadership and teamwork. He is the co-founder and president of The Table Group, a management consulting firm that focuses on organizational health. Lencioni has written 13 books, including the best-selling "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" and his most recent work, "The Six Types of Working Genius." With over 20 years of experience, Lencioni has helped numerous executives and teams improve their leadership skills and create healthier organizations. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss interviews Patrick Lencioni, author and leadership expert. Lencioni discusses his latest book, "The Six Types of Working Genius," and how understanding our unique working genius can transform our work lives. Lencioni explains the six types of working genius: wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement, and tenacity. He emphasizes the importance of self-awareness and aligning our work tasks with our natural talents and passions. Lencioni also shares insights on teamwork, organizational health, and the power of embracing our strengths. Key Takeaways: Understanding our working genius can help us find joy and fulfillment in our work. Each person has two core working geniuses that energize and engage them. Recognizing and leveraging our working geniuses can lead to greater productivity and satisfaction. Building teams with diverse working geniuses can create a balanced and effective workforce. Self-awareness and embracing our strengths are key to finding fulfillment in our careers. Notable Quotes: "If you're really smart and your human side is broken, you're not gonna be successful." - Patrick Lencioni "One man's trash is another man's treasure." - Patrick Lencioni "Humility is not the denial of what is true." - Patrick Lencioni "Teams build companies, not individuals." - Patrick Lencioni "Life is not meant to be spent doing something you hate." - Patrick Lencioni

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, Moses Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. I love the Iron Lady when she sings it now.

For 14 years, I used to sing that stupid line. You run up to me at shows going, the Grateful Two of them all. And I'm like, security. But now the Iron Lady does it. And I like it because the sharpness of that voice just wakes me up and takes me to the new level. If you want to order that as a ringtone on your phone, we'll see if we can do that. And it will wake you up in the morning and you you can be shocked awake by the the iron lady anyway guys welcome to the big show we certainly appreciate you guys tuning in as always for your family

relatives dogs cats so you know just walk the neighborhood knock on them like the mormons do on saturday morning when you're hungover and say hey have you subscribed to the chris voss show yet go to goodreads.com for chance chris voss linkedin.com for chance chris voss chris voss one of the tiktokity and all those crazy places we're at on the internet today i'm really excited about the author we have he is a multi-book author one of his most famous books is called the five dysfunctions of a team a leadership fable that recently came out on its 20th anniversary edition, originally published in April of 2002. I'm stuck in the 2020s.

Patrick Lencioni is on the show with us today. He's one of the founders of The Table Group and is the pioneer of the organizational health movement. He's the author of 13 books, which have sold over 9 million copies and been translated into 30 languages. As the president of The Table Group, he spends his time speaking and writing about leadership, teamwork, organizational health, consulting with executives and their teams.

After more than 20 years in print, his book was re-released that we aforementioned, and his recent book, Six Types of Working Genius, was released in September of 2022, and he's the host of the most popular business podcast at the table with patrick linchoni welcome to the show patrick how are you that's quite an introduction thank you chris it's great to be here thank you this is going to be fun there you go it is your bio unless i just made it up people have to figure that out i always say they just should say my name and we should get started there you go geez wow that was something people usually say my name but then they end it with a four-letter expletive.

So welcome to the show, Patrick. Give us a.com. Where can people find you on the interwebs? Tablegroup.com. Tablegroup.com is our official website. And then workinggenius.com is, it can be found there too, but that's specifically to the most recent book and an assessment that we're doing that's that's growing a lot so there you go i have i have the opposite of that called workingidiot.com that's part of working genius you got to know where you are a working idiot and

that's one of the most interesting parts of it there you go tell us give us a 30,000 overview what you guys do over there and your new project i think called working genius so that the 30,000-foot overview is that the world looks at business and they think about all the smart stuff, the intellectual stuff, the decision sciences, which is fun and interesting. I used to be a management consultant. But there's this other side of business, which is the human side, which is not soft or touchy-feely. It's just real. How do people work together? Do they actually make decisions together? Teamwork, clarity, all those other things, communication. I focus on the human side. But because if you're really smart and the human side is broken, you're not going to be successful. So everything we do at the table group is we call

the table group because when you sit down around a table, can you actually get things done? So 22 years ago, my first big book, my third book overall was called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and that's still selling and people are using it. Praise God for that. But three years ago, by accident in trying to solve a problem for myself, because I was kind of grumpy at work, I wrote a book called The Six Types of Working Genius. I came up with a model and it's growing faster than anything I've ever done. That is awesome, man. Yeah. That is awesome.

