C X O

Key Takeaways

Divide and conquer makes sense when you're dividing up the tasks to get done, but we think divide and conquer means divide up the organization or divide up the accountability. But a team has a collective accountability that's only possible because you've used people's talents to divide up the tasks, but not the organization cuz a divided organization is terrible. What you should say is we have one goal and we have a whole bunch of different talents and a whole bunch of things to get done. Let's go into a room and throw all the things that need to get down on a table [music] and divide them up based on our passion, skills, and capabilities and conquer as one. 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 Patrick Lencioni. I'm joined by Cody Thompson, my trusty co-host. We're co-hosts now. And uh before we get started, Cody, before we get started, I want to say something to everybody. In a couple weeks, we're going to have a huge event that we want everybody who listens to this podcast to to join us on. And it's a it's a webinar about marriage and working genius. And it's going to be June 18th. In the show notes, you'll see the all the information about how to register. It's free, but we want you to register. It's a live event. It's going to include Cody and his wife Lindsey, me and my wife Laura, and a special guest couple. And we're going to talk about the practicality of working genius and how it impacts marriage. And the reason why we're doing this is because we've probably have gotten more great comments. I mean, it's working genius, but marriage is work. We have to work with our spouse. And so many people have said when they did the Working Genius, it changed their marriage. Some people thought that their spouse didn't like them and they didn't realize it was a working genius thing. One woman came up to me after a talk and said, "I think you just saved my marriage cuz it was kind of on the rocks and I get my husband now. And I can't wait to go home and talk about this." So, we hope you'll invite your friends, family members to to watch this, anybody you know, whether they know Working Genius or not. Invite them to come watch this. We think it can really change people's lives. So, we'll see you on June 18th. That'll be fun. >> Can't wait. It's going to be a blast. >> Okay, Cody, what are we going to talk about today on the Working Genius podcast? >> We're calling it CXO. >> That's right. CXO, like CEO, but the truth is everyone who's a CEO or who does any kind of a job does it in a different way. So, as when I I've been saying this to CEOs for years, you're a CEO, but really what does the E stand for? It depends on what kind of personality you have, and now that we do Working Genius, the way you go about being a CEO will be different than how somebody else does. In fact, the job itself, if somebody says, "Here's how to be a CEO," without understanding the CEO's type and their and their Working Genius, they're not right. They're going to actually cause problems because two different people will go about that job in very different ways. And that's not only okay, it's good. And that's true whether you're a parent, a pastor, a middle manager, an entrepreneur, two different restaurant owners, depending on their Working Genius, are going to go about running that restaurant in different ways. And we want to talk about that today. It's like how we have to understand this. >> Yeah, and I would say, Pat, this is maybe the number one question we get after we present Working Genius. Like, whether it's in certification or to a team, >> Yeah. >> almost 100% of the time people will say, "So, what is the best type for a leader?" Cuz they're they're really wanting to know what Working Genius combination lends itself to the CEO job or the leader job. And the truth is, there is not an answer to that other than >> though. You have the greatest answer. It's what? >> Well, a self-aware one. And so, we will often like sort of tongue-in-cheek say, "Yeah, the best type is SA." Those letters aren't in the in the model, um, because it's self-awareness, but I think it speaks a lot to what you are saying is, "Hey, a CEO is not a CEO is not a CEO based on their wiring, their their working genius type, and you can do that job a lot of different ways. And just to prove a point, like you and I have worked with clients where we've had wonder inventor CEOs, we've had enablement tenacity CEOs, and pretty much every combination in between, and their ability to do the job and succeed and fail is not based on their wiring, but their understanding of their wiring and how they tap into their team. >> Yeah, it's interesting cuz I have this the 15 different types sitting here right here in front of me. And if a person said, I'm an ET CEO, I go, okay, you're the chief loyal finisher CEO. You're going to make sure that everything gets done and all and that there's a plan and that that it's not flaky and but you're not the chief creative dreamer CEO. You're not the chief, you know, enthusiastic encourager CEO. So, you need to assemble your team around you to fill in the gaps. Be who you are and embrace that. You know what's funny is people will often say to you, what's the right types to get married? And it's like the the self-aware ones. >> Yeah. >> I always say, it doesn't really matter as long as you know who you are and you know who they are and you appreciate your your similarities and your differences. So, how do we go about applying this? If a person says, I run a small business and I'm reading books about how to be a CEO or how to be a leader, what advice would you give them to how to apply working genius to do that? >> Yeah, what a great question. Like, imagine reading a book that is a ET