The Manager’s Guide to Working Genius in Team Meetings | Tessa Kampen

Why do your meetings feel exhausting?

Why does one person dominate while someone else disengages completely?

If you’re leading meetings as a new manager and walking away frustrated, unclear, or stuck repeating the same conversations, this episode will help.

Most leaders assume disengagement is about attitude.
 They assume domination is about ego.
 They assume lack of follow-through is laziness.

But it’s usually none of those things.

It’s misaligned energy.

Desiree and Tessa walk through Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius framework and explain how each genius shows up inside meetings, and how understanding it improves communication in the workplace, team accountability, and overall team management.

BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU’LL LEARN:

• Why meetings feel draining and how to clarify their purpose
 • How to structure meetings so the right conversations happen at the right time
 • The two changes that immediately improve team accountability

If you want your team to commit, follow through, and stop dreading meetings, this framework is a practical starting point.

Connect with Tessa Kampen 

Working Genius Assessment

 The 6 Types of Working Genius by Patrick Lencioni 

Meetings Series 

• How Managers Build Team Accountability During and After Meetings
• 3 Ways Meetings Drain Your Team and Create Conflict at Work 
• How to Make Meeting More Effective and Engaging | Lessons from Death By Meeting by Patrick Lencioni

This podcast for managers is here to help you:

• Grow your leadership development
 • Navigate team management with confidence
 • Learn how to handle conflict at work
 • Apply real, practical leadership tips

If this episode helped you:

Share it with another manager
Leave a 5-star review
Follow along for more support

Take the DISC or Working Genius Assessment and get a FREE 20 minutes debrief with Desiree 

Taking Intentional Action: How to Choose the Life You Lead

Connect:  Linked In | Instagram | Website

Transcript

Desiree (00:01.122)
Hey friends, we are back with my honorary co-host Tessa Campin and we are going to talk about one of our favorite topics today. But it falls in line with a couple of podcast episodes we recently did on why are meetings draining our time and energy? Why do people not want to go to them? Why do we dread them? How can we actually make them better? How can we make them more engaging and effective and actually do something with the follow-up of them? And one of the things that

Tessa and I talk about a lot is personality styles. So we're gonna bring an air of that personality productivity style conversation into this topic around meetings. But Tessa, you had a question that gets asked all the time. Do you wanna pose that question and we'll dive in?

Tessa (00:44.243)
Yeah. Why do meetings feel draining? Why do meetings feel pointless to me? Why are we even here? We often hear that question. And we can also think about why meetings can feel as though some people tend to dominate them, but also why some people enter and we can see and feel that they're disengaged.

And I think that those are two really great questions that we can explore today as we talk about this model and why we love to use it and have our clients use it in meetings. Because I think if we address, if we use the working genius, we can address those two things with the model and what we're going to talk about today.

Desiree (01:26.03)
Yeah, because I, even if I didn't know what working genius was, I would be able to raise my hand and say, I am someone who dominates meetings and we'll get into what my working genius has to do with that. But I can about guarantee people are irritated with me when they're in a board meeting or a steering committee meeting or a typical work meeting, because I want decisions to move faster than some of the people in the room. And some of the time I'm like, yeah, I think it's a great idea, but I don't really want to help with that. Can you take it on and

Tessa (01:55.018)
Yeah.

Desiree (01:56.312)
there's other people that irritate me because they are too slow or because they are wanting to pick the name of a project before we've even decided on the project. All of these things come together with the guilt and judgment and shame and bullying that comes with why people are frustrated about conflict, why they don't want to hold each other accountable, all the things we've already talked about.

Tessa (02:16.456)
Yeah, and I think at times I remember I would, you know, look at people and I think, well, this meeting's not working because so-and-so just doesn't care or they don't want to be here. Like before I had this framework, and I don't think that's true at all. I think that meetings are broken because the right geniuses are not showing up in those moments or the wrong geniuses are showing up in those moments. And so I think we also hope, my goal is by the end of this, we start to release some guilt and judgment on one another.

Because it's not like people don't care, but when you're in the wrong place at the wrong time, you definitely can feel like, why am I here?