We can find this at workinggenius.com. Yeah. Tell us what we're going to find here. Do you want to tease out some of the six types of working genius? Sure. So what we did is we put together an assessment that takes 12 minutes to fill out. And then you get the results back and people look at the results and they're like, how the hell did you figure me out based on this? Because, you know, Chris, I've been using the Myers-Briggs and DISC and all these other tools out there for years. I think they're all interesting.

I'm kind of a junkie for those understanding myself. But we said there was not a tool that really helped people understand the kind of work tasks that they love that give them joy and energy and the work tasks that drive them crazy that drain them. And so many people have done this. And in 10 minutes after getting the results, they're like, no wonder I hate this job or no wonder I sucked at that or I failed at this or, and, and they're, they're immediately going, I got to stop feeling guilty about the stuff I suck at because it's how I am. And I got to lean more into the things that I'm gifted at because that's what I'm meant to do. Ah, there you go. This is really important because, you know, a lot of people didn't really think much about what they were doing and getting

involved with because they were, but up until COVID and COVID, I think gave people some pause to say, do I really like what I'm doing? Do I like this job? Do I like where I'm working? Do I like these people I live in my home with and I'm stuck with now? And so it gave people that sort of thing. And so it's important for people to do these types of assessments. Absolutely. I really don't think we're meant to live in this life and be miserable. And it's funny because we came up with this when we came back to work out of COVID and I was on Zoom every day and all these different things. And I would go from being excited about one Zoom call to frustrated at the next and excited. And somebody worked for me said,

why are you so grumpy sometimes? And why are you so happy 10 minutes later? And it made me say, I don't know, but I want to figure it out. And I realized there's these six different kinds of work. And whenever I was doing the ones that feed me, I was really happy. But I was spending a ton of my time doing things that frustrated me. And that wasn't good for me. It wasn't good for my company. It wasn't good for my colleagues. It wasn't good for my family.

And this changed me. And then we realized, oh, this is universal. And so now almost a million people have taken this assessment. And the reports we get back from them is it's literally changing how they think about going to work every day. There you go. Getting the minutiae and the depths of it. And I can see some of the questions that you have here. You're talking about people, how they approach things, how they look at things. People say, I can't stop innovating or proposing new ideas is one. And so people give you three different variations of an answer. Definitely yes or definitely not or somewhat.

And they kind of get a balance of where they are. I didn't get this year's finish to complete yet, but I think I'm about halfway through it. But so what happens at the end of this assessment? Do I get a report or how does it turn out in the end? Yeah. So there's these six geniuses, if you will, and everyone only has two of them that really feed them.

Two of the six are like, I could do that all day and I wouldn't burn out. So I'm less than half of an idiot then. Yes, yes. You're a third. I want to have all six. Is that possible or is that not possible? No. Okay.

And the problem is people try to have all six. I grew up trying to be good at the things I suck at. And all that did is kind of, it kind of tweaked me because then people were like, hey, you're good at that. And I'm like, no, I hate it. I'm doing it because I'm afraid to fail. Please don't make me do it anymore. And until you realize that you're going to be put in a position to be asked to do things that you really shouldn't do. So two of them are your working genius, Chris. Two of them are what we call your working competency. You can do them. It doesn't feed you, but you can survive after a while. Two are what we call your working frustration. And that's that even spending a few hours doing that can absolutely destroy your sense of joy and energy. And if that's something you have to do most in your life, there are people in this world that are drinking, doing drugs, miserable, only because they're in a job where they didn't realize you were not meant to do that. Yeah, that's true. Because if you do

the job you're meant to do and you take drugs, you'll be happy. No, I'm just kidding. Don't do that, kids. It's a joke. We're just a a comedy so you have the working genius and then the working what was the third competency that's like hey if you spend 30 40 50 percent of your time in that area you'll get by and what was the third one you're just an idiot is that yeah that's the working idiot thing that you talked about which is we call it the working frustration i compare it to a cup of coffee i compare it to a cup of coffee if you pour coffee into a yeti mug and screw the lid on it'll stay hot all day. That's your working genius. You could do that forever. You pour a hot coffee in a Starbucks cup with a lid on it, it'll stay hot for a while. Your working frustration is pouring coffee into a cup like a Starbucks with a hole in

