← The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni
The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni
103. Working Genius vs. the Ideal Team Player
00:18:41
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- [00:00]
A
The first step in building a team is to get the right people on the bus. Because if you really do believe teamwork is important, then don't hire anyone who's egregiously lacking in one of these three areas. Humble. It's not about them, it's about the team hungry, work ethic, drive, wanting to do a good job. And third is smart, emotional intelligence, eq. The second step is to get them in the right seats, and that's the working genius. If we confuse those two, we're going to miss out on some people that should be on the bus, or we are going to allow some people on the bus that shouldn't be because we assumed that their working genius was permission to get on. Welcome to the Working Genius podcast, where we discuss anything and everything having to do with the six types of working genius and how it impacts your work and your life. I'm Pat Lincione, your host, with Cody Thompson, my co host. How you doing today, Cody?
- [00:50]
B
Pretty good, Pat. You know, people ask me, do you get tired of talking about working genius on the podcast? But I talk about it when we're not on the podcast. I know talk about it all weekend. So now we just get to record.
- [01:02]
A
And today's episode comes from the fact I was given a talk in Austin a while back and a person in the audience wanted to talk about it and they asked. When somebody raises their hand and wants to talk about working genius, I get very excited. So what's today's topic, Cody?
- [01:17]
B
So working genius. WG and itp. Ideal team player.
- [01:22]
A
Right. And so this is going to seem very repetitive, but it's not. With our last episode where we talked about working genius and EQ or emotional intelligence, and what we realized, there's a big connection between these two things. So again, I was in the audience a while back at a business conference in Austin, and a woman raised her hand and said, hey, do you think there's a connection? They were suggesting there may be a connection between a person's working genius and whether they were humble, hungry, and smart and that you could use one as a predictor for the other. And I was like, really entertaining that. And in fact, I was arguing for it till about 10 minutes ago. Yeah, that maybe there was some correlation. But the answer is, no, it's. There's not. And yet I can't wait to talk about why it seems like there is and why there may be an opportunity to have some insight into a person. But I what we really want to say, why it's dangerous to think that the two are co indicators of one another. And what it really comes down to is this. The first step in building a team is to get the right people on the bus that's humble, hungry and smart, ideal team player. The second step is to get them in the right seats and that's the working genius. If we confuse those two, we're going to miss out on some people that should be on the bus or we are going to allow some people on the bus that shouldn't be because we assumed that their working genius was permission to get on. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Cody. So first of all, the first one that we should talk about in Humble Hungry Smart is smart. Because we just did an episode about that, right?
- [02:53]
B
Yeah, there's, you know, we talked a lot about in the last episode. The first step is self awareness. When we talk about smart in the ideal team player, we're kind of talking about all the components, both self awareness, how, you know, how you come across to other people, what that looks like in team meetings and in boardrooms and otherwise. So it's sort of the three dimensional approach. It's not just strictly self awareness, it's how do you leverage that level of self awareness with others.
- [03:21]
A
Very closely tied to eq.
- [03:22]
B
Yep.
- [03:23]
A
And we're not saying that smart and EQ are exactly the same, but they are in the same family of things. And so that's what that episode was about, is that every type of working genius, every pairing, can have very high emotional intelligence and every type can have very low emotional intelligence. And there's no way to use the working genius tool to predict whether a person is smart and belongs on the bus.
- [03:46]
B
And Pat, it just occurred to me that these are working genius listeners and we've done another episode about ideal team player, but maybe it's worth saying the model as a whole as we kind of work our way around the circles, because if you're not that familiar with it, it might be like, oh, how is that different from Travis Bradbury's book? And do kind of nuance some of the three different virtues a little differently.
- [04:10]
A
Yeah. So the three qualities of an ideal team player, and this is useful in an organization because if you really do believe teamwork is important, then don't hire anyone who's egregiously lacking in one of these three areas. And those three areas are humble. It's not about them, it's about the team. That's the ego, pride, one hungry, which means work ethic, drive, wanting to do a Good job not being a minimalist or a slacker. And third is smart, emotional intelligence, eq, understanding how people respond to things, and how to manage your behavior around others. So those are the three things which are first, in the order of teamwork, make sure that the people that you're bringing into your organization, into your team, into your project, are humble, hungry and smart. Then figure out what to do with them.