Desiree (02:55.426)
Yeah, so let's go through the framework for anyone who doesn't know. We'll just do a quick recap. And something I love about working genius is it is simple. It can be said in simple terms. It can be said in a way that you don't have to have a ton of explanation to actually understand what it's saying. So can you start for us, Tessa, with the first couple of geniuses?

Tessa (03:16.063)
Yeah, so we start with wonder and wonder is essentially responding to their environment. And they're the people who are asking those questions, right? Like, what can we do better here? Why are we doing this? What else can we do to serve our clients? So they're asking a question because they see a need and they see something happening around them. And then next we have invention and the invent people with the gift of invention are essentially coming up with those ideas. They're saying like, hey, well, what about this? And what about that?

And they're also the people who ask a lot of questions. So you may see them on your teams. They're asking questions, they're curious, and they love to throw out a whole bunch of ideas. And then we move to discernment. And discernment is a little bit harder, I think, to recognize because it's not really a genius that is seen like invention, but yet it's that person who says, you know, something feels off about this, or I don't think this is the right idea. And so they're...

using their intuition and their gut to help refine those ideas so that we can really get to the best idea. And that's really that first loop. Why don't you go into the second half of this model for us?

Desiree (04:27.916)
Yeah, and I know that we both share this next genius, which is galvanizing. And this is why I said some people can sometimes find me irritating because I'm that person that's a little bit in your face. You're going to recognize with people with galvanizing, they're typically kind of excitable. They're going to start to push ideas. They're going to really want to get you excited about something. They're going to try and rally you, rally the team, rally an idea.

It kind of depends on their second genius a little bit, but it's the person that's going to try and push the envelope a little bit. Then we go into our enablement and enablement is one of my harder ones. But enablement is the person who wants to help. They want to take your hand. They want to make sure that things are getting done. They are the ones I don't want to call people, please. There's a test that you can speak to this better than me.

Tessa (05:09.387)
you

Tessa (05:19.115)
Yeah, we're people pleasers.

Desiree (05:21.64)
Yes, you're the one who it's like, you need that done. I will raise my hand. I will help. Not a problem at all. And then we go into tenacity, also one of my frustrations. And tenacity is the person who's going to get the thing done. They're going to say, OK, we need that finished. I'm going to be the one to add it to my list. I'm going to be the person that you can count on to check off that last 10 percent of a project. And they're going to be the person who gets a lot of joy and energy from the process of actually finishing a project.

Tessa (05:50.803)
Yeah, and that's not me either. So we don't have this.

Desiree (05:52.63)
No, not me. We've often said we need to find someone who has tenacity to bring in here so that they can have a point of view in this because I think we both struggle with this one a little bit.

Tessa (06:01.803)
Yeah, yeah. So maybe let's talk, you know, I would love to hear your thoughts on on what it would look like to see each of these in a meeting. So, for example, you know, our W's come into a meeting and, you know, they may be thinking if there's no clarity around it, like, why are we here? Why are we even having this meeting? And I know I've been in meetings where I've heard people with W like I made a guess that they have W.

where they're actually asking that question, right? Like, why are we here? What are we talking about? And it could be frustrating for the people in the room to think like, why are you questioning this meeting? And so I just wanna get people to think a little bit. We don't have to dive into this, but just to start thinking about these different team members, because you might have someone who's secretly thinking, why are we here in your meetings? Which again, if we go back to those first questions about being disengaged,

or asking if it's pointless, a W could do that when there's no clarity on why we're here.

Desiree (07:09.302)
It's really interesting that you say that they are outwardly asking those questions because a lot of the W's, a lot of the people with the gift of wonder that I've worked with have actually been bullied out of asking those questions. People get frustrated with them and they say, why are you asking that? Or we've already decided on this. There's no more time for questions, et cetera, et cetera. And so all of the questions are happening inside their head. A lot of the ones that I've been working with. And so then people are thinking, well, they don't talk. They don't care. They're not engaged.

Tessa (07:31.167)
Yes.

Desiree (07:38.304)
And in their head, there's so many questions going on and they have so much input and, you know, reasoning as to why these questions are relevant, but they don't feel comfortable or confident in asking them or they just say it's not worth being the one to ask those questions when they're not appreciated. Hence why the gift of wonder is so overlooked or it doesn't be it's not seen as a gift because it can sometimes come across as you're trying to throw holes, throw a wrench in what we're what we're doing. It's not helpful.