the bottom. And it's just like, it's going. And so if we can minimize you can never eliminate but if you can minimize the time you spend doing the things that crush you it changes everything sorry i'm making notes here so i can talk to you the so on the working frustration would that be like tasks that you're not good at but you're trying to do them one of the problems a lot of entrepreneurs or i guess sometimes ceos make is they don't delegate certain things. Maybe you're not delegating the thing you're not good at, like accounting or something like that. Yes. And you need to delegate it, but not abdicate it. Sometimes in small businesses, they go, hey, I hate that. We're just not going to pay any attention to that. And it bites them

in the ass. But you have to say, I'm going to delegate it. I'm going to make sure it gets done, but I am not going to do it. And then there's a third person that goes, nobody can do it but me. And then they lose their passion for why they started the business in the first place. It makes sense. A lot of entrepreneurs make that mistake. They try to wear all the hats. And in the beginning, you're starting up and maybe it's just you, you kind of have to wear all the hats. But there's a point of scale where it just becomes inefficient where you can't wear all the hats. And of course, if there's something you don't like doing or something you're not good at, like you say, the working genius. For me, with our early successful companies, with my partnership, we built a lot of companies together in a quick amount of time. And my working genius was being a visionary and being able to innovate and being, you know, the CEO type of person.

I have a lot of ADHD, the CEO disease. And squirrel. And so I was really good at that. But when it came to redundancy work, the, you know, data inputting. Maintenance. Maintenance, the maintenance stuff. My brain turns to mush. Like I just, you know, I justting. Maintenance. Maintenance, the maintenance stuff. My brain turns to mush. Like I just, you know, I just, I can't even do it because this is maddening for me, but I'm horrible at it.

But my business partner that had been a lifelong friend of mine, he was really good at that. If you gave him an innovative, visionary thing and, you know, I'd say, hey, we need to fix something that's bleeding out cash in the company or we need to innovate something here's yellow pad go home bring me back some ideas he come back with zero and you'd be like how do you come how do you do zero and but he he had no vision he had no ability to innovate but he could do redundancy really well so i can build the models as that you, that drop you in the jungle CEO and clear a path and build something. And I could give it to him and he could, you know, he could make sure the wheels kept spinning. And so it was a great team.

And so it really gave me insight to what you're talking about of, I would focus on my working genius. He would focus on his working genius and, and his working genius was my working frustration and vice versa. And there's probably some parts in there where we both helped each other through the working competency part in the middle. Exactly. And you can do that for a little bit, but not if you're so burnt out. I like to say one man's trash is another man's treasure. It's really true. The things I love to do, I've hired people that don't love those and I say, here, you can do this. And they're like, no, please don't make me do that. And I'm like, but this is the fun part. And they're like, not for me, it's not.

Not for me, it's not. And that's great. That's a really important thing to point out. I made those mistakes sometimes in business where I had a great salesman and he was like, I'm thinking about being a manager or I would be like, Hey, you know, you're such a great salesman. We should make you a manager. And it was just the dumbest thing to do because great salesmen usually don't make great managers and vice versa. Maybe there's some exceptions to the rule, but I think they're outliers. But you know, I, you, sometimes you would push something on an employee and be like, you know, you're really good at this. Do you want us to upgrade you or give you more additional work in this field? And they're like,

no, that's not my thing. And I think we make the mistake where we force that on people sometimes. Absolutely. And in fact, I remember in my first job, and I want to explain what the six hats are, because this will make more sense. And I think I know what your hats probably are based on your description. But I had a job as a management consultant right out of college. And I think I know what your hats probably are based on your description, but I had a job as a management consultant right out of college. And I thought management and consulting sounded really interesting, but I was a data hack. So it was actually the things I'm worst at. And when I finally, I survived two years there, which many people did. And one of my, the partners there said, Hey, you would be a really good partner someday, but you're really,

you hate this data analysis stuff. And the funny thing is what they did is they took the people who are best at data analysis and they put them on the partner track and which is okay. That might be why they're not going to be a good partner. You're, you're really misunderstanding the fact that not everybody's meant to do all things. Yeah. Yeah. And this happens in most companies. Yeah. It's, it dynamic, and it's really important in leading organizations how to do this. So do you use these assessments in companies when you go in to consult? You sit down with them and go, let's try and figure out what everyone's strengths are. Yeah.

