Certified Working Genius Facilitator
Get the right people doing the right work, and watch your team come alive.
Most teams are not lazy or broken. They are miscast. The 6 Types of Working Genius® shows you where your people are gifted, where they are drained, and how to build a team that moves faster with less friction.
Independent certified facilitation for teams at nonprofits, professional-services firms, and growing companies.
Why it matters
Your team's biggest problems are usually a casting problem.
When people spend their days on work that drains them, you get quiet burnout, stalled projects, and meetings that go nowhere. Working Genius gives your team a shared language to fix it. It is a productivity tool first: roughly 20 percent personality, 80 percent getting work done.
Silent burnout
People can be competent at work that slowly wears them down. Burnout is not always about volume. Often it is simply the wrong type of work. It looks fine on paper, until they leave.
Work that gets stuck
Every project needs all six geniuses. Skip one, and you skip people, and the work comes back around as rework. Ideas with no one to vet them. Plans with no one to finish them.
Meetings that miss
Brainstorming and status updates do not belong in the same meeting. When you name the purpose and the altitude of each meeting, and put the right geniuses in the room, everything speeds up.
employees strongly agree they get to do what they do best every day.
more likely to be engaged at work when people use their strengths daily.
less likely to quit when people get to use their strengths every day.
Source: Gallup research on strengths, engagement, and burnout.
The framework
The 6 Types of Working Genius®
Created by Patrick Lencioni and The Table Group, and taken by well over a million people. The assessment sorts six types of work into three categories for each person.
Your Working Geniuses
The work that comes naturally and gives you energy and joy. This is where you thrive, and where your team should use you most.
Your Working Competencies
Work you can do fairly well. It neither energizes nor immediately drains you, but a role built on competencies wears thin over time.
Your Working Frustrations
The work that drains and depletes you, no matter how skilled you are at it. Frustrations are where procrastination and quiet burnout live.
The six geniuses
Six types, in the order work naturally flows, from question to finished result.
Wonder
Ponders possibility. Asks the big questions: why are things the way they are, and is there a better way?
IdeationInvention
Loves a blank whiteboard. Takes a challenge and generates original ideas and solutions from scratch.
IdeationDiscernment
Evaluates whether ideas will actually work, using instinct, pattern recognition, and good judgment.
ActivationGalvanizing
Gets things moving. Rallies and inspires people to act, and pushes them out of their comfort zones.
ActivationEnablement
Responds to needs and provides the support that moves a solution into action. Knows how and when to help.
ImplementationTenacity
Pushes work across the finish line, and makes sure it meets the standard and has the intended impact.
ImplementationThe three stages of work
Every successful endeavor moves through three stages, each powered by two geniuses. Skip a stage and the work stalls, or circles back as rework. The stages also run from high altitude down to the ground, which is why naming the altitude of a meeting matters so much.
Ideation
Wonder + InventionIdentifying a need and coming up with the idea to meet it. Wonder asks the question; Invention says "I have an idea."
Activation
Discernment + GalvanizingThe most commonly overlooked stage. Discernment vets the idea; Galvanizing gets people excited and moving on it. Activation is the bridge between the idea people and the implementers.
Implementation
Enablement + TenacityEnablement pitches in with the support to get it rolling; Tenacity stays on it until it is done, and done to standard.
Your team, mapped
A Team Map lays every person's Geniuses, Competencies, and Frustrations side by side. In one view you see where your team is strong, where it is thin, and which stage of work keeps stalling. For most teams this is the turning point: the friction and the guilt finally have names, so you can fix how the work is cast instead of blaming the people doing it.
Wonder
Genius
- Sam
Frustration
- Devin
- Priya
Invention
Genius
- Sam
Frustration
- Maya
- Priya
Discernment
Genius
- Devin
- Priya
Frustration
Galvanizing
Genius
Frustration
- Devin
- Maya
Enablement
Genius
- Maya
- Priya
Frustration
- Sam
Tenacity
Genius
- Devin
- Maya
Frustration
- Sam
Illustrative example, not a real team. Each person's two Geniuses and two Frustrations are placed by type; the two Competencies sit between and are left off the map. Your map is built from your team's real assessment results.
The 6 Types of Working Genius® model and assessment were created by Patrick Lencioni and The Table Group, Inc. I am an independent Certified Working Genius Facilitator.
