Inform Yourself

My good friend Jay Niblick, founder of Innermetrix International, recently completed a study called The Genius Project. His study became the basis for his latest book, What’s Your Genius?

The Three C’s of Becoming Authentic
In preparation for the upcoming Roal Building exercise we will give you, there are three core things you can do to become more authentic:
• Complimentary collaboration
• Change the way the role is performed
• Change the role altogether

C1 - Complimentary collaboration: This means finding someone who has a talent where you do not; partnering with someone who is strong where you are weak. The most well known form of this kind of collaboration is known as delegating, but sometimes you partner with someone on a higher level than simple delegation. You might actually partner with them to share dual responsibility for an outcome on a higher level. This is often the case with high-level executives who create collaborative relationships with a partner or another senior executive who carries out the duties that the other should not because it would create a weakness by relying on their non-talents.

Many leadership development programs tell you that in order to be a great leader you have to smooth the edges and fill in any holes. To become a better leader you need to become well-rounded. Develop talents in these areas and you will be a better leader, or so they tell you. The higher up the ladder you go, the more likely you are to hear this kind of advice. When you are the top-executive, you are expected to be better at most things than those you manage or lead. We hear this so often, but it just isn’t true. How many top executives do you know who are excellent (geniuses) at certain things, but just horrible at others?

Regardless of whether you delegate or create some higher-level partnership, sharing or offloading the responsibility for accomplishing tasks which rely on your non-talents is vital to increasing your performance. Let’s look at a couple of examples. Many times we find sales managers who are very good sales managers, but they were not the best sales person. Professional sports coaches are another good example. How many great sports coaches do you know who were star athletes? Sure, the great sales manager and the great sports coach both played the game, and maybe they even performed very well, but in most cases they weren’t the absolute star. Just because you lead sales people doesn’t mean you have to be a better salesperson than they are. Your job isn’t to sell - it’s to lead. You aren’t supposed to be a better sales person, just a better leader. This is the case because the talents it takes to lead a team of athletes or sales people are very different than what it takes to be the individual star player or star sales person. When you find yourself responsible for something that relies on one of your non-talents - outsource it. Collaborate with someone who has a complimentary talent to your non-talent.

“No man has the ability to step outside the shadow of his own character” ~ Maximilien Robespierre

Michael Lorelli delegates all the time. In our discussion on how he deals with non-talents, he said, “If it’s simply not in my DNA, I try to align myself better, not change myself. I supplement my non-talents through others and delegation instead.” As you create your roal, give lots of thought to any dependence you might have on non-talents, and build into your roal those people you might create collaborative relationships with so they can be responsible for what you are not great at, and vice versa.

Action Step:

1. What are two aspects or tasks of your current role that force you to rely on a non-talent (based on your Genius profile)?

Name some people you know, at work, who excel in these areas.

2. What are two aspects or tasks of your current role that do allow you to rely on a talent (based on your Genius profile)?

3. Can you think of anyone at work who isn’t good in these areas and who you might collaborate with to help them fill their own blind spots?

Think of how you could partner with someone to end your reliance on non-talents and help them do the same by helping them handle some of the things that rely on their non-talents. Talk with this person, or persons, about creating some complimentary collaboration.

In my next post we will discuss the second C - Change the way the role is performed.