And then what they can focus on. What's beautiful is it takes 12 minutes to develop the frigging assessment. Wow. And get this chris i actually worked with a team of lawyers and the the guy that ran the company i didn't know this we did this assessment we didn't know everybody was a little nervous he's the lawyer who argued the case to the texas supreme court that got surveys like this like assessments thrown out from the employment process as being biased oh wow so hated assessments. And after we finished,

we worked with them. He said, this one actually works. And he was using the language from the assessment to give people feedback. And we thought, okay, he is candidate number one for hating these things. And he goes, this one actually is valuable. I think it's because it's super practical and super specific around what you love to do. There you go. I mean, me taking this working genius, I mean, I don't know. At this point, I kind of look like a narcissist the way I'm answering some of these questions. No, no, no.

You're a narcissist because, I mean, you think you're a narcissist because you need to be able to say, I do have geniuses. But what makes you not a narcissist, you can go, and I suck at these things, and I'll be the first to tell you that that's unfortunate all my exes think i'm a narcissist and they're right humility humility is not the denial of what is true you know what i mean yes and if you're so you let me tell you about the first two hats because i think you can relate to these probably the first hat i don't know if you have this one, but the first genius is the one that exists up in the clouds. It's called the genius of wonder. There are people who, who in life sit around and go, why are things like this? Is there a better way? I wonder why we've always done it this way. They don't know the answer, but they ask the question. And most of these people in

school and in their jobs, people are like, could you quit doing that? And yet every new business, every new idea, every new project comes from somebody saying, man, I wonder if there's a better way. And most of the people, like the woman said to me, why are you like that? I wonder why you get so grumpy at work. And that made me go to the second genius, which is mine, because I don't have the first one. And that is I have the genius of invention, which is I love to come up with new ways of doing things out of nothing. I like when somebody says, we have a problem. Our customers aren't happy. What should we do? And I'm like, okay, stop talking. Give me a whiteboard and a pen and let's figure it out. And that's just naturally what I'm good at.

You know how I know that, Chris? Because I do it even when it's not necessary. Sometimes people are like, dude, stop inventing. And I'm like, I can't. So invention doesn't make me smarter than other people. It's the kind of genius I have. I like to come up with new ideas from scratch. I'm probably the first of those two hats then. You have the wonder one. I definitely have the wonder one. That's probably your curiosity in your podcast. You have all these guests on in all these different areas.

You're like, why do you do? And you don't judge them. You're like, okay, I want to hear more about that. I'm sick of me. I want to hear other people's stories. Yeah, you probably have the genius of wonder. Yeah, I wonder about people. I like people. I want to know, what's stories. Yeah, you probably have the genius of wonder. Yeah, I wonder about people. I like people.

I want to know, what was your journey through life? Why did you choose the roads you went down? Or maybe you were forced to go down a couple by having your childhood. So it's interesting to me. I mean, I find people curious and interesting. At least some people curious. There are some people, maybe politicians, that I'd like to push down some stairs. That's another matter.

So those are the first two, wonder and invention. Okay. And then the next one is called the genius of discernment. Discernment is they just have good gut feel. Like you can show them a bunch of options and they can look at it. Even if they have no domain expertise or knowledge, they're like, I'm pretty sure that one's going to be the right answer. And you're like, how do you know? And they're like, my gut is just telling me that and really it's pattern

recognition it's called it's it's a way of thinking and seeing things that is not linear and it's not magic i have that hat too yeah you might very well wd those two together form a combination i think i don't have two i have three so far maybe i'm not good at one i don't know about you know definitely a wonder one when people say i can't tell which one of ours is what we I have two. I have three so far. Maybe I'm not good at one. I don't know about. You know. Definitely a wonder one. When people say, I can't tell which one of ours is, what we always ask them, and the assessment gets at this is, which gives you joy and energy? Because some people say, I'm good at that. I don't like it.

