We’ve talked about The Peter Principle in previous blogs, that’s when companies promote people until they come to a place of incompetence (like the salesperson in the last post). What these companies don’t recognize is that they’re setting people up for failure, because they don’t know who they are; they haven’t identified their God-given gifts and Working Genius.
For example, Lora had always felt bad because she couldn’t get people to come alongside her when she created a project or a goal, and she didn’t understand how I was able to do that. When we both took the assessment, she came to understand that that was her area of frustration. She’s not a Galvanizer (someone who can help people understand the purpose behind a project so they can believe in it and take action).
When we took the test, she realized that was something I was just wired to do. I was fulfilling my own genius. As I coached her and her team, she saw me living my purpose helping others see a pathway for themselves and bringing them along. This has also helped me not feel bad about myself for not seeing other’s needs immediately. I’m not an Enabler.
I mentioned earlier that Tenacity is one of my frustrations. For the last three months, I was closing the buyout of a business, and this process required me to live in my area of frustration 24/7. I was exhausted at the end of every day; my energy was pouring out of me, like a bucket with a hole in the bottom. It was amazing how free I was afterward! People wanted to know why I was suddenly so happy and energetic! It was because I wasn’t living in my frustration every day anymore.
Looking at life through this lens helps us understand when people we work with are short or agitated; we can look at their activities and understand they may be working in their frustration. Be patient with them while they do it if it’s something they have to do. We can realize, too, that we may be asking them to do something they need someone else’s help with.
If you think about it, that goes against everything that a command and control organization is. You can only trust and inspire when you know what your team’s gifts are and enabling them (EDGE) to go do what they do, really really well. You trust them, not only because you’ve watched them build competency, but every day they come in to work with power, they love going to work.
Now that I understand who I am, at the end of most days my cup is overflowing. I know some of my good days are days when I meet with one of my WHOs, April, and talk about all the things I’ve learned, and the revelations I’ve had. Then my other awesome days are when I’m sharing those things with others, watching that lightbulb come on—there’s nothing more fulfilling. Conversely, the days I have to go get into the weeds and do repetitive tasks and/or see a task or project through to the end—those are the days I’m not so good.
When we discover who we are, and where our genius lies, that’s when we can begin to take our lives, both at work and at home, to a higher level and begin to live our true purpose.
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