← The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni
The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni
88. MBTI Is the Noun, Working Genius Is the Verb
00:29:31
Loading summary
Transcript36 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hey.
- [00:02]
B
Every day I'll say, hey, everybody, let's gather around and talk about this again. And I was like, okay, why don't I do that? Oh, you have galvanizing. So we both start with the same platform of enfp, but I, within the context of being an enfp, being one, what I do is I like to invent and discern. 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 Linceoni, your host, joined by my regular co host, Cody Thompson. How are you doing today, Cody?
- [00:36]
A
Excited to be here.
- [00:38]
B
Me too. We have a really interesting topic today. We've been talking about this for a long time. What is it, Cody?
- [00:43]
A
It's called nouns and verbs.
- [00:45]
B
That's right, Nouns and verbs. I loved grammar as a kid. I was one of those weird kids who loved grammar. And when we think about working genius, we're talking about the verb things we like to do. In fact, I like to say that maybe we should have called it the six types of doing genius. Just doing things. And that's what makes it different than almost all the other assessments out there, is that it really ties to the kind of work we like to do. And that's really important. And that was such a bridge for so many people who said, well, I've done all these personality assessments, but I don't know what that means for what I should do in my work or in my job or in my role. So we're big believers in that. Of course, no assessment tells you everything. There's more to learn about people beyond any one particular assessment. And when we're doing working genius, Cody, we talk to people and we're really trying to understand them. And, and working genius does a lot, but there's, there's. We can add something to that sometimes to go even a little bit deeper. And what we're talking about here is the Myers Briggs for. Is what we're going to talk about today, or 16 types temperaments, depending on what you call it. It's kind of public domain now. But here's what we're trying to say is it's so important to understand your verb, what it is you like to do. It's great to add more to that, too. And we're going to talk about what happens when you add an understanding of the Myers Briggs to your working genius and how that can even deepen an understanding of another person.
- [02:15]
A
Yeah, I love you started by saying you loved grammar As a kid. And now we're going to talk about two personality instruments at, at the same time. So this is kind of for nerds a little bit. Any opportunity I have to call you a nerd, I'll take it. But, but you do we, we geek out on this stuff. Like we see the impact it can have when you are self aware, when you know yourself really well, and then the impact it has on teams. And I love sort of this complimentary nature of working genius sort of being about the activity and some of the 16 types helping, you know, like how, who you are, how you show up. And so I think it does complete or makes another layer, at least in terms of when you understand yourself and others in this way.
- [02:58]
B
Yeah, and Cody, I didn't do a very good job of the noun part about this. Your Myers Briggs, for instance, is the operating system like your personality preference. Not what you do necessarily, but who you are, that's the noun. And then the working geniuses, what you actually act, how you act. So that the combination of the two can be pretty powerful. I do think one plus one equals four when you add these up. But the Myers Briggs takes a little longer to understand and there's more different types of course, and a lot more nuance to it. But it's fun to talk about. We do it here in the office all the time. And you're right, I'm a geek around this. We are. And our listeners are geeks in the best way in terms of they really love to talk about this. And that's what's so fun about this podcast. And the people that communicate with us is that they're really interested in the nuances and how to better understand people and how to use this either in their own company or in their practice or in their lives. So it's fun to do this. So let's go ahead and jump in.
- [03:59]
A
Yeah, I think it'd be good. Two things up, up front to start with Pat is just like if this is your first episode, don't listen to this one. Go back to number one, what is working genius? But if, like our regular listeners who love the nuance, I love diving into these so sort of edges of the brownie sort of conversations around this. So I think the best place to start, you know, we use six letters to represent the different types of working genius. Let's use the words so that. Because we're going to be using a lot of letters because there's additional letters from the Myers Briggs or the 16 types thing. But I think it'd be fun, Pat. It's always worth going over and sort of overviewing the six types before we get into the nuance of how they complement each other.