There it is. Okay. That makes a difference because the wonderment gives me joy. The innovation gives me joy. But this third one, I like, I don't know, I really get off on pattern recognition, but I'd rather not do it. So maybe I'm right on that one. We had a guy go through this and go, it says here, we'll get to the last one, which is tenacity, which is I love to finish things and I have all this, I just keep going, I never stop. And he

goes, it's my survey says, my results say I don't have that, but I went to med school, I got through med school and we were like, oh, that's great. Did you like it? He goes, no, I hated it. It drove me crazy. Yeah, just because you can do something doesn't mean you love doing something. There you go. That sounds like my first 10 marriages.

So this makes sense, that part there. Now I can see the vision of it. Because there are certain things that I do. I like dating, collecting. I count, which is kind of half insane. But I don't like it. I mean, it's kind of annoying to process and sit. I like the collection of stuff, so I'm a hoarder of data in my brain.

But I don't get off on it. I don't think I do. So the first two, by the way, working, wonder, and invention, that's called ideation. That's where ideation lives. That's me then. And then the next two, discernment, and then the next one is called galvanizing. These are people that like to constantly rally the troops and sell.

And they like to keep on top of that. Come on, let's do it. Now, here's the thing. People think because you're on a podcast and because I give speeches that we like to do that. I don't really like to do that. I thought I liked to do it. I like to do it once, but I don't like to remind people.

I like to bug the shit out of people, but I'm a narcissist. I have some dark triad issues, Machiavellianism. I do that a lot. I'm a troop rallyer and a cheerleader. It's just a CEO thing. I can't wait to see what your results say. Yeah. I'll see if I can finish here as we go.

So galvanizing was what was crushing me because I was the CEO of my company, which means I have to galvanize. Hey, we all have to do things we don't like. But I was doing it all the time. And it was crowding out the things I really liked. And so I finally realized, hey, I don't have to galvanize all the time. I found a guy who had it as a genius in my company. And I said, hey, you can be the chief galvanizing officer. And he was like, I haven't earned the right to do that.

He goes, no, no, no. It's a genius. You love it. You're going to get people up in the company and get them rally the troops every day. And I'll help you a little bit, but I don't want to have to do it all the time. And he was suddenly like, I love this job. And I'm like, I love my job more now. So discernment and galvanizing in the middle two, it's called activation. That's like where you get an idea. Somebody comes up with an idea, you activate it. The last two is implementation. And the last two I have none of.

None of. And most podcasters I talk to because they're so into ideas. The next one is called enablement. And that's when you come alongside and do whatever people ask you to do because you love to help them and they say hey can you do this for me and they go yes what is it again i'll do whatever you want now i like to help people but kind of on my terms and when they say i need your help and then i say what do you need and i go i don't think i agree that you should need that i have a hard time helping but there are great people in the world who say, if that's what you need, I will just come alongside you and help you get it started. And it's like every team,

every company needs these people. They are so valuable. And it's not just because they're nice. It's because they actually were, they have this God-given gift to come alongside and help others. Most, and there's certain professions that are full of this, but it's not just in those professions. But like when you go to the hospital and there's a nurse there and they're like, yeah, she needs more ice. I love to help with that. And you're like, why?

And they're like, no, I wake up in the morning thinking, I hope people ask me to do things for them because I actually get fed by doing that. And I hate to say it, I'm a Christian. I don't naturally get fed doing those things. And I feel like, does that make me a bad person? No, that's just not my genius. Yeah. You've got to do with your strengths. Kind of like what I talked about early on with how my business partner and i had a good yin and yang like the worst businesses are where you basically have two cooks in the kitchen two leaders some people make that mistake but we had such a great 13 year run and we probably would have gone longer if it had to been for a yoko on a situation where he had a girlfriend

come in and and start telling him you really don't need Chris. He's followed you everywhere. And so, yeah, that's what broke us up was she got into SAD and told him she didn't need me. And she was trying to isolate him. It's one of those girlfriend things. And so destroyed our relationship, destroyed his career in life as far as I can remember in the future. And thankfully, I'd always been the guy. So I just kept being the guy, the innovator. My challenge now is it's hard to find somebody who can replace him in trustability and can finish the projects and all that stuff.

That's why this assessment is important because when you find somebody that says, hey, dude, listen, I don't want to be the guy. And I'm not threatened by not being the guy. In fact, I would be bummed if I were the guy. I want to help the guy get this done. They literally were like, the best job in the world would be to take the ideas that you have and make them real and follow up and maintain them.