- [04:56]
B
Well, I would just say this, like when somebody asks you, I wasn't there in Austin, but I know I've now worked with you for enough years to know kind of how your brain works. And so when you receive a question like that and it says, hey, is there sort of a relationship here? Your brain loves patterns and to try to figure out the patterns. And so I'd just love for you to extrovert. And I think this is why, like, your headline at the beginning of the episode is, no, but it's still worth exploring. Because we got really close to thinking maybe there was a relationship. And what we're saying is, hey, don't get confused. Like, this might be a warning more than anything that even we got to a place where we're like, maybe you could predict this with this relationship.
- [05:38]
A
Yeah, because I want to be open to whatever the truth is. As I've said before in the last podcast, this is an open source conversation. We love when people ask questions. And though we've done a ton of research and we have our strong beliefs about certain things, there's always nuances that come up in other things. And so when that person asks the question in the audience, I think my answer was, I don't know, I don't think so, but maybe, well, let's look into that. And so we've been talking about that a little bit and we really sat down in the last, in the time preparing for the podcast and thought about all the people we know who have the different working geniuses, and were any of them a virtual assurance of whether or not they had humble, hungry and smarts? And I was like, let's maybe there is. Let's assume there is. Let's find one. Let's try to disprove this. And in the end, interesting enough, we were on this call and there was another call going on in the other room and I went to ask somebody a question. There was like three people on that call, including my wife. Wife. And I was like, so what do you guys think? And we had a separate conversation and we all came to the conclusion that you cannot get any assurance from a person's working genius that as a result of that they are humble, hungry or smart, they are completely different. And so that's where we are today. I feel stronger than it than ever. I was talked out of my belief that maybe one of the working geniuses was an indication of one of the three signs are the ideal team player. And so anyway, that's kind of the background.
- [07:02]
B
I think it's worth sort of doing the inside baseball of like actually extroverting that whole process. Because I'll tell you where our brain went first, because I think most listeners, either their brains went to the same spot or they want to hear us talk through it, which is even in the last episode. One of the questions we entered the last episode with was, does someone that has discernment, are they at all better at the emotional intelligence part of this? Like, it's kind of reductionist to think of just one genius that way. But like, okay, based on what we know about judgment, gut feel they like know how to do this. Is that at all related to self awareness and, you know, emotional intelligence? That was that. That's a question that we could explore. And the answer is, go ahead.
- [07:46]
A
Oh, no. This is fascinating. The answer is no. But I realize there's one letter that we tend to think goes with each humble, hungry and smart. There's one letter that we go, well, if a person has discernment, they're probably emotionally intelligent or smart. If a person has enablement, they must be humble. And if a person has tenacity, they must be hungry. I just thought about that and those would be the easiest places to assume there was a connection. And the answer is no, there is not. But it's tempting.
- [08:24]
B
It's tempting. But here's an easy way of disproving this, right? So discernment, let's start there, because I teed that one up, is let's say I've experienced this, and I'm sure many listeners have, is like someone with this discernment, again has good judgment and gut feel around evaluating ideas and refining ideas. Here's how that comes across with someone who's not emotionally intelligent. You start throwing out an idea and without any understanding of how this might impact you or how it would be received, I just like, that's a dumb idea. Let me tell you why. The actual act of exercising the genius of discernment, even if objectively the opinion is right, the way that they convey that opinion is actually the secret sauce of emotional intelligence. And they may not have it. I've been in rooms where people kind of do away with any level of how is this going to come across? I'm just going to make my point and my point is accurate. So let me just go ahead and dive, right?
- [09:18]
A
To be like, terrible idea, terrible idea, terrible idea. It was like Simon on the, yeah, on the, what was the show, you know, American Idol or whatever else. Oh, that was horrible.