- [04:39]
B
And Cody, I'm an 8020 guy, so I love to do things quickly. For those people that don't know Myers Briggs or 16 types, I'm going to do the Reader's Digest version for those people that do know it. This isn't going to take very long. You don't have to speed through the podcast, but I think it's good sometimes to remind ourselves. And for those people that are smart, which is everybody on the podcast, I'm going to do this in a way I think you'll be able to grasp it. Okay, so. And Cody, you're going to. You're going to correct me because I won't know all the details, but. And so in Myers Briggs, there's four decisions you have to make about yourself, and one is where you get your energy generally in terms of being around people. Do you generally get your energy from being around others more and you draw on their energy, you like to be around them, and that feeds you generally, or do you get energy from being by yourself and being around others tends to drain you? Now, every person in the world needs to have time alone. Every person in the world needs to be around others. But an extrovert, that's the first letter in Myers Briggs, and I'm one of those. You're one of those, too, Cody. We do feed off of other people. So being in a group of people generally gives us energy. Eventually we'll say, gosh, I gotta go. I need some time by myself. But that doesn't happen very quickly, and we don't need a lot of that. Introversion, on the other hand, is people that get energized by being going back inside themselves and spending time alone so that they can then go and expend some of that energy by being around others.
- [06:06]
A
The only other nuance at adpad is like to think of this as a spectrum, right? So some people go, well, that person really loves to be around other people. Two people can be an extrovert to a little bit of a different degree. You know, so there is a spectrum relationship to all of the four different categories that we're talking about.
- [06:23]
B
Well, and actually, Cody, what the purists will say, and I agree with them, this is the only one that's really, really on a spectrum. In other words, the others are kind of binary. One is your preference. But I do think there are people that are right down the middle on extrovert, introvert and some that are. And you and I would be considered wild ass extroverts. I mean, we do love to be around. In fact, working with us is fun, but it's also people have to kind of walk away from us if they want to get anything done because we tend to be always interacting and things like that.
- [06:51]
A
Yep, absolutely.
- [06:53]
B
And most people can do. Here's some great questions. It's like, do you think out loud? Do you like to brainstorm? Is that how you generally do things? If somebody asks you a question, do you like to respond right away and then work it out out loud? Or are you the kind of person that would like to go think about things, go inside yourself, be a little bit more introverted, if you will, to use the language. Now, I want to say this. There is no correlation between working genius and Myers Briggs. We've tested this. Matt, who's our producer, who's also our data guy on this, tested the heck out of this mat not going to speak today because he has the worst allergies in the world. And so he's sneezing backstage right now. And he said, I'm not talking today. But we have done a crapload of research and we find no correlation between your working genius and your Myers Briggs, which is what we want to talk about today. Because when you know somebody's working genius, it really helps then later on to go figure out their Myers Briggs because it adds even another nuance.
- [07:49]
A
Yeah, it's just like a totally different perspective or angle rather than it being some overlap. So it'll be fun as we tease out sort of people we know that have similar Myers Briggs types and totally different working genius types or vice versa. So that's going to be fun to explore.
- [08:07]
B
Exactly. So I'm going to stop right here and just say, even if all you got from this podcast is the introvert extrovert. So Whitney, who runs podcasts for us, her and Matt, she is a de in working genius. Tracy and Karen, who are also involved in all this, but don't come on anymore. They are des also. But Whitney is an extrovert and Karen and Tracy are introverts. Even that alone works its way into meetings where Whitney will think out loud more in a meeting and throw out her ideas more quickly. Where Karen and Tracy are going to be more reticent to do that because they really want to process things that alone will make them look different. So it helps us to understand. Oh, I'm seeing more of your discernment and enablement, whereas an introverted one is going to be a little bit more close to the chest.
- [09:03]
A
You might have to solicit it a little bit more from an introverted discerner than you would an extroverted discerner because they're thinking out loud. They like processing out loud. And so a lot of times that discernment takes on a pretty observable. Or you hear it more rather than having to solicit it.