Tessa (08:08.489)
Yeah, and you know what I think? I think when you maybe first become on a board or part of a team and you have the gift of wonder, you may enter those conversations with the questions, but because they often get squashed and they're almost made to feel like you can't come in with those questions, you shouldn't be wondering in here, then they tend to withhold. But then what happens when that's missing in our meeting, right? If that wonderer comes into the meeting because they've been made to feel like,

they can't exercise that gift in this room, well, we're no longer solving the right problems or we're no longer getting together to have the right conversations. We're essentially just having meetings because that's what we do here. And so it's really important for people to spot that person if they haven't done this assessment and make sure they're engaging them so that we are having the right meeting and having the right conversations. So you're right, I think.

I don't think that they always come in and verbally say this. I think they might be thinking it in their head, but they may start with those questions. But if it ends up getting squashed out of them, then again, we always say if you skip over a genius or skipping over people, if we miss those geniuses. So that's a crucial one because it's the very first phase of work.

Desiree (09:12.312)
Mm-hmm.

Desiree (09:26.016)
And I love the team map with Working Genius, which for anyone who doesn't know what that is, it's all of the team's geniuses and frustrations that get placed onto this map where you can then see where do we have an abundance of these things? Where are we lacking? And I've worked with multiple teams who are lacking the genius of wonder and often invention, those first two in the process. And they'll say, we're just doing the same things over and over again.

and it's not working and we're stuck in this rut but we can't figure out how to get out of it. And I say, well, I know exactly why. You're not asking the right questions. And if we're not asking the right questions, then we're not solving the right problems, which brings us to invention.

Tessa (10:05.023)
which is also why are we using the same ideas? Well, do we have anyone with invention on the team? And I don't know about you, but a lot of my team maps are very low in ideation, depending on the nature of the business. But typically, like I'm doing a Working Genius Workshop tomorrow, we have one eye on that team, right? And so if invention is low and you're entering these team meetings and you're wondering why you're recycling old ideas or you continue to only use the same ideas,

That is an indicator that you may be missing eye on the team, right? And then you're stuck in this loop where we're not really moving forward because we're doing the same thing over and over again.

Desiree (10:46.742)
One of my favorite topics with Working Genius is the topic of how these things get bullied out of people. Because often I'll say, you know, I'll have someone with invention and the team will look at them and say, well, why aren't you coming up with any new ideas? And they'll say, because I get stuck in a box of what I'm allowed to do and what I'm not allowed to do. And that's not fun for me. So I might as well just hold back and not say anything. And that's often what happens when I see invention.

Tessa (10:59.871)
Mmm.

Desiree (11:15.178)
in a meeting not getting used is that they'll say, well, that doesn't work because, or that won't work because. And the remainder of the geniuses, the ones that are kind of a little bit more nose to the grindstone and well, how practical is this, are putting contingencies on what that invention can look like, which kind of snuffs out some of the flame of what that person's genius is meant for.

Tessa (11:39.264)
think that's applicable to all our geniuses, right? After a while, if someone's told to stop asking questions or you're bringing too many ideas, right? Like from a discernment standpoint, you keep shooting things down. They see your genius as a negative thing. Again, I think it's a lack of awareness and understanding around the working genius, which is why if you haven't done it, go do it with your team.

But I think it's so important because you're right, this is the thing that we all love to do and we tend to live in our geniuses in meetings as well. But when you're constantly being bullied out of it, I love it, like, you know, this term you're using, but you're being squashed and eventually people just shut down. And we wonder why our meetings are not productive.

Desiree (12:22.526)
Mm Well, and I think discerner's actually, like you said, get this a lot and I can speak from my own experience. I love to play the devil's advocate. I think that it's a very interesting exercise to have an idea and to say, well, what if what if this or to come up with some sort of. Negative piece of it, which sounds so negative, and like I said, I'm sure people in meetings have hated me because I like to be the one that pokes holes.