writing a book about how to be a CEO and it's all about systems and processes and I would read that book, Pat, and I would be like, well, I guess I can't be a CEO. Or if it was like, hey, it's all about innovation, like you have to be on the cutting edge of all of this stuff. And I I think this is where who you are, what your company is, what you say you're about, all of this matters and you the way that you approach that job. But if If a book and you don't feel like you have that skill set, you you might think you might like disqualify yourself to think, "Oh, I couldn't do that." And I think what this is the beauty of Working Genius is it doesn't disqualify you at all. It actually gives you a framework for how you would do that job differently than your peers or differently than somebody else who's running a a similar corporation. So, I think it really is more embracing. Like, step one would just be like, "Hey, fully live into how you're wired and who you are." You know, embrace that. And don't try to mitigate it. It's actually worse for you to try to say, "Oh, I'm the CEO because I'm going to be good at all six of the activities of Working Genius." That would be a That would set you up to fail. The best thing to do would be like, "Okay, I know exactly what I'm great at. Now, I need to start looking at the people around me and tapping into their strengths and weaknesses based on Working Genius and craft a role that allows me to work in my genius as much as possible as the CEO." >> It's so funny, Cody, because CXO for CEO, but then you go, "I need to hire a a COO." It's like, "Nope, it's a CXO." Because you need to hire a COO that complements you. >> Yep. >> And then I want to hire a CMO, a chief marketing officer, but they're not the same. It's like So, imagine like if I'm We're look at me as the CEO of The Table Group, I'm an ID. So, for us to hire a COO who wanted to come up with new strategies and plans would mean they wanted to do the things that I actually like to do. >> Yep. >> Which probably means I feel I need to let them do it and I need to go do the things I'm bad at. So, one COO doesn't fit into all companies. I would get a COO who was big on GT who who filled in the gaps that I have. But see, when we go and we we go to a headhunting firm and we ask for somebody who has the experience to do that, we have to look at their their working style, how they go about getting things done, and make sure it fits. There's people out there that are like, "We need to hire somebody to help us with our kids." Well, find out what you're good at doing with the kids, and then who's going to come in and do things that you don't like to do. If you hire somebody who likes to do what you do, you're only committing yourself to do the things you don't. >> Yeah, or that they will have to do the things that they don't like to do. And I'm finding out in this moment right now, Pat, that your ideal COO is a GT, galvanizer tenacity. So, as your COO, uh we have to work on No, I'm I'm teasing. We put so little emphasis on that title over how we do this. But, you're right. I mean, that, you know, we didn't you know, to go back to the marriage thing, Lindsey, my wife, has discernment and tenacity. That's a great combination for our family, for me being the CEO of our household and she being the COO of our household. >> Yep. >> That is uniquely different for every every person. So, it it's not a CEO is not a CEO is not a CEO. A COO is not a COO. >> You've always said, I think Working Genius, from the very beginning, you said, "I think this is going to make job titles far less important, job descriptions." Because the truth is, you know what your job is at The Table Group? It's Cody. >> Yeah. >> You're a DG. Your job is to discern with me and then get things moving, get things going, make new things happen. >> Yep. >> And yeah, that's a COO, it's a president, it's also a revenue partnership guy. Putting a title around it is almost counterproductive cuz it makes it somewhat generic. And the truth is, Cody, you are a DG, Cody Thompson. That's your job at The Table Group. >> Yeah. >> And as long as I'm utilizing you well and celebrating the things you're good at and turning you loose to do it throughout the company, that's better than any job title. >> Well, and I think like, you know, the way we talk about it internally is exactly what you described, which is the title, whatever that is, COO, does matter, is permission for me to go use discernment in galvanizing anywhere in the company. You know, like it just kind of allows me the permission with our team and with the company to say, "Oh, let me let me go put my you know, my my combination is intuitive activator." Like what's going on over here? Let me see what we're doing and and galvanize in that direction. So, you're right. It's the title is almost more limiting than it is helpful. >> Yeah. >> And in some ways, you know, our titles are on the website so people kind of know who to call occasionally, but we very rarely use those internally. >> I'd have a really hard time and I and this is bad. We're a small firm, but I have a really hard time when say, "What's their title?" I'm like, "Well, that's Karen." >> Yeah. >> And people that know us know, "Oh, that's just Karen. We know what Karen is, what she does." But we've never been really good at putting formal titles around things. It's just like that thing we talk about getting on the bus. Jim Collins talked about getting the right people on the bus, but is the the you know, the humble, hungry, smart, the ideal team player. But getting them in the right seat, we try to custom fit the seats for the person's butt rather than making a person squish their butt into a seat that was designed by somebody in 1950 around what a