- [09:21]
B
Exactly. And DEs are double responsive, but an extroverted DE will probably look a little bit less responsive than an introverted de. So it's kind of an interesting thing. Okay, so that's E and I, where you get your energy. The next one, and this is the hardest one to understand, is kind of how we take in information, if you will. Okay. And we've actually come up with a thought around. If you're a Myers Briggs geek, we're gonna push the envelope a little bit here. The real issue here is at what elevation do you generally take in your information? And there's two different types. There's intuitive, which I don't like that word because it sounds like these people have intuition. But the real word here, the real thing is they think of things kind of more globally, conceptually, theoretically. They like to have conversations that are kind of a little bit more up in the clouds. Whereas the other type is called sensing. That's the S. They are more grounded and practical and dealing with realism. So their language is going to be more practical and literal, whereas the intuitive, the N is going to be much more theoretical and conceptual. So how do you take in your information and where do you generally apply that? Is it way up here or is it closer to the ground? Intuitive and sensing.
- [10:53]
A
Yeah, sometimes it's helped to use an example, Pat. One of them that has been helpful for me in the past is my wife, who has a sensing preference in the Myers Briggs and I have an intuitive preference. When we were looking for a house, the way my wife would look for a house was like, it needs to have this many bedrooms and this many bathrooms and I want the kids rooms in this on the same floor as our as. As. So she had a. Like a list. Like a literal. Like tactical. Yes. Right. Like details. And the way I look like I would go in like, what's this neighborhood like? And where would our kids ride their bikes? And you know, it's sort of an. Is this the right house? From a. From a like sentiment standpoint rather than. Does it. Check all these boxes now? There's no one there's no value in one or the other. In fact, it's really help helpful to have both. But that, that's a helpful sort of way of thinking about how those show up in like a real life scenario.
- [11:45]
B
Yeah, I, I bought a car this past weekend for my son, a used car. And we, I don't do a crapload of research. I don't do like all this. What I do is I say, generally speaking, how reliable is it Now I'm gonna go look at them, we're gonna get a feeling for it and I'm gonna kind of. And it's going to be more general than it is, like pros, cons, you know, looking at the list. And of course some people are going to go to Car and Driver magazine and do all the analysis and other people are just going to look at the car and go, it gives me a pretty good feeling, you know, conceptually. So those are the two differences, N and S. Okay, the next one, we've gotten through two of the four ways. Extrovert, introvert, where you get your energy, intuitive sensing, how you take in information. The next one is kind of how you, your initial preference for how you make decisions. And this would be thinking versus feeling. Okay. A thinking preference in how you make decisions is you value logic and you value objectivity. And it's a lot more, a little more black and white. People that have their initial reaction to things is, well, what does logic tell us to do and how should we do this? People with a feeling preference, the F they generally go with, like, how does it impact people? More of a heart, more of a subjective. Now that doesn't mean that people that are feelers are bad at math or people that are thinkers. The T are really cold and impersonal. It just means their first preference is how they see things. And so when presented with a decision, the first thing they're going to look at is either logic or more subjective and emotional things. I'm a feeler, you're a feeler, Cody. A lot of guys think, well, I'm not supposed to be a feeler. And then there's women who are thinkers and they're like, well, I'm supposed to be. And yeah, there are definitely things about men and women that are different, but when it comes to Myers Briggs, it's, it doesn't break that way.
- [13:44]
A
And I think it's important. We often use this phrase around a working genius that really it's about self awareness. There is no hierarchy to any of these categories. It's just to know like how do I show up and what is my preference? And if I'm prone to rationalize or think about a decision that I'm making from a feeler's perspective, that's helpful information for me to know myself. It's also helpful information for the people around me and my family and on my team to know about me.