But I think a lot of the times it's because that discernment in me is like, that sounds like butterflies and rainbows. But what if this is the thing that I anticipate happening? So I have two sides of me. I can be very impulsive if I hear an idea that I feel is going to work and I'll be like, yep, that's the one. We don't need to talk about it anymore. Thanks. Wonder and invention. You're done now. We don't need you anymore. Or that doesn't feel quite right. Let me poke holes in this until we get it right. Where then the people are like,

Tessa (13:10.751)
Ha ha.

Desiree (13:20.674)
This is taking too long. We're going back and forth too much. This is too negative of a conversation. It can seem negative, but discerners are really important to make sure that the right ideas and the right questions are the ones that are getting to the point where we're actually getting things done that are going to be positive and helpful.

Tessa (13:23.339)
Bye

Tessa (13:29.535)
Yeah.

Tessa (13:39.648)
Yeah, have, so D is my third, discernment is my third, and I really see this come up in meetings for me or decision-making, obviously. And I often withhold because I do feel like it's being perceived as, Tessa's not only negative, but she's trying to take over here, right? Like, are you trying to just control the situation? And the moments when I don't speak up,

and then it comes back to what we should have done and it's what I was thinking, I'd always kick myself. And so now I'm just like, I'm gonna speak up. I'm like you, like this doesn't feel right, this feels off. I don't think this is the right thing right now or even, hey, why do you think that's what we should be doing? I'm not trying to be critical. I'm asking a question, but it's received as criticism, which is why again,

When you misunderstand the role of someone who has the gift of discernment in your team meetings, you're missing actually the key between decisions. This is where that decision line comes in, is between discernment and galvanizing. And if you just jump from wonder, invention, right to tenacity, there's gonna be some ambiguity around the table. Like, did we actually make a decision around something? Because we didn't discern this and no one got excited about this and we didn't kind of cross that line.

And so I think, you know, when people are asking questions in your meeting, just think if you don't know their genius, maybe they have this gift and maybe we should listen to them. And maybe we shouldn't get our back up and take it so personally, right? They're asking a question. They're not questioning us. It's not a critique. And that's just like this small difference, but it's so important because discernment is so important.

Desiree (15:30.392)
I recently had a leader who had discernment in galvanizing, which is my geniuses. And everyone on this podcast has heard me call myself aggressively friendly. She called herself a bulldozer. Well, that's visual. But she said, I used to really scared of it. And I used to be like I used to really struggle with the fact that I was someone who came in and kind of shook things up. And she said, now that I know how to explain myself and I have the language around why I'm like this and how it's actually helpful.

I don't feel bad about it anymore and I can use it to the benefit of the team. And I, it helps me to remember that I'm just the middle part. I'm the activation part. I still need ideation and I still need the implementation, but I get to be that middle part that helps the two come together. And I just thought that was really, it's like, that's some good self-awareness. Good for you. But it made me think differently too about our understanding of our own geniuses and being able to.

Tessa (16:20.637)
I'm sorry.

Desiree (16:28.36)
without apology, take those on and use them in our life is also going to help us remember to appreciate other people's geniuses.

Tessa (16:37.096)
Yes, yes, absolutely. Because again, we live in our own, right? And so we're not perfect. I'm human. I know that sometimes I'm going to want to rush people to the areas that I love to live in. And so it's why this is so important. And it's why I think you and I are so passionate about this topic and having teams understand it. So what happens then when we go to G and we have someone with galvanizing in the room? And again, this is both our first. So, you know, I...

I know that I can rush things and get people excited about ideas that are like, this is not the right idea, but because it came out and I'm like, yay, let's do it, let's move forward, this is the right idea. And they're like, wait a minute, we haven't actually discerned this yet or talked about this yet. And so I have sometimes gotten into trouble in meetings, because I'm just, it seems like I'm rushing, but I just get really passionate and excited about like, wow, we actually have a different idea, let's move this, let's move forward, right? Let's get excited about this.

What does it look like in team meetings for you or what you've seen with other teams?

Desiree (17:41.194)
And I, it's hard if you've never taken working genius to fully understand, but the combination of your top two geniuses is the thing that's really going to set you apart and give you, you know, some of the really good attributes and some of them that frustrate other people. think of someone who has invention and galvanizing and misses that discernment. It's like they are going to have an idea and immediately trying to excel you on it. They are immediately going to want you to jump on board with what it is.