That's going to be a fit. Definitely. But you're always wondering, like when you hire somebody, do they want to be me? And if they want to be me, then they're going to resent all the stuff I'm going to ask them to do. And secretly, they're going to be wanting to, and you know, in my company here, I give speeches and the people that come with me on, because in my car, I've worked with people for 27 years in our company. And they're like, we love that you can give a speech. And I'm like, yeah, but you know how to

figure out what it's going to be about and make sure the client is happy and follow up with them and they're like yeah that's my genius so it's like it's a wonderful fit yeah it looks like it looks like the test came out my working genius my two course top ones are invention and galvanizing actually okay it's kind of interesting because i do a lot of wonderment but maybe i don't like it as much as i think i do a lot of wonderment but maybe i don't like it as much as i think i do well i'll say an ig you're what's that type if this is correct it's called the evangelizing innovator they'd love to come up with ideas and tell people about them oh that's definitely me right i never shut up i mean people on facebook are like are you gonna

stop talking about something and every when you when you see a good idea you want to share it with everybody right yeah yeah. That's an IG. That makes sense. That's probably why I have a podcast and I'm blabbing about everything all the time. And at least you get it out of your, you're like, people know. And you know, you like to know that people are listening and they're getting something out of it. Now, what are your working competencies? What are your two in the yellow?

Wonder and discernment. Okay, that was accurate. Yeah, we were right. The last two that you had talked about were completing tasks, enablement, and tenacity. I'm good at coming up with stuff, but I have a task list that probably has 300 things on it that never get done at any given day. People will say, you've written 13 books. You must be a taskmaster. I'm like, no, no. I would have written zero had I not had people around me with tenacity, which is the last one.

Tenacity is finishers. They're actually not happy if they can't finish things. I'm not happy if I have to finish things. See, that's how I am. I used to hand the visionary projects. I'd create the widget model for the profitability, and then I would hand it off to my business partner, and then he would hand off the employees and they go about their business and then I handled usually the sales force because the visionary of you know getting people to sell and there's usually not like a cap or redundancy

to sales if you're an IG you're the consummate salesperson too because you're like if they said hey will you come in and help convince this person you're like absolutely I will yeah I mean I'll either motivate them or or I don't know, put their head up against the table and say, sign the documents or you're, nevermind. That's a godfather. And imagine you have an employee. So I had this client, we had this company that had this woman who was in charge of sales, right? And she was fantastic. She was a cultural fit, which is always most important. And she made her numbers and her staff loved her and her customers loved her. Now, as it turned out, her working genius was EET, which means

she likes to do what people ask her to do and she always finishes. So she wants to make her numbers, close the deal and all that. But the market changed and the CEO went to her and said, hey, we need a new sales strategy. This isn't going to work anymore. And she couldn't come up with one. Like you said, he handed the yellow page to the person and said, come up with something. And she was like, I can't do it. He almost fired her. And then he did the working genius and he saw like, she doesn't have any invention and any wonder. And she was like, and so they found a guy in marketing that had invention. And they said, can you come and work with this team? And in three hours, he came up with their new sales strategy. And he goes, I almost fired one of my best executives because I thought she had to be good at all of this stuff.

You have to wonder how much that happens. Oh, so much, Chris. And people take this and they look back and go, I was attributing a person's lack of genius to they didn't care or they weren't smart or they weren't responsible. When in fact, when they see their genius profile, they're like, we had a guy go in for his performance review after a bad period. And he was meeting with his boss and his boss's boss. And he goes, this is going to be a bloodbath. He takes his working genius, the next day he goes in, he goes, Hey, before we start, can I just show you this report I came up? I just did. And they looked at it and they go, crap, no wonder you're doing so bad. This is a terrible job for you. He goes, I know. And they're at it and they go, crap, no wonder you're doing so bad. This is a terrible job for you.

He goes, I know. And they're like, we have another job in the company that would be great. He goes, I got promoted purely because I let them see who I was. And they knew he was a good guy. Yeah. But so instead of kicking him in the teeth for not being good at things that are clear, they actually put him in a job he could thrive in. Self-awareness is great.