chief financial officer or a chief operations officer should do. You know what I mean? >> Totally. So, let's make this practical. Like let's say there's somebody who's listening to this and are the they're they're asking themselves, "So, are you guys saying I shouldn't even think about titles like COO or CEO or CFO?" Like like like what would you say Obviously, we're not saying throw them out, but what practical advice would you give to somebody who's like hearing this and going, "Hey, I might have been putting parameters around somebody that are unnecessary by title. What should I do differently?" >> Internally, you should almost disregard them. Especially on your team. Externally, you need them because you need a common language so that the rest of the world can understand and like you said, know who to contact and everything else. But within the team, what you should do is Now, granted, you start by saying we need marketing, we need finance, we need operations, we need engineering, we need sales, whatever that your business does. But let's figure out how to take the talents on our team. It's like DNA. No two teams will have the same responsibilities carved out based on people's titles. They shouldn't. The ones that do are being generic. >> Yeah. >> Cody, we've been in front of like big massive public companies and even those you have to customize those jobs with whatever the titles are based on that person and how they complement the CEO. >> Yeah. >> And there is just no way to say, "I'm the chief marketing officer of XYZ company." "Oh, I know exactly what you do." Every time somebody says that, I go, "Yeah, what does that mean at XYZ company given your talents and how are you organized?" >> You know, it's interesting. I I don't know that I've had this thought previously to this discussion, but I always try to put myself in the, you know, listener's position to be like, "Okay, what are they actually saying by this and what's practical?" But even as you're saying that, I think about the five dysfunctions and when we get to the top of the five dysfunctions pyramid, we always get to results and we talk about team-based results. Like, so this is not, you know, my own position, my career, my salary. We talk about team number one. And if you're at the executive team of an organization, you should be putting on your executive team hat, not your I'm the head of sales or I'm the head of marketing. You know, this is the new aha for me is Working Genius allows you to move into a team number one sort of mentality easier than anything else because you're you're you're not you're deemphasizing the title or the position or the the role and you're elevating the how do we win together mindset. And so, even that idea of like, if somebody's listening and they're like, that's kind of polyanna-ish, people care about titles, you know, like it matters that it's what's on their business card, whether that's for this role or their next role. The truth is is we're like, yeah, on teams that really care about their they're self-protecting or self-promoting, where they're not a team number one person, that's probably true. But if you really are a team number one focus, if you're really a part of the executive team, and you want to win together, doing working genius as the primary like role identification and how do we succeed together, is going to accelerate that in a really significant way. >> Absolutely, Cody. And you've been saying this forever, but look at we're even reminding ourselves like, yeah, this is a bigger thing than it than we realize. >> Mhm. >> Divide and conquer makes sense when you're dividing up the the the tasks to get done. But we think divide and conquer means divide up the organization. >> Yeah. >> Or divide up the accountability. But a team has a collective accountability that's only possible because you've used people's talents to divide up the the tasks, but not the organization. Cuz a divided organization is terrible. But so so I think we tend to think divide and conquer means I I think it it often ends up in silos, but at the executive team level, and I don't care if you're a restaurant, a small company, a massive organization, a church, a school, what you should say is we have one goal, and we have a whole bunch of different talents and a whole bunch of things to get done. Let's go into a room and throw all the things that need to get done on a table, and divide them up based on our passions, skills, and capabilities. And then we will in a unified way s- divide up those and conquer as one. >> Yeah. >> But we divide organizations and titles, and that's not good. >> Well, and it's it's almost like um you know, we've used the analogy of like a relay race. Like, you know, Working Genius is like we hand the baton from the wonderer to the inventor to the discerner. If you skip a step, you skip a person. When you win a relay race, you know, maybe somebody sprinted a little bit faster during their part of the track, but the whole team is the is the you know, you win as a team. You know, and and I think that's what Super Unique is like if you're a sales manager and and or the head of sales and sales are going well and it's disconnected from the rest of the the leadership team, you think, "See, we won." But, marketing or technology is not winning, that's not winning at all. >> Yeah. You know what's funny about relays, too, is like if you think of the 4 by 100 relay, especially, every leg is very different. >> Mhm. >> Like, the first leg is somebody who's good at starting. Starting is its own thing. And all they have to do is pass it off once. The next guy or gal has to both receive it and pass it off, and they're running a straightaway. >> Yeah. >> The next one has to receive and pass and almost