00:00 Matt: Welcome to Podcast Awesome, where we chat about icons, design, tech, business and nerdery with members of the Font Awesome team. I'm your host Matt Johnson and today I'm chatting with Font Awesome founder Dave Gandy as we talk about Patrick Lencioni's ideas behind Working Genius. Come on to Gallup's Strength Finder, the six types of Working Genius help identify your working strengths and weaknesses so that you can build more effective teams and get more done more efficiently. All right, Dave, well, thanks for coming on the podcast. And today I thought it would be good to talk a little bit about the six types of Working Genius. So tell me a little bit about this and why does it matter for Font Awesome? I mean, we're we're a tech company. What's up with this like work culture stuff?

01:18 Dave: Yeah, that's a good question. There's an awful lot of fluff in the world out there around work culture. What all that is and what's the stuff that really matters? Let me back up a little bit about Patrick Lencioni. He's got a few pretty classic business books out there. There's one called The Advantage, one called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and they're extremely readable. They're weirdly practical and useful. So we got introduced to them quite a while ago. His company is actually called the Table Group. For years and years and years, we as leadership at Font Awesome had never done any sort of leadership training or anything focused on that, because aren't we a tech company? What's this whole people thing? Why does that matter? We got introduced to the Table Group and actually started doing some they started coming and doing some of the consulting for us. And most of the business consulting in the world is absolute nonsense. And it's the reason that we avoided it for so long.

02:12 Matt: Get in a room and do a bunch of trust following.

02:14 Dave: Exactly. That's the that's the primary thing you think of, right? Is this absurd exercise that everyone just has to hold their tongue because it's so dumb and so just like laughable. Yet we're all going to just do it because somebody up top said we've got to do it and we all got to buy in and we're doing this because we, you know, won't have a job tomorrow. It was amazing. The first thing they always say that they're, you know, everything they do is fast, practical and relevant. And it's imminently true. It was amazing how quickly this stuff was was really, really useful. And they've got a whole framework. They've got a whole bunch of really, really great tools. And I could not recommend highly enough the Table Group for folks who are needing some leadership consulting. And really what leadership consulting is when done right is the recognition that, you know, we're a tech company. Why do we need to do this leadership consulting and really just consulting for the for the teams in general boil down to Table Group has a belief that the last edge remaining in business is organizational health. It's this idea that while we're writing code and designing icons and everything else that we've got to do to be a company, it turns out the thing that makes us the most productive in the long run, the thing that has the biggest leverage on how effectively we work turns out to be our relationships with everybody else that we we see and work with on a daily basis. It's this thing called trust. Can you trust the person next to you? And this is not a do I think they're lying to me or not? This is a this is a kind of trust that's based on experience. This is a is this person going to be there for me? Right. I know the reality of people's intentions and how sometimes things change in reality of that. But like in the end, is this person going to do right by me? Are they going to do right by us at his organization? Can I trust this person? Yeah. At that point, we were all in. Fawn Awesome is a company of nerds who like people. That's what makes us different. We're not nerds who like machines. We're nerds who like people. That's what we like. That's what we care about first. And we get and we understand that the way that we are going to work fastest is when we are all working together as a team, right? That when done right, we are all better together, not apart, that when we're apart, then our weaknesses matter. But when we are together, we all get together, right? We all point our weaknesses towards the inside. Right. And then we outside face all the strengths. And suddenly we all are. It's amazing the difference that it makes in terms of how much you can get done. Just also being able to live your life in what's right with you, not what's wrong with you. And so six types of working genius. We're already very primed for this. One of the first things we've had people do, the six types of working genius is something that we recently added at the company. It's not something that's been there forever. It's also a pretty new test or assessment or whatever you want to call it. But we've been doing since the company was created, we've been doing an assessment called the Strengths Finder. This is from the Gallup organization. And this is the idea that if we know what our strengths are and we play to those and then we surround ourselves with people who complement our weaknesses, that we can all be better together. Why don't we study what's right with people? Because the weaknesses are, you know, to some degree are important. But when you surround yourself with others that you trust, all of a sudden your weaknesses don't matter nearly so much because we really are better together. We're better when we understand the differences and that the differences in us are good things. The differences in us are the things that make us unique, that make us different. And if we want to be just wise and smart in life, we need to know ourselves so that we can know how to change the world around us in small ways or big ways. We've got to understand things. We've got to understand ourselves especially. And so the Strengths Finder is this awesome assessment that helps you find out, figure out what's right with you. Cannot recommend it enough. We have we have had everyone take that the first day they start other than a few places where we just missed it. That's one of the first things we have people do is the Strengths Finder because it's so important. And recently, the table group and Patrick Lincione came up with this new test or this new assessment called the six types of working genius. And the big idea behind this, this is fascinating to me. This the six types of working genius is fascinating because it looks at the life cycle of creation when you've got all the way from the ideation all the way through. You're going to make this thing that all in that process, there are different phases. And it turns out different people like working in different phases of that process. And the six types of working genius exists to tell you which ones you have strengths in and which ones that you. So the six types of working genius calls these your working geniuses or your working frustrations. So the test. Finds that everybody has two types of working genius.