And so it's easy to miss that discernment piece. Anyone with galvanizing is likely to be able to sway you because they get so passionate that you get so passionate. And this is why it's important in meetings to recognize, OK, we actually we missed a step here. Let's go back to discernment. Let's make sure we're asking the right questions. I'm glad you're so passionate, but let's make sure that we hit all the steps. Whereas me with discernment and galvanizing, I'm like.

I've already thought about all the possibilities in my head and this is the one I chose. So please trust me and get excited with me. Like that's what's happening inside my head. But you on the other hand are the encourager. Tell us a little bit about how that galvanizing works for you. What do you default to as someone with galvanizing and enablement?

Tessa (18:39.923)
Mm-hmm.

Tessa (18:46.868)
Mm-hmm.

Tessa (18:54.844)
Yeah, so I have a, I was saying to Desiree before this call, I have a timely example of something that just recently happened. So I'm on our hospitality committee at church and we're planning this event next weekend. And, you know, in the beginning I was kind of running it all and saying, who wants to help and who wants to do this and who wants to do that? And a few people stepped up. And so I assumed that these people were going to run and do all the things that needed to get done. And I just took a step back.

I galvanized them, I'm here to help. Do you need help? Do you need help? I asked several times and the answer was always like, no, we got it covered until yesterday where someone says, hey, we need help with the games. And I'm like, I thought that we made a decision on this that someone else was doing it. But we actually did not confirm or get clarity on who was going to do it. A few people said, I can help, I can help. I took that as,

I'm going to run this, these other people are going to run this. But I think we were all just saying we can help. And there was nobody who actually made the commitment to say, I'm going to take care of this. so yesterday I went into SI mode, I went into, my E kicked in and I was like, okay, I need this done and I need this done and I need this done and I'll take care of this and I'll take care of that. So now I'm taking on extra things that.

To be honest, I'm not at capacity because I have so much going on my plate already this week, but that's okay, I will do it, because that's what we need to do. But it was just a perfect example of three weeks ago, if we would have got really clear around what we're actually doing, then I could have jumped into my galvanizing and got people excited. But we didn't actually get clear on who was doing it, and I just got excited and was like, yay, this is gonna be great. Okay, if you need help, let me know, and end the conversation.

Now three days before the event, we have to plan this whole thing because nobody actually went and planned anything. So yeah, so it's just, know, my galvanizing can take over. I can get excited. I can encourage other people. I can easily say, do you need to help? But on the other end, if those people are also sitting there going, well, I don't really know what needs to be done. And I'm waiting for someone to tell me, like, I don't know their geniuses. So some of them may.

Tessa (21:17.734)
lack tenacity like me. So they're all sitting here saying, well, we just want to help too, but we don't want to do anything. So it was just a perfect example of what can happen when you're trying to do a project and you don't actually go through the widget process, either in your head or on paper.

Desiree (21:34.614)
Widget standing for all the geniuses for anyone who doesn't know. Yeah. I with enablement to I always think the people pleasing aspect of that, we need to be people pleasers. I, know, for those of for those who say like people pleasing is a terrible thing. It's like we need people pleasers in this world. We all need to have some sense of like we want people to be

Tessa (21:39.666)
Yes, sorry.

Thank

Desiree (22:03.778)
happy. We want we all want that. I mean, there's no one that doesn't want some semblance of that. But these individuals are willing to go above and beyond. They are willing to do what needs to to be done. But unless they have tenacity with it or unless maybe they have discernment with it where it's like, OK, I understand what you're asking of me. I understand that we need that clarity. Someone with enablement needs to be told.

Tessa (22:23.114)
For clarity.

Desiree (22:29.906)
what needs to happen. And they're more than willing to do it. But if we miss that clarity, then it looks like they're not willing to follow through. It looks like they took on a responsibility and then neglected said responsibility when in reality the clarity was missing, when in reality the leader needed to be more clear.

Tessa (22:36.201)
Yes.

Tessa (22:44.682)
100%.

Tessa (22:48.668)
And in team meetings, that's when things fall apart because I know I can overuse my E and I know that sounds like endless accommodation, right? And no accountability. And you're gonna see, there's a lot of E's on teams. We see it in our team maps. It's one of the highest areas, right? ET is one of the highest areas of, so again, you can have all these people who are saying, I'm gonna help and I can get things done, but when we don't know what we're helping with or,

Desiree (23:07.982)
I'm gonna outside.

