Thursdays Leadership Insight; What If a WIDGET is a Guide to Reimagining Work in the 21st Century?

From this crisis, we can become better or worse. We can slide backward, or we can create something new. "

Pope Francis,Let Us Dream

Do you remember where you were on Friday 13, 2020?

I was at home in my office writing while watching the news; I realized the virus Covid 19 was overrunning the world. We were being shut down. I was in a situation I had no preparation for and little clarity. I was sure long-term and probably permanent changes were coming, and leadership would have to step up to move to a new normal. John Maxwell communicated to our John Maxwell Team, now Maxwell Leadership, that "everything rises and falls on leadership, "and they would support us. In the next few days trying to make sense of what was happening in my now very small world, I stumbled across an article published on Linkedin by Patrick Lencioni, which provided significant guidance. In Patrick Lencioni: 3 Thoughts for Leaders In a Perilous Time

Patrick Lencioni, who has a talent for making the complex?simple and understandable with practical ideas, offered three "thoughts" for all leaders

1. Be exceedingly Human, demonstrate your concern

2. Be exceedingly Persistent, Don't hold back over-communicate, connect

3, Be exceedingly Creative. Try New things, like video conferences

These thoughts were tremendous guidance for all leaders throughout the next two-plus years. Another source of guidance for me came as a second surge of Covid 19 struck. In ?December 2020, in ?Let Us Dream; The Path to a Better Future, Pope Francis wrote, " I see this as a time of reckoning. Your categories and ways of thinking get shaken up, and priorities and lifestyles are challenged. We are in a time of crisis. The question is, how are you going to come through this crisis? The basic rule of a crisis is that you don't come out of it the same. If you get through it, you come out better or worse, not the same. We all can be creators of our futures. From this crisis, we can become better or worse. We can slide backward, or we can create something new. "

Now, two years into and in various degrees moving forward, it is clear there is no going back to our pre-pandemic ways. The tug of the safe (known) past is there as the debate and discussion about what the future will look like rages. The result of the push to go back to "the good old days "has led to an argument of return because that's the way we always did it(TTWWADI). The result has been record high levels of resignations reported at all levels. This was especially notable with CEOs and school superintendents; most recently, the Gallup organization has reported another challenge. This challenge is what Gallup CEO Jon Clifton refers to as global unhappiness. In his recently released book?Blind Spot: The Global Rise of Unhappiness and How Leaders Missed It. He reports that while workers reported their leader's concern for their well-being rose, as did worker engagement in the first months of the pandemic, it has now fallen to a record decade low of 31% engagement at work. Clifton, in his book, points to a dramatic increase in the area of disengaged workers as a blindspot for leaders worldwide. This phenomenon is called "quiet quitting." Clifton notes leaders can address this blind spot by listening to people. He quotes Simon Sinek" 100% of customers are people.100% of employees are people. If you don't understand people, you don't understand business".Clifton stresses purpose and listening as driving forces in a new world economy.

" 100% of customers are people.100% of employees are people. If you don't understand people, you don't understand business".

Simon Sinek

As Pope Francis noted in his book, "we are not in an era of change. we are in a change of era, and ?This is a moment to think big to rethink our priorities, what we value, what we want, and what we seek". We are entering a new era of work and what work will look like, how it will be done, and how people can feel connected, energized, and engaged, even joyful in their work.

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"We are not in an era of change. We are in a change of era."

Pope Francis, Let Us Dream

We are in a time of reimaging work and how it is done. It is a time to address some fundamental beliefs about work;

1. Work is not where you do something. It is what you do.

2. Work is not a product. It is a process.

3. Work is not drudgery or a task to be done until retirement. Work is doing something that brings purpose, energy, and joy to do the best job possible.

4. Teams are not an exercise in groupthink; they are areas to use our strengths and have others collaborate on our areas of frustration as gifts to accel and be productive through connection, engagement, and learning

We are entering a new era of work and what work will look like, how it will be done, and how people can feel connected, energized, and engaged, even joyful in their work.

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Patrick Lencioni and his Table Group team followed his advice from the Three suggestions in his LinkedIn article during lockdowns. He and the members of his team revamped how his company worked. The Table group began by looking at how to address work, how they worked, and how they could work together to be reenergized, joyful, and productive. This process led to another practical, useful, and readily applicable tool and practice now used thousands of times with hundreds of organizations. They characterize this process of reimagining work and how we work as a WIDGET, described in Lencioni's book released September 26, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team.

The book and brief but concise inventory are launching points to reimagine work and how we look at performing work. The WIDGET depicts the six types of genius needed for any work. This Thursdays Leadership insight is the first of two articles discussing Patrick Lencioni's concept of the WIDGET from his newest book, The 6 Types of Working Genius: A Better Way to Understand Your Gifts, Your Frustrations, and Your Team. This first article will consider how the WIDGET can give us a visual representation of work to reimagine work and the process of work.

The book describes six types of working genius for work and how we work as a WIDGET.

W. The Genius of Wonder. The ability to ponder and ask what if to provoke thoughts and action

I.The Genius of Invention. The ability to be coming up with all manner of new ideas or models

D.The Genius of Discernment.The ability to be of uncanny judgment to asses an idea or concept

G.The Genius of Galvanizing.The ability to rally and motivate others to action

E, The Genius of Enablement.The ability to provide people with support, assistance, and encouragement, responding to the needs of others.

T, The Genius of Tenacity.The ability to push through the "slog "and complete tasks.

The WIDGET is a way to clarify and simplify and reimagine work itself. Any type of work requires all six working genius to be completed successfully. For example, let's consider a new project in any organization. Think of a project or activity you have experienced in your work life. Any new project follows three predictable ordered stages of creativity, activation, and implementation. Each stage would require two types of working genius to progress through the stages to successful completion.

1. The Stage of Ideation. The first stage of ideation requires the Genius of Wonder and Invention. Wonder raises the big questions, and invention comes up with the idea, concept, procedure, or device.

2. The Stage of Activation. This second activation stage requires discernment to scrutinize and assess the idea, concept, procedure, or device. Galvanizing is crucial in this phase to rally support for the new project.

3. The Stage of Implementation. The third stage of implementation is encouraging and support on the project and tenacity ?tenacious about getting over the finish line

The WIDGET depicts how each type of working genius is needed to complete a project and to have a productive work environment. Test this model by looking, as suggested earlier, at your own experiences. Do you remember a project or job or maybe a sports team's productive and successful activities? Did the WIDGET show up in the process? How did that success feel?

Next, consider a project, job, or sports team unsuccessful. What parts of the types of working genius were missing or maybe even out of order? How did that experience feel?

Which experience brings better memories and feelings?

The WIDGET is the way to reimagine work. The Widget also, when known and applied, can reimagine how we work and work together. Knowing and working on our working genius, even for a large part of the workday, will have positive results on our work and how we feel about work.

The leadership questions for you then are what ifs ;

?1. What If your job, classroom, or team could be reimagined as an energizing, joyful, passionate process using the six types of working genius?

2. What If you knew your working genius and spent time working with them and working together on teams whom all knew their working genius?