07:01 Matt: They've got two types of working competencies and two types of working frustrations. And the competent competencies are basically you could slug it out and and do pretty well in those competencies, but maybe not for the long term.

07:14 Dave: Yeah. And really, the frustrations. And it's about what gives you energy. They're working genius. These are the things that if you get to do these all day every day, for some people, it's kind of like, wait, I don't have a job. This is so much fun. This isn't a job. This is, you know, you grow up, you get you get up in the morning phenomenally excited about everything you're going to do. They're working competencies. I think people I think a lot of people do actually work in their competencies every day, day in and day out for their entire career. And they and they stay there. I think I think you can do it. I think people do do it. And then there are the working frustrations, which are these are the things that, oh, my goodness, if you make me do this every day, something's going to happen. Something's going to break somewhere. Either I'm going to break or the job is going to break. Something's going to break because I can't do this in the long run. I can do it for a little while, but I cannot do this in the long run.

08:04 Matt: Yeah. And that's a very frustrating place to be.

08:07 Dave: So I've been there and I've been I've been with I've had managers who don't know what their working geniuses are. And they keep trying to roll over somebody else's working genius when they don't really even have any idea what they're doing or talking about. I've had managers in the past that have not been aware of this notion of working geniuses and that there are different parts of this ideation process and that there are people that fit in different parts. And so just the awareness of this process is dramatically impactful.

08:44 Matt: I'm curious about what was it at Font Awesome that tipped you off to the idea that you guys needed something like this? Was it more that you felt like it was articulating a value that you guys already had and you wanted to hone it? Was there some friction and you need to figure out how to work together better? What was it that tipped you guys off to these ideas?

09:05 Dave: Honestly, it's stuff that I've noticed throughout my career and I've never heard or seen anybody put pen to paper on. I've been in places where managers believe that their only job is to mitigate risk, get rid of bad ideas and move forward. That's it. I've also seen in my own experience, just how powerful, just give me five minutes right now, don't squash any ideas yet. Just give me five minutes to throw some stuff out and see if anything's worth it. I get so excited when I've got some ideas kicking around in my head that I think are relatively original and I haven't really heard anybody talk about. And then all of a sudden I find a book and somebody takes those ideas and takes them all the way to the end conclusions. I get so excited when that happens. And this book, Six Types of Working Genius was absolutely one of those. We already know that how we work together matters. We already know that the relationships under work are what make work thrive. We already know that all good remote work is foundationally based off of in-person human relationships. That's the core of all of it. And so when we saw these ideas, I was like, yeah, this is it. And this also helps. It's helped me so much because I'm the kind of person, I've got a couple of strengths that if I'm using these strengths at the wrong time is going to drive people absolutely crazy, absolutely crazy. And so this actually helped from my own sake. Right. And I've also been in jobs where my manager did not understand the things that I'm really, really good at or how to leverage those things and get the most out of me and our whole team. It was just the most painful process.

10:46 Matt: And it also helps for there to be an awareness across the team of these different geniuses. If you're not aware of how other people work and where they're putting their best work in and most creativity, you can get kind of judgy about other people because you'll think, you know, you have an awareness of the way that you work and you just assume, well, that's what hard work looks like. And you look at somebody else and they maybe don't have those competencies or they don't have that working genius. And you think, oh, they're they're slacking off because they don't work the way that I do. So it just, an awareness across the team helps alleviate some of that stuff so that we recognize we're all working together and you might bring in certain people into certain meetings because of where their strength is, where other folks is going to be their kryptonite. And you know, okay, they're going to be great for later on. We'll bring, we're going to bring them in a month from now to help us hone this thing in.