Tessa (23:18.548)
who's actually responsible. And I think this is the biggest frustration in meetings is we leave meetings and we go, who's doing what? What did we agree on? And when is it done? Like, when does it do? And then you show up to your next meeting and we ask the question, okay, did you get this done? They're like, that wasn't me. Like we can bring in the five cohesive behaviors into this conversation as well, right? There's no commitment because we didn't actually get the buy-in and the commitment and the clarity to say,

Okay, here's the commitment and now you're accountable for this, you're accountable for that, you're accountable. We can't hold them accountable because we actually didn't clarify what the commitments were. So that's one of the biggest frustrations in meeting when I was on Teams was that lack of commitment and my overuse of E, wanting to help but not knowing what I'm actually supposed to do.

Desiree (24:11.082)
Mm-hmm. And if you want more of like, well, how does that actually look in the last episode that I talked about accountability on teams? I give you some actual language around how to go about that accountability, what it would sound like so that we can hold people accountable to what they say and not our assumption of what we thought they were agreeing to. So go back and listen to that. The link is in the show notes for you. But let's finish it up with tenacity. This one to me is.

Tessa (24:15.882)
Pheww!

Desiree (24:37.606)
the hardest to wrap my head around, not only because it's in my frustration, but because I think these individuals get really frustrated in a meeting where we're talking about new ideas and talking about the things that could be done better. Because if you look at it from an altitude standpoint, the people who have their quote unquote head in the clouds and want to be talking about these high level things, they're the opposite of the person who wants to go.

Okay, let's get it done then. Let's check it off. Let's put it on our list and stop talking about it and just do the work. And so it's the furthest away from some of the other geniuses and they get frustrated because things aren't moving fast enough and things aren't getting done and things are getting stuck in a spiral of talking about it and making the decision, but not actually anything getting done. And I've seen it over and over and over on teams. Tenacity, like you said, is one of the highest geniuses. It's one that is represented most on teams.

and we just get stuck in a rut of doing the same things over and over because these individuals tend to get frustrated if we take time to do other things. And that sounded like a dig, but it wasn't. It was just a reality.

Tessa (25:41.194)
Yeah.

Yeah, and I think that's why also clarifying the purpose of a meeting is so important for the geniuses who are showing up for those meetings. Because if it is a WID meeting, for example, if it's a brainstorming session, and tenacity friends are coming in, teammates are coming in thinking we're making decisions today and you're not making decisions today, they're going to be frustrated. And they're also going to pull you or at least try to pull you or push you towards

executing this WID into, all right, let's move forward, but we actually haven't aligned around if it's the right thing. And so, you know, it's another example of we need to understand the purpose of the meetings for the sake of every single person in this meeting so that our tenacity friends or our wonder friends can regulate themselves depending on what's needed in that moment. And you can still exercise your

genius no matter what type of meeting it is. A T person can still kind of help guide like, okay, what are we going to do next? They can still use that language, maybe not let's go execute it, but they can still help move things along. But you're right, they can feel really frustrated if A, they're showing up to a meeting they thought it was going to be something else and it's not, or B, they're trying to rush this to the end and everyone else is saying, wait a minute.

we need to over discern this or we need to talk about it little bit more or we need to do this and they're going, we've talked about this for five meetings. Why are we not taking action on it yet?

Desiree (27:17.545)
Uh-huh.

I've worked with multiple teams who implement different types of meetings based on Death by Meeting by Patrick Lincione. So if you want to listen to some of those different ideas, go into the show notes for that link. But the Tenacity meeting of standing up for five minutes at the beginning of a day just to say, here's what we're doing today, here's what we're checking off our list. People with tenacity love those meetings.

But what I found kept happening is someone would say, oh, but I wonder if we could do this. And they're driving the conversation, right? Because that's their genius. They're driving it back up. They're going into default mode. The language around working genius is one of my favorite things for someone to feel confident enough in what that meeting's purpose is to say, that's a great question. Can we table that until we have our you know, we're sitting around a table for a strategy meeting and that question is in the right place right now?