Ways to work together
Bring Working Genius to your team.
Every engagement is built around your team and your goals. Pick a starting point, or let's talk it through.
Team workshop or offsite
A facilitated half-day or full-day session. Everyone takes the assessment, we debrief individual profiles, build your Team Map, run a gap analysis, and rework how your meetings and roles are cast. Your team leaves with a shared language and concrete commitments.
Individual profiles + debrief
The assessment plus a one-on-one debrief for a leader or a few key people. A fast way to understand where you are gifted, where you are drained, and how to lead accordingly. The best leaders are self-aware leaders.
Keynote or breakout talk
An engaging, practical talk on Working Genius for conferences, associations, and leadership events. Give your audience a new lens on productivity, hiring, and teamwork they can use on Monday.
Ongoing and follow-up
Follow-up sessions and light-touch coaching to embed the model into your hiring, your meeting rhythms, and how you assign work, so it becomes how the team operates, not a one-time event.
How an engagement works
Four ways in. One arc.
A team workshop, an individual debrief, a keynote, or ongoing follow-up: every engagement moves through the same three phases. Only the middle looks different.
Align
It starts with a free discovery call, then a short pre-call to scope the engagement: your goals, the right format, and the plan. When a whole team is involved, I prep you as the leader to set an honest, open tone. Leaders go first, and a leader willing to name their own frustrations gives the whole team permission to be real.
The session
For a workshop or offsite, everyone takes the assessment, we debrief profiles, build your Team Map, and look honestly at the gaps. For an individual engagement, it is a focused one-on-one debrief of your profile. For a keynote, your audience gets the model live, with examples they can use on Monday.
Embed
Insight only counts if it changes the week after. Workshops end with personal commitments and a plan for meetings, roles, and hiring. Individual debriefs end with how to lead from your profile. Ongoing follow-up is there when you want the model to become how the team operates, not a one-time event.
One ground rule holds in every session, whatever the format: this model builds people up, and we never weaponize anyone's results against them.
Why work with me
More than a report. A conversation your team will actually use.
I am a Certified Working Genius Facilitator with executive-level operations experience and more than a decade in mission-driven organizations. I have run operations and led people myself, so I do not hand you a report and leave. I facilitate the conversation, read the room, and help your team turn the model into real change.
- Certified Working Genius Facilitator
- SHRM-CP, with hands-on HR and people-operations experience
- Executive-level operations leadership; 12+ years in mission-driven organizations
- Facilitation across nonprofits, financial services, restoration, and professional services
Results
The kinds of teams that do this work.
I keep client names private by default. Here is the range of teams I have facilitated for, by industry and size.
- Wealth advisory firmFlorida · mid-size team
- Commercial restoration companyNorthern Colorado · small team
- Data and knowledge-tech consultancyNorthern Colorado · ~25 people
- Youth-services nonprofitColorado · small team
- Faith-based nonprofitColorado · small-to-mid team
- Community and leadership groupColorado · small group
- HR professional associationNorthern Colorado · SHRM chapter
- Your team next?Let's find out on a call
JT's presentation of Working Genius gave me insight on how I work. I used to feel bad that I natively tend to be reactive, but then I learned that is a valid mode of operating in my zones of genius. This framework is applicable in all areas of life, and JT makes it simple to understand.
Jennifer J., CEO, Founder's Mirror
Ready to see your team differently?
Let's start with a free 30-minute call. Tell me about your team and what feels stuck, and I will tell you honestly whether Working Genius is the right tool for it.
Or just email me: jt@m7fractional.com
Questions
Good to know.
How long is a team session?
Typically a half-day or full-day, depending on team size and goals. We scope it together on the discovery call.
How big should the team be?
Team Maps are designed for a functional or project team, and about ten people or fewer is ideal. Larger groups can be split into working teams.
In person or virtual?
Both work. In person tends to build the most trust, and virtual sessions are effective for distributed teams.
Do people take an assessment first?
Yes. Each person completes the official Working Genius assessment before the session so we can debrief accurate profiles and build a real Team Map.
Is this a personality test?
Not primarily. Working Genius is designed to be about 20 percent personality and 80 percent productivity. It tells you which types of work energize each person and which drain them, so you can change how work actually gets done.
What does it cost?
Every engagement is scoped to your team and goals. Book a call and I will give you a clear, tailored quote with no pressure.