It is a funny thing. People often like the thought of something more than the reality.
Take for example, the concept of potential. We like to think of it as a good thing; that we all have potential (and therefore can grow and develop) but in reality, this means that organisations need to be set up to be able to deal with this.
Myles Downey writes in Enabling Genius:
She was talking to the human resources director of a large global organization about the Enabling Genius project. Initially there was interest, but when it became clear that the underlying idea was that everyone had genius in them, the director responded immediately with: “We don’t need our people to be geniuses, we just need them to do their jobs.”
The HRD’s view fits with the four quadrant performance/potential model that many organisations still use to rank/categorise their people. It suits an organisation to only have a few people that are “high potential” and therefore, only have to recognise and concentrate on those chosen few.
My question though is two fold:
- What about the other people?
- And if we consider the growth mindset model that Dr Carol Dweck and others have researched, isn’t this quadrant categorisation really rather static?
Downey’s proposition (and what the Enabling Genius Project is currently researching and testing) is that we all have genius inside, and that it is a matter of finding and nurturing that genius.
There is no doubt that many parts of the world’s economy are doing it tough from an economic perspective. Organisations are looking for that competitive edge; looking for something to help them perform better.
Perhaps, what Downey and Dr Dweck are suggesting is that the competitive edge has been there all along, we just haven’t been looking for it.
Perhaps, if we looked for the “genius” inside every individual rather than whether they fit the “high potential” model, we would see people doing work that made them sing (metaphorically speaking) and so perform better, more efficiently, more elegantly, with more innovation in that work. Whatever that work may be.
So, what does this mean for you as a leader?
My challenge for you is to look at your team. Look hard.
Do you know what each team member’s genius is? Do you know what makes them sing? I don’t just mean the super stars, the high fliers, I mean everyone. And if you don’t know – what could you do to start to find out? Some ideas:
- Read Dr Dweck’s wonderful book on the growth mindset;
- Read Downey’s book on genius
- Consider the implication for your team and its performance if each and every team member performed better. Consider what this would mean for motivation, energy, engagement, customer service, financial performance.
- What could you do to help each team member find their genius and then map it to your team and their work?
It’s early on in the enabling genius research. But the possibilities are limitless.
So, what’s your genius?