- [14:13]
B
Exactly, exactly. That's what this comes down to is like just the more we know about ourselves and the more we can communicate that the better. The last one of the four is so we talked about where we get our energy, how we get information, how we react to decisions, and last one is how we organize our world. And this one I think is fairly straightforward. And that is there's the J, which stands for judging, which doesn't mean you're judgmental. It means you like to have things ordered. You like decisions to be made and you like to stick to a plan. You like things structured and predictable. P is called perceiving. That means you like to keep your options open. You need to, you want to take in more information as it comes in and you're going to wait until you, you have to make a decision generally and that you prefer to be opportunistic and open ended until you need to make a decision. Okay. And so you and I are big perceivers, Cody. And so we actually prefer to wake up and figure out what our day is going to look like. And people that are Jays will say like this is what I'm doing today and this is what time I'm doing it. And they actually get comfort out of sticking to that. Now that sounds like a verb thing, but that's just a preference they have. It doesn't mean that a person with a J should be in finance or that a person with a P should be a magician. You can, there are P's in finance and J's and magicians. I don't know what a magician has to do with anything, but the point here is it's just the noun part of how you're wired in terms of your preferences. Okay, so Cody and I are both ENFPs. That's our Myers Briggs types. Okay, so before we came up with working genius. Well, Cody, you'd like to talk to tell the story about how when we figured out what our working geniuses were, what that told us.
- [16:01]
A
Yeah, so I mean we only, we used Myers Briggs almost exclusively before working genius and we used other tools. So when I actually interviewed with you guys, part of the process was knowing my Myers Briggs type. So after five, six, seven years working with you. Um, we're both ENFPs. And when you are gone or not in the office, and the. The rest of the team would be like, well, you're an enfp. Go up to the board and do the thing that Pat does at the board. And. And I always felt this, like, wait, I don't know. Do I had some, like, shame around it. Like, I'm not as good at that, and it doesn't come as naturally to me. And there's a bunch of reasons for that. But one of the underlying reasons that kind of unlocked this. This aha moment for me was with working genius, where some of what you were doing at the board was invention. And so it had nothing to do with the extroverted, intuitive, feeling perceiver part of my being. It had to do with the working genius, like the activity of invention. So I loved actually sitting in the room while you're at the board inventing, because I love discernment. Discernment was one of mine. And so it was really interesting that this is why we wanted to have this conversation, because those layers of things totally unlocked. You know, we talk a lot about, like, guilt and shame, and judgment was like, I felt some guilt or shame that working genius helped relieve me from because just our Myers Briggs types were identical. And so I was left to think something was wrong with me, you know?
- [17:33]
B
And then, similarly, we're both ENFPs. But I would go to work and get frustrated when I had to remind people and kind of fire people up every day. I mean, and I can do it once or twice, but, like, every day. And you were like, I like doing that. Hey, every day. I'll say, hey, everybody, let's gather around and talk about this again. And I was like, okay, why don't I do that? Oh, you have galvanizing. So we both start with the same platform of enfp, But I. Within the context of being an enfp, being one, what I do is I like to invent and discern. Cody, within the context of the noun of being an enfp, likes to discern and galvanize people. And so you and I have. Out of the six letters that correspond, only one is different. And it's huge. It really made a difference.
- [18:19]
A
Yeah, it really did. It changed our whole relationship in the company, too. It was like. It freed us up. It. It added a layer of differentiation that was actually a feature, you know, And I think sometimes that's what I love about the working genius is we run toward each other with this designate. Like, you were like, you love that. Why don't you do that? Whereas at first the just the single, the single revelation of just the noun of the Myers Briggs didn't help me understand like, so how am I different from Pat? And what do I do in the context of a team? That's helpful.
- [18:55]
B
That's right, that's right. You know, it's interesting. I have, and so we have another guy on our team named Alan who is an enfp. So he's the same as I am. But now let's look at this Cody. He. And he's the same as you.
- [19:11]
A
He's an ET enablement and tenacity. Yeah.
