5 Years In: The Tool That Changed How I Lead
This month marks five years since I first discovered a tool that has changed the way I lead.
It's called The Six Types of Working Genius, or just Working Genius, for short.
Developed by Patrick Lencioni and his team in 2021, Working Genius is a model for understanding the gifts you and the people around you bring to work — and how to tap into them to do your best work together.
Patrick is a master of language and popularizing ideas in management, with books like The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Ideal Team Player, and The Advantage.
When Working Genius first came out, I remember driving down the highway listening to the newly launched Working Genius Podcast, getting more excited by the minute as Patrick and his team unpacked the model.
It was very reminiscent of a model I had learned a decade prior from my friend and mentor Bobb Biehl – Bobb's Team Profile helped me understand the gifts of those on my team, how to bring out the best in people, and how to set up work to maximize those gifts across a team.
I immediately thought, "this is going to change the world of work."
And sure enough, it has.
Nearly one million leaders have now taken the Working Genius assessment.
I'm a certified Working Genius Facilitator today because I've seen, again and again, how transformative this tool is — especially for the kind of pioneering work that growing sustainable recurring giving requires.
A Quick Primer on Working Genius
The model breaks work down into six different types, called Working Geniuses. Each of us is wired differently across these six:
Working Geniuses — the two we naturally excel at and get energy from. These are the things we love to do.
Working Competencies — the two we're capable at, but that don't get us out of bed in the morning.
Working Frustrations — the two that drain us. We run out of steam pretty quickly when we have to do these for any length of time.
The six types are:
Wonder
Invention
Discernment
Galvanizing
Enablement
Tenacity
(And yes — they spell WIDGET. Handy!)
When you know your team's Working Geniuses — and frustrations — you start to see where you're strong, and where you have gaps.
For me, my Working Geniuses are Wonder and Discernment, followed closely by Invention. I love asking questions. I love coming alongside leaders and helping them discern the path forward – the right things to do, in the right order. And I love helping generate solutions to the problems in front of them.
But Galvanizing and Enablement? Those are my Working Frustrations. It's a real learned skill for me to rally a group of people and get them moving in the same direction, or to be the one available to help move solutions into implementation. I can do those things – but they cost me. And knowing that has changed how I build teams, how I partner with clients, and how I show up at work and at home.
That's the power of this tool. It's not a label. It's a lens.
Sustainable Giving is Innovation Work
We use Working Genius in our practice to help clients innovate and grow sustainable giving.
Every organization we advise through our Sustainable Giving Assessment and Advisory process learns the Working Genius makeup of their team, and how they can tap into their unique composition to grow recurring giving.
Because growing sustainable giving is innovation work. It requires new approaches, new ways of doing things, and new alignment within organizations.
And that brings us to one of the biggest myths about innovation.
Myth: Innovation is All About Ideas.
By its very nature, innovation starts in the realm of ideas. Every innovation starts with someone asking a question. Could this be better? How could we solve this problem? People have a problem they don't even recognize — how can we make their lives better?
But if we stay in the realm of ideas, nothing gets done.
There's a corresponding myth on the other end — that innovation is only about execution. Shipping. Taking action.
The truth is that innovation is about ideas, activation, AND execution.
This is exactly why so many sustainable giving programs stall. They're rich with ideas – a new welcome series, a new monthly upgrade campaign, a new acquisition channel – but the ideas never get activated through the organization, let alone executed consistently over time.
Working Genius gives us language for this. Each of the six geniuses corresponds to a different stage of work, from ideation to activation to implementation:
Different geniuses are instrumental at different stages of work, from ideation to activation to implementation.
When you understand your team's Working Genius makeup, you can start to see where ideas are getting stuck — and what it will take to move them all the way through to impact.
If you want to go deeper, I recorded a podcast episode with my former co-host Carly Berna a couple of years back called Working Genius: 6 Ways to Implement and Sustain Innovation. And you can always check out Working Genius for yourself.
💡 Takeaway: Five years in, Working Genius has changed how I lead, how I build teams, and how we help clients innovate and grow sustainable giving. If you've ever wondered why a great idea on your team stalled out — or why a strategy never quite got executed — there's a good chance the answer is in your team's Working Genius makeup.
Ready to Grow Sustainable Giving?
Working Genius is one of many tools we bring to our work with nonprofit leaders, but it points to something bigger — growing sustainable recurring giving is innovation work, and it requires more than just ideas. It requires a clear plan, the right team alignment, and the discipline to execute.
That's exactly what our Sustainable Giving Assessment & Roadmap Growth Advisory is designed to do.
We come alongside your team to assess your current program across 10 growth areas, identify the biggest opportunities, align your team's strengths (including a Working Genius session as part of the process), and build a clear roadmap to scale recurring giving — and then we walk with you to execute it.
If your organization has 250+ recurring donors and you're serious about scaling sustainable giving, I'd love to explore fit.
👉 Learn more and request an exploration call at sustainablegiving.org/grow
Until next week… Surf’s Up! 🌊
- Dave