Oh, yeah. And being able to appropriately analyze employees and find out what they're good for. You know, like I said, I learned that the hard way back in the day where I would put employees in positions because they were great employees. And somehow I had this concept, Tom Peters gave it to me, but basically, you know, if you teach them all things that will be great as they rise to the company and maybe they'll be CEO Dan nowadays, you know, there's still a lot of people who, who are now CEOs of companies that will, you know, start as the janitor, the front door boy, the mail

clerk. And so I kind of that vision, but that vision wasn wasn't very good because these people didn't fit the formats we're talking about in the show. And people think, what does a CEO need to be? Depends on what kind of company it is and what the organization is like. And I have CEOs of every profile, but if they're bad at stuff,

I had a CEO of a big company who was an ET, like that one, but he didn't have invention or wonder and it was a technology company. And they were like, oh crap, we don't have somebody who's naturally good at that. I have to surround my people who will do that for me. And I have to know that about myself. So when they go to make a decision, he's like, you guys, I don't have discernment or invention. So this is what seems like the right decision based on the data. But would somebody who thinks

differently than me confirm or deny this? Because we could drive this car right off a cliff. And that kind of humility and self-awareness allows for a team to, that's why teams build companies, not individuals. Ah, there you go. These are so important. I can see why this is so successful and it breaks down so well because it really gets people into their core competencies. What haven't we talked about so far that we should flesh out to people on this?

One thing that's interesting about this is that three of these, like the wonder, discernment, and enablement are all what we call responsive geniuses. They don't actually force things on people. They kind of sit back and wait for them to be. And then invention, galvanizing, and tenacity are what we call disruptive geniuses. They go out and they go, I want to make something happen that's not here yet. And you're double disruptive, Chris. You're like, I am going to, I don't care if that's the way it's always been done, or I don't care if that's not, if's the rule let's make this happen and so you initiate change but people that are double responsive will watch something happen and be more likely to wait till somebody asks them for their opinion or opens the door for them and if you know that about one another you will avoid frustrating each other because we need all of this stuff.

But so you are double disruptive. You're like, yeah, the rules are there to keep people, but I'm going to break the rules if I have to. I'm going to talk about things that people don't want to talk about. I'm going to bring these things because that's what I do. And when people go, that's annoying. It's like, no, it's not annoying. It's actually the gift I bring.

Now there's some times in life where you have to be responsive and you have to sit on your hands that's painful for you but at least if you know like oh yeah i'm not wired that way okay i'll i'll try to do that for a while but i'm not going to get in a job i mean imagine if you were in a job where where compliance was the most important thing that's when i get fired and there's other people it's like imagine if you were at a job where you had to break the rules and constantly question authority yeah and they would have the same reaction you just had yeah which is crazy that people can like again one person's trash is another person's treasure yeah what one of my last jobs where i worked for somebody else i was what what they called an entrepreneur. And this is the 90s before people really started talking about it.

And my job was to go around the company and look at innovative things. It basically innovates stuff. So I would look at the departments and go, why do we do things this way? And the standard answer is, oh, we've always done this thing. Karen taught me how to do it this way, and I do it this way. Who taught Karen? You know, it's the old turkey in the oven parable, if people have heard of it. And then so I'd be like, you know, if you took out this step

or these steps people put in to complicate things and probably justify their jobs, you know, this thing can get done much quicker. It can get through the throughput of the workflow much quicker. And, you know, then I could, but I could do that. done much quicker. I can get through the thorough put of the workflow much quicker. But I could do that. Yeah, I was the breaker of things and the challenger of status quo. But in a lot of corporations, that sort of person doesn't work good unless they're a CEO. Or if the CEO says, I know we're not good at this. I need you to do this. I'm going to reward you for tearing things down, but they can't have it both ways. And that's why an innovative culture is not one that tries to preserve things. And you

and I were talking before about, and in government, everything that gets established in government is there to preserve itself. And it's really hard to go into government and go, we're going to break that up and we're going to stop doing that. And that happens in churches and other organizations. It's like preserving a program. And so you and I, we're not maintainers and preservers. We're like, hey, let's question that and let's turn it upside down and get everybody doing the right thing. And there are certain organizations that people like us would really struggle in. There you go. So this has been really insightful. Any final thoughts as we go out and for people on getting the assessment, taking it and learning more about it?

It takes 12 minutes. It costs 25 bucks. We priced it like a couple cups of coffee because this is so important. We didn't want to make it expensive. And just know that if you don't know what your God-given talents are, you are going to feel guilty and you're going to judge others and feel judged. And the liberation that comes from knowing that and being on a team and knowing what one another's are and helping, it's just something like this is a mission for us. This is something that we just want everybody in the world to avoid what so many people did when they went to work and they spent 45 years doing something they hated. We just think life is not meant to be that way. You need to make one for marriage and relationships. This helps with that.