11:40 Dave: The place where it gets so very practical. Yes, it helps understand how other people work. Yes, it helps to value them and see how you can actually prioritize work and give them a good structure where they can be their best selves. And honestly, that's the thing that excites me most about it. But if you've got to sell this to somebody else, then they've got to see the business benefit or whatever. And fine. I think personally think that you do things because they're right. And then you worry about the, worry about the cost later. In this case, it turns out you can directly apply different types of working genius to the kind of meeting you're having that this kind of meeting needs these kinds of genius, right? That right now we're at the, we need to get this done and ship it. We're not at the let's come up with wild ideas face. And if you're goodness gracious, if we are in a let's get it done phase and you start telling me all these hair, brain schemes you've got for all the other things we could do, I don't care. And I want to cut you. Not really. Yeah. Cut you out of the. It could be so maddening. There we go. There we go. Because you don't understand how people are working with their strengths are you, you, you start leaving them out of meetings and you think because they're not good in meetings and you're like, no, no, just that thing. And that meeting wasn't needed. And if that person going into that kind of a meeting had known ahead of time, what we need, you know how to turn it on and off. Right. And you know how to be like, okay, that's not my strength, but right now what we need is this, I can play in that route.

13:02 Matt: Let's talk a little bit. So we've gotten sort of a high level of how this stuff works and maybe we can jump into the actual six types of working genius and they lay this out in a memorable acronym, uh, which is widget W I D G E T. And maybe we can go through each one of those, uh, six types of working genius and give, I don't know, an overview of each genius and where they're from. Before we get into the six aspects of working genius, basically there are three aspects of a project's life cycle. And so you've got two different working geniuses in each stage. The first stage of a project would be ideation and wonder and invention would fit in that bucket. Yeah. The second is actually the idea of a project. So you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project, you've got a project. And then the second is activation and the geniuses that fit under that are discernment and galvanizing. And then the third, uh, final aspect of a project would be, um, implementation and under that you'd have enablement and tenacity. So we'll go through each one of these here, just a quick little summary and then sort of a motto that sticks with it. The natural gift of pondering the possibility of greater potential and opportunity in a given situation. And the person with the genius of wonder, their motto is let's think about it. The second type of genius is the genius of invention, the natural gift of creating original and novel ideas and solutions and their motto as a let's figure it out. Exactly. The third is the genius of discernment, the natural gift of intuitively and instinctively evaluating ideas and situations and their motto is let's do this or let's not do this. The fourth is the genius of galvanizing the natural gift of rallying, inspiring and organizing others to take action. And their motto is let's move forward. The fifth working genius is enablement and that's the natural gift of providing encouragement and assistance for an idea or a project. Their motto might be, let me help you get things done. And the final one, the genius of tenacity, the natural gift of pushing projects or tasks to completion, to achieve results. And their motto is let's complete this project. Yep. Why don't we talk a little bit about what this looks kind of on the ground. We've gotten a brief overview of the, the widget acronym and each type. What does it look like to have somebody with these strengths in a company where they maybe need to come in on a project, maybe, maybe where they exit and let somebody else take over.

15:59 Dave: Yeah. So wonder, these are, these are people that you can tend to spot. Cause sometimes they have, they, people tend to think of them as their head in the clouds a little bit too much. These are people that are constantly, another way to think of it is people who are constantly challenging assumptions, constantly, relentlessly, sometimes annoyingly that continue to, can you just look at things and be like, huh, that's interesting. Oh, are the folks who are using our stuff are doing this.

16:21 Matt: That's interesting. Yeah. And they'll, they'll just sort of poke at assumptions and they see connections.

16:28 Dave: Love to get down to first principles. If you are going to just take best practices everywhere and just do them yourself, you probably won't live here.