- [09:26]
B
Right.
- [09:26]
A
He might have been right, but, but exercise no emotional intelligence and probably didn't think he needed to. So that's an interesting one.
- [09:35]
B
What about enablement? I've got an idea. You've connected it to humility. You think like, oh, so, so let me extrovert what you're thinking. Oh, because you care about other people and you want to serve and support and help, you must be humble. That's maybe the most, the simplest way of connecting those two.
- [09:52]
A
Yeah. And you know, it's interesting and people with enablement have helped me understand this. We, we want to attribute their enablement to humility and it's just not always an accurate thing. They are born with a desire to do that. And so we tend to go, oh, like she's a nurse, she takes care of sick people, she must be very humble. Now there's a lot of humble nurses out there, but a lot. Some nurses would go, no, I actually just, this is the, I like doing this. It's the job that pays the most for doing what I like doing. And when I'm off the clock, I'm fine, I don't need to do that. You know what I mean? Now do most nurses act that way? No, but there are plenty of people out there that are quick to volunteer, but not necessarily humble. They might even think, look at I'm quick to volunteer, what a wonderful person I am. Attribute to that to some character attribute as opposed to just the way they're wired.
- [10:47]
B
Well, and we've talked about humility in two ways. One is like ego and self importance and someone might lend a hand to somebody else or jump into support because of how it makes them look. That's a violation of humility. Right, right. But the other is also true, which is, the other violation is self deprecating. Right. Like, oh, we don't know what, we don't value what we bring to the table and how we show up. So someone might volunteer to help out out of a self deprecating violation of humility. Like, oh, I have nothing to add, I'm just gonna, yeah, I'll jump in and support. So neither of those actually represent the true virtue of humility.
- [11:25]
A
Yes, that's a Great point, Cody. So the question is, is there an egotistic enabler in the world? The answer is yes.
- [11:33]
B
Yeah.
- [11:34]
A
Is there a butt headed discerner in the world? Absolutely right. The last question is, is there? And this is where we had a really interesting conversation. Is there a slacker person with tenacity, a tenacious slacker? And Tracy, I think, convinced us that there could be. Right. And my wife Laura said the same thing. And that is if they're not. The thing about hunger is that you can be hungry because you have a personality for like, I'm just super responsible. That might be more of a Myers Briggs thing. Or because I love my teammates and I don't want to let them down. Or I, I love this mission and I would die for this mission. But all of those are separate from whether or not you have tenacity finishing things as a genius. And what Tracy said is, what happens if you're on a team where you're not in the implementation phase and maybe most of the work you do is not in that phase. A person could be tenacious about finishing but not very motivated to do the project because it wasn't about that part of the work. Does that make sense?
- [12:46]
B
Yeah, I like those categories as, like, sometimes it's intrinsic motivation. If it is that you might have hunger. Hunger and tenacity could, could be a correlation.
- [12:56]
A
I think there's a decent correlation because so much of work is about finishing things and tenacious people do that. So if there were anywhere, I would say it would be harder to deny some correlation, but I still would deny it. So.
- [13:09]
B
Yeah, so then you went to, oh, sometimes people are hungry. They exhibit hunger because they have a desire to not let their team down. And they're. And there's an argument to be made that some of that's enablement and some of that's tenacity. Like, I feel responsible for the work.
- [13:23]
A
Or some of it might just be virtue of, like, these people are depending on me. I don't want to let them down. I don't care what my working genius is letting down my colleague. You know, I don't think Band of Brothers, the movie, or, you know, all those kind of war movies are about, well, it was all about their working genius. So it's like, no, I owe them. I would give my life for them. You know, in the Bible it says you'll lay down your life for a friend. And Jesus laid his life down for people who weren't his friends even. And that is like, that's a virtue. That's a decision as opposed to just a characteristic.
- [14:00]
B
And so that last piece was, I'm passionate about the mission or the work. And I think this is where it gets really interesting is do we know people that have tenacity that like finishing things, but their interest is not the work? You know, like, so could somebody go home and write articles about fantasy football or do, you know, do some of these other things and like, finishing, but it not be related to the actual work that they're teed up at the place that they're employed.