We're in a tenacity meeting and we are are working on getting things done. The language around it is my favorite part. It gives people the confidence to say what needs to be said without making it seem like it's about the person. It's not I don't care about your question and it's not valid. It's this isn't the time for that question. But let's talk about that when it is the time.

Tessa (28:32.68)
Yeah, and that's how we actually structure productive meetings because we're having the right conversations at the right time. And in-depth by meeting, right, they talk about the four different meeting structures. you know, having quarterly off sites to make it more of a strategic type conversation and talk about the direction. You can't do that in a stand-up five-minute team meeting. You need to create space for that. And there are many teams who don't create space for that. And they try to have these...

Desiree (28:52.622)
Hmm.

Tessa (29:00.186)
strategic conversations in these 15 minute pockets and it doesn't work that way. And so, taking time to have a proper WID meeting, taking time to have your monthly meetings with your team, your weekly meetings and those daily standups. When you do that, you not only include all of the geniuses because now they feel like, hey, this one's for me.

And you might show up to some of those meetings, like maybe a tea meeting isn't your favorite thing, but when you know the purpose of this meeting, when you know that it's just a quick five minute check-in to tell everyone what's going on today, and if you need support or need anything from anyone and you're done, well, even if you don't have tea, you can show up for that and you can enter with that posture, right? It's knowing. And I often do this in workshops where when I enter a workshop,

Desiree (29:47.116)
Yeah.

Tessa (29:52.543)
and if it's a heavy ET meeting, depending on the content we're talking about, if I know that they don't love to live in WID, well, I prime them before my session to say, this is the type of session, some of you are not going to enjoy this, it's not your favorite type of session, but just trust me and come into this session knowing that it's not your favorite type, and they usually show up.

actually like just as energetic as if they were entering a session that they would love to be in because they now know and I've given them permission and I'm saying, see you. I get that this isn't your favorite thing. Just do your best to be where your feet are and we want you to be in this space with us.

Desiree (30:35.308)
I say it all the time. We need all kinds. We need every single one of the geniuses represented. And what that looks like is understanding them so that we can invite them to utilize their genius so it doesn't get lost among everything that we're already doing. So if you want to take your working genius assessment, if Tessa and I did a great job at getting you excited about taking the working genius assessment.

Go to the link at the very top of the show notes. You can go and take that. And I will even do a free debrief with you so that we can talk about your genius at length. This is a tool that I wish I would have had 10 years ago. The amount as to which it has changed my life and the team's lives of those that I've worked with and the culture and the retention. And honestly, just the joy and enjoyment that people get when they go to work is incredible. But Tessa, is there...

any last things you would want someone to know in regards to working genius and team meetings.

Tessa (31:35.472)
think maybe equipping yourself with some questions, you know, what geniuses are needing needed right now and maybe this comes out before the meeting so there's some again clear as kind right clear as kind and the more people have clarity the more they will show up and so I think you know if you're planning a team meeting ask yourself what geniuses are needed right now and if you don't know you're working genius right now what types of tasks are we going to be doing right now you can even think about it that way.

And then really make sure that there's clarity around decisions. If there's two things in meetings, I think if you just made these two tweaks, it's knowing the purpose of it. So asking why we're here and what's needed, and then making a decision around what needs to happen at that meeting. If there's no decisions in meetings, and the decision always is an execution, but just like, what did we commit to today?

If there's no commitment and no decisions, then maybe we need to even consider like, do we have to have a meeting today? Because it's just a conversation. Do we need to pull everyone in here? But commitment and clarity, I think are game changers when it comes to team meetings.

Desiree (32:40.098)
Mm.

Desiree (32:45.07)
for sure. And I neglected to say that this is a book by Patrick Lincione. This framework was written by Patrick Lincione. It is a book. If you found it interesting, I will also link the book in the show notes so that you can go check it out. It's I resisted it for a long time because I knew the second I read it, I was going to want to get certified to coach it and to teach and facilitate it. And that's exactly what happened. But it's an amazing tool. I hope that you utilize it. Thank you for hanging out with Tessa and I today. We're excited to do some more of these.

Hopefully going to be diving into a couple of our favorite personal and professional development books here soon. So until next time, just remember that leadership is a privilege, but it's also a really big responsibility and you're the boss now. So what are you going to do with it?