and their entire race is on a curve. And then the last one has to just receive it and and go mostly straight. And so, even in something like that, they're different skill sets. And we tend to think you just take four fast people and you put them out there. But, even something as generic seeming as running a relay race, it's very different. Well, when you're trying to run a company, and you just go, "Well, you're the marketing person, you do marketing. You're the sa- It's like, no, we have to figure out who's good at what parts of this." And and again, the outside world needs to know and your investors need to know there's somebody technically responsible for marketing. But, if the person in charge of sales is better at creating demand, then move demand generation under that person. >> Or you have them [clears throat] collaborate together to come up with the strategy. I mean, like I I think >> Yeah, but that's a better way to say it, too. Have them involved in that process. Moving it is just is just reinforcing the silo. Move the responsibility together. >> Maybe like the swimming relay medley is the better is like we have a we need a freestyler and then we need a backstroke and then, you know what I mean? Like one thing that you were really clear about when we first came up with Working Genius that I really love is the reason I remember even us trying to figure out what should we call this. And you talked about calling it Working Genius by way of elevating all of these things to genius level activity. Meaning like for too long we've only thought of genius as, well, the person who came up with the idea is the genius. Everybody else who just like executes it or discerns it, those are just subservient roles to the actual genius of invention. And what's great is in this role it's like there's somebody who's a genius at getting things over the finish line. And you get to celebrate them. And on an executive team it's not just like, oh, hey, great idea. It was like, hey, everybody participated in a unique way to get a great idea over the finish line and it elevates everybody's contribution to not just like, you know, implementation or something like that. It's like a genius level quality that they had that helped us achieve that goal. >> You know what's interesting, Cody? I was If you think about a large organization, when the executive team is in the room together, that's when the tiles titles have to go away. You might have two Ts on an executive team of nine people. >> Yeah. >> And when they're together, they're going to be the ones pushing for closure and and moving things forward and making sure things don't get left undone. When they have to go back to their organizations, yeah, they're going to go back to an organization where people are working on different functions. But the the main thing is when they get back into that room and we've always said this from the beginning is they have to take the hat off that says marketing or sales or engineering and put a hat on that says the company name. But what they should also do is put on the the say XYZ company I'm the GT. I don't care if you're the lawyer or the head of HR. If I'm the CEO, I want to know who my butt-kicking GT is and I want them to kick the whole team's butt, not just about their department, but I want them to bring that to the whole team. So I think it's actually when you're together working as a team in meetings and in collaborating, that's where you have to really get rid of those titles. >> Yeah. Yeah, I like I like the idea of the hat having your Working Genius type. You're right, get rid of them when you're in the room. This is a This is where teamwork matters. Like we talk about how Everybody talks about how like expensive those meetings are and how important they are, but then you have to come in and do the right thing, which is become a team where this is team number one and throw your title out the window and let's just get our hands dirty and like make sure that we go from wonder all the way through to tenacity on that team. >> And then the head of marketing, because there is a marketing department, even if it's organized based on the head of marketing stuff, they have to go to their team and say, "When you come to the marketing meetings, take off advertising, trade shows, um you know, industry marketing, whatever it is, lead generation and bring a hat that says, 'We're the marketing department of XYZ and here's my Working Genius is.'" So it's especially true within teams doing work together. Titles and silos are are are not good. Working Genius, I think, is one of those things that will elevate you above those walls and let you work across. >> CXO, I think that's a good one. >> That's right. All All Cody, thanks. But this is fun. We discover things when we talk about it. We like to do this. We like to open this up. We It's like outsourced stuff, and we love people to hear us how we're figuring this stuff out together. And thank you for when for all the people that send us notes. One thing I will say is far more people listen to us on um in on audio, not on video. We We have YouTube videos, but you're just missing out cuz Cody and I are really working on ourselves. We're getting in shape. We're looking trying to handsome, and you're just really missing out on the visual the full visual effect of [snorts] the podcast. >> I would stick with the audio, you know. >> [laughter] >> That's right. We have faces for radio. All right, everybody, thanks for joining us on the Working Genius podcast. We will look forward to seeing you on June 18th on the podcast on marriage and Working Genius. >> But, we'll do a webinar. >> Well, let's do a webinar. I said live webinar. Okay, God bless you, everybody. We'll talk to you next time.