- [14:27]
A
And so I went in the other room while we were prepping. Cody and I found somebody in the office that I know has tea as a working genius. Genius. And I knew they worked in a job that they hated. And I said, were you hungry there, like, looking for more to do? And she said, oh, it was really hard for her to admit she wasn't, but she said, no, I think that I wasn't. I didn't care. I didn't have a connection to the people. The mission didn't. Didn't fit me at all. And even though I would do what they asked me to do, I think they could tell that I really didn't have any passion or drive for that job.
- [15:00]
B
Yeah.
- [15:00]
A
So now her slacking, I will say that probably looks different than my slacking or your slacking. So there may be something about being tenacious that makes it a little harder to completely slack, but. But that's not hunger.
- [15:14]
B
This was fun to explore all of this, because I think, like, I love that you in the room in Austin were, like, trying to figure out, like, yeah, I think this works. Let me figure out how it works. And then over the course of discerning through it for a week or two, we've arrived at the conclusion that it doesn't. But I will say this. There's a reason that we talk about this in order. Right. When we talk about these models, that the first model being ideal team player, humble, hungry, smart. If you find people with those intrinsic virtues or values, it is going to allow them to slide into a team where, regardless of their working genius, they can. It's a multiplier effect, is what Tracy said is, like, it's going to help leverage those gifts better. But trying to go backwards, I think that's what we arrived at, is like, those indicators are not necessarily going to give you the right information if you try to go from working genius back into ideal team player.
- [16:05]
A
Yeah. And I love working genius. It's so exciting and fun to do this. We're enjoying this so much. But when people say, okay, I'm going to hire somebody in my organization, we always say, whoa, whoa, whoa, before you start applying working genius, make sure they're a cultural fit. And if that culture is based on teamwork, make sure they have humble, hungry and humility, hunger and smarts. It can't trump the next one. It's the first step has to be, do they fit the culture? Do they belong on the bus? So, yeah, that's. I guess that's what we're trying to say here. They're not the same. Don't be tempted to think, oh, they have tenacity, they're going to be hungry. Oh, they have enablement, they're going to be humble. Oh, they have discernment, they're going to be smart. It's not true. And you could get yourself into trouble by assuming that.
- [16:50]
B
And I'll just wrap this up pat, because you quoted somebody in the front of your 5 Dysfunctions book is that people need to be reminded more than they need to be instructed. So while we'll say that this is not. There's no causation necessarily or very little correlation between the two, it's still worth saying that in 25 years, you've written three books on teamwork, essentially, like, and in order. If you were to go back and say, hey, I'm going to do this in order, that makes the most sense for people. It is ideal team player. Who belongs on the bus, then working genius. What seat should they sit in? What position do they play on the team? And then five dysfunctions are like, how do we teach that team now with the right people in the right seats to perform and win with these behaviors.
- [17:39]
A
Yeah. And when you have people that are humble, hungry, smart, and you actually have them in the right kind of role, oh, the five dysfunctions are so much easier.
- [17:46]
B
Yep.
- [17:47]
A
Building trust. Half of it's already been done.
- [17:50]
B
Yep.
- [17:50]
A
Engaging in conflict. You're going to attribute why they do or don't to the right things. Committing to things. Oh, so those two things preceding the five dysfunctions is. So it's grease that. That oils the gears, you know, that's.
- [18:04]
B
The extent of my ability to like, a true mechanic.
- [18:07]
A
Yeah. All right. This is really interesting to me. I hope it was to you all out there. We love talking about working genius, and so many people are using it. Cody. When I go out and speak to audiences and I find out how people are using this in different parts of their work and lives, it's one of the most exciting things because we sit here in our offices and do our work, but when we get to actually interact with people and hear their stories, it's the best.
- [18:31]
B
So love it.
- [18:33]
A
Thanks for sharing with us, folks. All right, we'll talk to you next time on the Working Genius Podcast. Thanks, Cody, and God bless.