The 6 Types of Working Genius is Patrick Lencioni's model of the six kinds of work every project needs: Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement and Tenacity. They fall into three stages: Ideation, Activation and Implementation. Each person has two working geniuses that give them energy, two competencies they can handle and two frustrations that drain them. Teams use it to cover all six types and put people in work that fits.
- The six geniuses spell WIDGET: Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement and Tenacity.
- They map to three stages of work: Ideation, Activation and Implementation.
- Everyone has two geniuses, two competencies and two frustrations. Frustrations aren't flaws.
- A team missing a genius feels it as stalled projects, bad ideas getting through or work that never finishes.
- Small teams get the most out of it by mapping everyone's geniuses and naming the stage of work in every meeting.
What the Working Genius model is
The 6 Types of Working Genius is a 2022 book by Patrick Lencioni, the author of The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. The model and its assessment come from his firm, The Table Group. Like his other books, it opens with a story before laying out the model.
The idea started with a simple question. Why do some parts of a job you love leave you energized, while other parts leave you drained and grumpy, even when you're good at them? Lencioni's answer is that work isn't one thing. Every project moves through six different kinds of work, and each of us is wired for some of them and not others.
He frames it as a model of how work gets done, not a personality test. That's what makes it useful for an owner trying to figure out who should do what.
The six types of Working Genius
The first letters spell WIDGET, which makes them easy to remember. Here's each one in our own words.
Asking big questions and noticing what could be better. Wonder is the itch that says there must be a better way to run this.
Coming up with new ideas and solutions from scratch. Inventors love a blank whiteboard and a hard problem.
Judging ideas by instinct and pattern. Discerners can tell what will work, what won't and what needs tweaking, often before they can explain why.
Rallying people around an idea and getting things moving. Galvanizers recruit, persuade and light the fire.
Jumping in to help and support. Enablers respond to what the team needs and make the work possible.
Pushing work across the finish line. Tenacious people love checking things off and hate leaving a job undone.
The three stages: Ideation, Activation, Implementation
The six geniuses aren't a random list. They follow the order work actually happens in, and Lencioni groups them into three stages, two geniuses each.
How work flows through the six geniuses
| Stage | Geniuses | What happens | Example in a remodeling company |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ideation | Wonder, Invention | Spot a need and come up with ideas to meet it | Why do so many leads go cold? Maybe a same-day text with project photos. |
| Activation | Discernment, Galvanizing | Test the idea, refine it and get people on board | The text works but needs a booking link. The owner sells the crew on it. |
| Implementation | Enablement, Tenacity | Do the work and finish it | The office sets up the template, and someone checks every lead gets it. |
It's a cycle because finished work raises new questions. Once the follow-up text is running, someone wonders why some jobs close faster than others, and the loop starts again.
Geniuses, competencies and frustrations
Every person has all six types somewhere on their map. The assessment sorts them into three pairs.
Your six types, sorted into three pairs
| Genius | Competency | Frustration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it feels | Energizing, time flies | Fine for a while | Draining, you put it off |
| Quality of work | Usually your best | Solid | Often slower and more stressful |
| How much of your week | As much as possible | Some is fine | As little as you can manage |
What happens when a team is missing a genius
This is where the model earns its keep. When a team keeps hitting the same wall, there's often a missing genius behind it. Here's what each gap tends to look like.
Nobody questions how things are done. The business runs the same way for years, even after it stops working.
Lots of complaining about problems, few new ideas to fix them.
Bad ideas get launched and good ones get dropped, because nobody can tell them apart early.
Good plans sit in a folder. Nobody rallies the team to actually start.
The person with the idea ends up doing it alone, and support work falls through the cracks.
Projects get to 80 percent and stall. Lots of starts, few finishes.
Small businesses feel these gaps faster than big ones. With five people, one missing genius can stall the whole company, and it's usually the owner who ends up filling it, often in their area of frustration.
How a small business team can use Working Genius
Everyone takes the assessment
Owner included. Share results openly. It works best when people talk about their frustrations without shame.
Build a team map
Put each person's two geniuses and two frustrations on one page. Gaps and pile-ups show up right away.
Match work to geniuses
Shift tasks where you can. The person with Tenacity owns the punch list. The person with Galvanizing leads the kickoff meeting.
Cover the gaps on purpose
If nobody has a genius, decide who'll cover it as a competency, or hire, outsource or use a tool for it.
Name the stage in every meeting
Say up front whether the meeting is for ideas, for deciding and rallying or for getting work done. Mixed meetings frustrate everyone.
Here's what a team map might look like for a five-person remodeling company. This is a made-up example, not a real client.
| Person | Working geniuses | Working frustrations |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | Wonder, Invention | Enablement, Tenacity |
| Project manager | Discernment, Tenacity | Wonder, Galvanizing |
| Lead carpenter | Enablement, Tenacity | Wonder, Invention |
| Office manager | Enablement, Discernment | Invention, Galvanizing |
| Salesperson | Galvanizing, Invention | Tenacity, Enablement |
Read the map and the story jumps out. The owner is full of ideas but hates follow-through, so projects need the project manager and lead carpenter to finish them. The team is strong on implementation. If the salesperson left, Galvanizing would disappear and new ideas might stall.
Working Genius vs other assessments
Owners often ask how this compares to tools they've already tried. The short answer is that Working Genius is narrower and more practical. It's only about the kinds of work you do.
| Tool | What it describes | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Working Genius | Which of six kinds of work give you energy | Dividing up work and running better meetings |
| DISC | Your behavior and communication style | Understanding how people prefer to interact |
| CliftonStrengths | Your top talents out of 34 themes | Personal development and coaching |
| Myers-Briggs | Personality preferences across four pairs | Self-awareness and team conversations |
They don't compete. Many teams use one personality tool and Working Genius side by side. If you only pick one for a small team that needs to get more done, Working Genius turns into action fastest.
The big lesson for owners
Most owner-operators spend a big chunk of the week in their working frustrations, because there's nobody else to do it. That's normal early on. The danger is believing that drained feeling is just what owning a business feels like.
Know your two geniuses. Protect time for them. Then hire, delegate and use systems for the rest. Marketing follow-up, review requests and reminders are classic Enablement and Tenacity work, and they're the kind of tasks that systems like Feedbackwrench OS can run automatically, so nobody has to remember. If you'd like help figuring out which parts of your marketing to hand off first, see how we work.
Questions people ask
What are the 6 types of Working Genius?
Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanizing, Enablement and Tenacity. Patrick Lencioni groups them into three stages of work: Ideation (Wonder and Invention), Activation (Discernment and Galvanizing) and Implementation (Enablement and Tenacity).
Who created Working Genius?
Patrick Lencioni and his firm, The Table Group. He explains the model in his 2022 book The 6 Types of Working Genius, and The Table Group offers the official assessment at workinggenius.com.
What is a working frustration?
One of the two types of work that drain you most. You can still do it, but it costs you energy and often takes longer. Knowing your frustrations helps you plan for them and hand that work off when you can.
Can you have more than two working geniuses?
The model gives everyone two geniuses, two competencies and two frustrations. Some people score close on a few types, but the point is to know where your energy comes from most.
Is Working Genius a personality test?
Lencioni frames it as a model of how work gets done, not a personality test. It focuses on which types of work give you energy, which makes it practical for dividing up tasks on a team.
Rob built Feedbackwrench and Nuance Financial Tax & Accounting. Since 2015, our team has helped transform 550+ small businesses with marketing, strategy and systems.