- [19:14]
B
Which means he is an implementer. He gets stuff done. And if you've ever gotten any email from us or done anything that technologically works, you can thank Alan, probably Alan, he's in charge of technology for us. Well, you think, well, how can an Enfield like me and Cody be in charge of technology? Well, he is the loyal finisher. And he said my enfp, my noun makes me want to work. And he's worked in churches and he want to work. He works in organizations that are really idealistic because the one thing about being an nf, it's what you're called, an idealist. But he goes, but the role I want within this idealistic organization is one that's about stability and protection and follow through and, and getting things done. So he has the same. So if you look at the three of us, we have very different roles at the table group and yet we're the same Myers Briggs. And for years we would do the Myers Briggs and I'd have three people on an executive team with the same type. And I would think, so why are they so different? And now we know it's because what they do with that noun really depended on their working genius.
- [20:18]
A
Yeah, I would, if we switched you and Alan for a day, you would shut down pretty much everything we've built in the last five years. I mean, and I, I mean like, but before this it would have been crazy if we had, if, when we were doing consulting with just the Myers Briggs as like the, or the 16 types and we, if we saw an IT person with an ENFP personality, you know, type, we would, that would be confusing. We, we would, it would be hard for us to reconcile, like, I don't know if that, I don't know exactly how that works. And this extra layer allows, allows us to be like, oh, okay, I see the activity of what you're doing and what you enjoy doing is about pushing projects through to completion and keeping things on time. That is not a hallmark. If you only have one of, you know, if you only have the 16 type letters to look at, you wouldn't identify that as a hallmark of that type.
- [21:12]
B
Exactly. Now let's turn it around. So today I was just thinking that I have. I have four sons. Two of them have the same working genius, okay. And that is, they're both WDs. Okay. So I look at them and I think, okay, so they're the same working genius. So that tells me a lot about them. They have opposite Myers Briggs. So Casey, my son, who's a senior in college, has an ESTJ in the Myers Briggs that's he's a guardian. He's practical, grounded, down to earth, super. Like, he lives for reliability and he likes to protect things, which is, which is hard because he's also a W, which means he's constantly wondering about things and there's a tension there. Matt, on the other hand, our producer is a wd, but he's an infp. So one's an extrovert, one's an introvert. One sensing one's intuitive, one is thinking, one's feeling, one is judging, one's perceiving. Oh, my gosh. The noun platform that they come from is completely different. So they're, they have similar skills, but they're going to be applied in very different roles. And my son Casey, who's getting out of college right now and interviewing, like, when I look at an operations role for him, I think, yeah, you could do that because he actually likes consistency and sticking to a plan. Now when he does that, he's going to bring some wonder and discernment to that. But there is going to be an environment for him that would look very different than something that would fit Matt. Understanding both of these things allows me not to be myopic about who they are and where they're coming from.
- [22:50]
A
You know, Pat, I think part of the reason that we got so excited about this nerdy, like, nuanced conversation around this is because when you get fluent in both of these tools, the, the ability to help to understand another person at like, a rate that you would never be able to get through if we're just having normal conversation. Like now. You always ask, and I do, too, is like, do you know what your Myers Briggs is? And also, do you know what your working genius is? We've now fast tracked, like a year of getting to know you and, and the level to which we can either leverage you on our team or give you Advice for what, what you're looking to do in your life is like, it just accelerates all that. And, and the level of self awareness that it gives you to be like, you know, we, we both had conversation with college graduates who are like, well, if we know these two things, we can help you. Directionally, we don't need to tell you what job you should like definitively what title or job you should get. But directionally, if you do stuff like this, it's going to, you're going to love it, you're going to thrive at it, it's going to fast track a bunch of these years of exploration to find out where you are. So I think that's sort of the key to this, right, is if you get just fluent enough to understand the impact that has for you, the amount of the way it accelerates your ability to succeed is really phenomenal.
