Turning Frustrations Into Strengths

Is it possible to turn a weakness into a strength?

The answer is both “yes” and “no.”

Your weaknesses don’t have to slow you down - but overcoming them will require you to admit your limitations and accept help.

I find Patrick Lencioni’s “Six Types of Working Genius” model incredibly insightful and applicable. I use it with clients often. According to Working Genius, each person has two geniuses, two competencies, and two frustrations.

Typically, your geniuses correlate with the activities that provide the most energy and fulfillment. Importantly for the sake of our discussion, your frustrations will never offer the same energy or satisfaction as your geniuses. You may become fairly competent in these areas through circumstance or necessity, but you'll never enjoy these tasks as much as your areas of Working Genius.

Working Genius has taught me that I find the most satisfaction in coming up with ideas and sharing my ideas with other people. In Lencioni’s terms, my geniuses are invention and galvanizing. On the other hand, discernment - which involves challenging ideas to strengthen and improve them before implementation, is a major frustration of mine.

Honestly, I wish this wasn’t the case. I admire people with strong natural intuition who carefully consider possibilities and decisions before choosing to move forward.?I don’t fit this mold, and I probably never will.

Working Genius has taught me that it’s OK to acknowledge and accept this.?There’s not one Working Genius profile that’s better than another. We each possess unique skills and contribute in our own way. No genius is more or less important than another - they are each necessary.

Acknowledging my geniuses and frustrations takes away the guilt of acknowledging where I fall short. At the same time, I can’t rely on myself to offer a gift I don’t have. To be clear, acknowledging your frustrations is the first step, but it’s not the only step. If I’m aware of my shortcomings when it comes to discernment but I’m unwilling to share the responsibility of discernment (or if I’m not interested in valuing and listening to others who possess this trait), everything I do will be limited by my own frustration - and that’s not something I want.?

If admitting a frustration is the first step, the second step is considering what tools and strategies you have at your disposal to compensate for your limitations and ensure that they don’t derail your progress. To be most successful here, you’ll need to know both your individual geniuses and how they relate to your areas of frustration.?

For example, my geniuses are invention and galvanizing, and discernment is a frustration for me. In the Working Genius model, discernment follows invention and galvanizing follows discernment. This means that my genius of galvanizing responds strongly to my genius of invention, and it’s far too easy to skip the process of discernment if I’m not self-aware.?

I compensate for this by sometimes prohibiting myself from making instantaneous decisions. I know that if somebody asks me to join a committee, work on a project, or attend an event, I’m highly likely to say “yes” before I’ve given myself adequate time to consider the benefits and drawbacks. If I force myself to take a short time to mull over the decision (I sometimes jokingly refer to this as my self-imposed 24-hour “moratorium,”) I will force myself to spend time in discernment before moving into galvanizing.

Sometimes, the pull of my genius of galvanizing is so strong that it leads me to skip the process of discernment. Other times, discernment frustrates me so much that I avoid it entirely. I allow ideas to sit for days or weeks at a time as simply “ideas” without any real or tangible plans to act upon them. If ideas remain ideas forever, they will never be acted upon or implemented, and they won’t be beneficial in any way except for sparking brainstorming or dreaming.?

The solution I’ve crafted is to self-impose deadlines on myself. This adds natural pressure to the invention or creative process and gives me a clear stopping point for the exercise of my genius of invention. By creating a deadline, I give myself permission to use my genius for a specified amount of time when it’s appropriate, but I also acknowledge when it’s time to relieve my genius and move forward in the process of work.?

The last thing I’ve learned to do in response to my frustrations (and I believe that anyone can do this) is to involve other people who can effectively contribute in ways I can’t. It’s no surprise that, ten years ago, I was attracted to a girl with the genius of discernment. We’ll soon celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary, and I’ve learned how valuable it is to allow her to use her gift of discernment to challenge and improve my ideas before I put the cart before the horse. Additionally, in one of my business endeavors, I work closely with an individual with the genius of discernment, and asking her for honest feedback on my ideas has become a regular part of our weekly meetings.?

Whatever your geniuses are, there are people and systems that can help compensate for your frustrations. If you’re familiar with the model, you may be able to come up with these ideas on your own. If you’ve yet to take the assessment or don’t understand how the geniuses work together, I’d be happy to help you walk through the model and see how it relates to the way you think and work.

I offer everybody a complementary 60-minute strategy session. During this session, we’ll do a deep dive into your unique Working Genius profile to uncover key nuggets of self-awareness. You’ll understand why you feel energized by certain tasks and drained by others, and you’ll walk away with practical insights that will immediately impact your work and life in a positive way.?

If you're interested, you can schedule yours today. Either way, I hope you'll be thinking about how you can use people and systems to strengthen your areas of frustration, and I hope that this perspective removes some of the guilt that you may feel when you acknowledge your particular areas of weakness.