Let me tell you. What you're good at. Chris, you know something? We had a guy write to us and say, oh, my gosh, I did this. I thought my wife hated me for years. And we said, why? And he goes, he was an inventor, right? And his wife is a discerner so

she's the one who looks at something and can tell if it's going to work or not he goes every time i came up with an idea she would say this is why it's not going to work and he's this woman doesn't even want me to succeed and they literally on valentine's day they did this and he said so you're not trying to rain on my parade she goes no i just don't want you to do something that's not going to work. And it went from misunderstanding one another's motives to understanding that's their genius. So it can really help in relationships. Maybe you should do this for relationships then. Yeah, maybe we need it.

I know a lot of people are suffering from that. You can do a pre-divorce court. But no, I love this. I've learned a lot about myself and i thought i was pretty self-aware but i don't think there's ever a final right final lane for that so thank you very much patrick i mean this has been super insightful and hopefully you can change some lives i mean if you're if you're one of those persons who's just working a job take the test and that way if you get offered promotions or maybe you you know you find what you love There's nothing worse in this world than doing something you don't love doing

and you're not passionate about it and trying to show up for work every day. And you know something? Most managers, Chris, would like to know what you're better at. They're not going to be like, they might be like, hey, you could do this other thing that we really need.

And until they know what that is, it's hard for them to actually think about that. Yeah, it really is. Like, I would have people come up to me, and my audience has heard this for years. I would have people come up to me, and they go, oh, it's so great. You're the CEO of a courier company. And I'm like, I don't really like it. I don't like the courier company.

I don't like blue-collar sort of business. I just don't like it. And then I have my mortgage company, and people come up and be like, hey, it's really cool that you have this really big business and you're a CEO. You do what you love. And I'm like, I don't love it. I like being the investor. I like being the visionary.

I like creating companies from scratch and turning them into multi-million dollar companies. But I don't like these businesses. I just don't. I mean, I get paid to be CEO and investor for return. That's it. I don't give a shit about anything I really do. And it was kind of sad for a long time. For a long time, people would be like, that's really sad that you do all this shit and you're just, you have no love of it. And I'm like, yeah, I just, I love being

CEO and inventing. And I guess from what we've talked about, we can see why. But the only time I ever found something that I loved was when we changed the podcast over covid from talking about ceo and and investing in silicon valley bullshit to talking about everything and anything that helped change the world i had someone i was in really big depression because we lost hundreds of thousands of dollars once all the events closed overnight it was just it was like a punch in the gut as events closed. You probably know that being a speaker in touring. Yeah.

You're just like, that was guaranteed money this year. I spent years building that. And so I was a little depressed. And when we had the podcast, I think it was 12 years old at that time. And one of my friends says, there's two things you do right now. You either be a lifter or you find a lifter in the midst of COVID, at least the initial part of it. And so I said,

shit, that's a good idea. What assets do I have to be a lifter? Cause I really don't want to be, I'm not a follower. And so then we changed the format of the show. We opened up to all book authors, all minds and,

and not, not all minds. Cause some people are working idiots. And I have the mic so I can do whatever I want, so I can qualify. But we open the show to everything. The show has exploded over 1,400% since COVID, those four years ago. And I love what I do. It's the first time in my whole life, at 50 years old, that I found something I truly enjoy.

Like, I would do this all day long. I do it all day long actually. And it makes sense. It actually, look at your results and it totally makes sense. I love it. So finding what you love is really important people, especially in relationships too. So thank you very much for Patrick coming on the show. Give us your.com so people can find you on the interwebs.

Workinggenius.com. You can find us there and there's stuff about me and about all this. And then my company that we've been around for 27 years is called tablegroup.com, which has all the books and the services we do and the products around teamwork and everything else. There you go. Take the test, folks. There'll be a link on the Chris Voss show.

Thanks, Patrick, for coming on the show. Thanks to Manas for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, fortune.chrisvoss, linkedin.com, fortune.chrisvoss, chrisvoss1, the TikTokity, all those crazy places around the internet.is for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortuness, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, Fortuness, Chris Voss, Chris Voss, one of the TikTokity, all those crazy places around the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. And I should have a sound.