- [24:10]
B
Oh my gosh. To be able to say to somebody, this is kind of how I'm wired in terms of my noun, who I am and what my preferences are of. Just kind of like how I see things. And this is what I'm best at. It makes every kind of activity, organizational decision, so much easier. And for years we did Myers Briggs, but until we came up with working genius, we didn't really know how to land the plane and make the actual decisions. And so the two of those things are great. Now, if you're a real geek around Myers Briggs, we're going to introduce another concept right now.
- [24:46]
A
If you've made it this far, you know, we've got one more little nuance.
- [24:50]
B
For you, and that is this. We've come up with this idea that. And again, Myers Briggs, 16 types, temperament. There's all kinds of ways to look at this, but you have like, Cody, you're an ENFP and I'm an enfp. But one day I realized, I thought, you know, and you know, it was a guy that worked with us named Jeff, who was an entj, but really close behind. We're like, man, he looks like an estj. And what we realized is everybody has a secondary Myers Briggs type or work or 16 types type that if you had to change one letter, which would it be? That you could say, I can relate to that type too. So you're an ENFP and I'm an enfp. But if you had to change one of your letters, it would be S, E, S, F, P. And if you were to change one of mine, it would be I'm an enfj. Well, just understanding that also takes Me and you to a different level of understanding what we'd like to do because you are much more experiential and S's are much more like that. You enjoy, like, physical activity and specific things and living in the moment, whereas I don't do that very well. Very well. I really struggle with that because both of my first and second types are all about end stuff and conceptual things. So you have much more practical and experiential tendencies than I do. And I know for some people you're going to think that we're speaking Greek. For people that know the Myers Briggs, I'm convinced, utterly convinced, that we have a secondary type. And it is the thing that helps me understand why Whitney. So Tracy and Karen people all know Tracy and Karen. They are both the same working genius and the same Myers Briggs. Crazy. They're DEs and ISFJs. And the truth is they're a lot alike. But when you go to the secondary letter of Tracy and Karen, you start to see the nuances and the differences, which allows us to appreciate them more and understand why some things will cause one stress and not the other. So even though they're kind of twins in terms of how they're wired and how they're working geniuses, it's really interesting to look at the nuances of what their secondary letters are and it helps them with that. I won't go in any more than that because people that don't know Myers Briggs are already lost. I hope this presents a little bit more understanding of how adding the noun to the verb can take you to an even deeper level. And. And anyway, we're going to put that out there so people can think about that and play with it. Now, a lot of people are going to say, well, what about disc? Or what about other tools that are out there? And there's so many. What we would say is we don't know them as well because we don't even know if there's any correlations between working genius and any of those other tools. We haven't studied them, we've studied Myers Briggs, and we know that there's not a correlation. And they really cover different things.
- [27:44]
A
When I think, Pat, this is. I've often described some of what you do. The way your brain works is like excavation, right? You're just trying to brush off the dirt around what's true. And when things like this resonate with the majority of the population where you're like, oh, yeah, I can see that I have an extrovert preference and that I like an ordered world this way. Like, I think a lot of these personality assessments are. That's the effort, right? Is like, hey, there are things about human beings that are true and helpful when you discover them. And I think the. Looking at some of the correlation between those things, there probably is some overlap between many of those out there because everybody, really, the purpose of that is to figure out, like, who are we and what do we. How do we tick and how do we perform in. In. In relationship to each other. But it is. It's all in service of becoming more self aware and then tapping into the gifts and talents, talents of the people around you. And it. And it's a reminder, I think, again, that, like, life is a team sport, like whether you're in a relationship at home or at work or any of those things, that we need each other because we're not. We're not the same. And that's actually a beautiful thing. And we get to leverage each other's wiring and activities in unique ways.
- [29:02]
B
Absolutely. It's so fun to understand each other. All right. And we're going to be talking more about these kind of things in other episodes, but we hope that was interesting. Let us know what you think. We'd love to hear from you. And that's it for today. We're just under 30 minutes and that's good. Alrighty. Well, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll talk to you next time on the Working Genius podcast. God bless.