16:36 Matt: If you are going to be the one who makes the best practices, you live in this area. So this person's really good at the beginning of a project probably where you don't want to just take things that face value before you get started. You want to kind of test things out a little bit and say, well, why are we

16:52 Dave: doing this in the first place? One of the reasons it's so great to have the understanding of the importance of wonder is that many people who are great at getting things done get very frustrated at this process of wonder. Like Travis, for instance, wonder is one of his working frustrations. And so it drives him nuts. If I'm just sitting around going, huh, look at that, huh, look at that, huh. Look at it. He's like, yeah, I don't care. What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do with it? And so it's, it's really easy to see how that plays out and how, just how much gosh, it's, and it's also one of those things in my experience that just, just give me a couple of minutes here, just give me a little bit of time to look at this and we can very quickly get rid of our blind spots. We can challenge everything down to the core, down to its first principles and get rid of our blind spots.

17:35 Matt: All right. How about inventor?

17:36 Dave: What does that look like? Yeah, this, and it enters the person who's just always throwing out ideas for other ways that you can do it. This is somebody who generally can't turn this off in their brain. They constantly are going to be looking at things and they see, and thinking about talking about commenting on how it could be better. And this, this can also be something that is overwhelming for somebody else who doesn't understand this as a strength. This can be somebody who says, Oh, they're just always frustrated in life and they don't like anything. I mean, really what it is is, well, they see the beauty in the world and they see how they could be better and they want it to be better. Right. Um, so there's a, there's a great strength here. I'll also, the truth is you're not going to get anything new without wonder. I once had a manager try to tell me that a manager's job is completely to mitigate risk. Well, that's funny because risk, there's a, there's a synonym for risk and that's innovation, something new that's unknown. You don't know how it's going to turn out. That's the definition of what innovation is. So he was telling me that functionally it's a manager's job to get rid of all innovation. Right. And I always, I always thought that was one of the funniest things I ever heard. And this is somebody who clearly doesn't understand the value of being in those phases at the right times, being in that wonder, those wonder and intervention phases at the right time. Again, uh, in, in invention is one of those things that you can spend just even a little bit of the time throwing ideas out and doing some brainstorming. I'd say what innovation you can bottle that sucker, uh, every single day. It's easy. It's actually phenomenally straightforward to bottle this. You just have to know how it works and you have to have practiced it before. Uh, and you have to be able to be willing to take the time to see what options there really might be. Some people want to jump into the work so fast and don't understand the value of it and that it's important that you spend the right amount of time. You can spend too much time too, right? Uh, somebody who's an inventor who just spends all their time thinking, thinking, thinking, they're not somebody who ever gets anything done. And what a sad thing to go through life. And I've had all these ideas and, uh, I'd never been able to do anything about them. That's just, um, that's a kind of impotence. And that's a, that's another thing that you just get so sad if somebody's not able to, to see that lived out.

19:38 Matt: And it looks like that's where, um, and I'm seeing too, that it looks like this acronym and the different types of working genius, it sort of, if you follow each one of them, it's sort of, it looks like it's the process of how work gets done. Right? So if you have an inventor, it's like, we can do this differently. Then you say, okay, I think we have a couple good ideas here. Now it's time to bring in the person with the sermon. All right. How about galvanizing the person that's a good galvanizer? What's that look like on the ground?

20:15 Dave: Yeah. I tell you what, they tend to just be fun people to be around. This is one of Travis's working geniuses. Um, he just rallies people around and you might think it, it's somebody who gets a lot of people into a room and gives a rah rah speech and, um, it certainly can be that it certainly can be that I think often it plays itself out as that, but it's also somebody who just comes over and knows you knows things that, you know, kind of need to be done and just comes over and whispers, sweet nothing. What if you did this? Yeah. What if you tried that? I see that you're interested in this. That's neat. Have you thought about this? Right. Who doesn't, who doesn't just say, you need to go do this. It's like, Hmm, what do you think about that? That's interesting. Yeah. And, uh, Travis is phenomenally gifted at that. Uh, but the, you know, the galvanizer at work just looks like somebody who helps

21:04 Matt: others see how good the idea is and gets them interested in it and passionate about it. Yeah. That's great. Super important. All right. Uh, enablement. What's that look like?

21:15 Dave: I think most commonly the way people tend to think of line managers as enablers. When, when it's, when it's done right, when a manager is doing their job, they're looking ahead at the path and trying to clear out as many obstacles and set everything up so that people who are doing the work in the end can run, can just run free and not be constrained by nonsense politics, not be constrained by technology, not be constrained by all of the other things that could be out there. This is the person that understands the domain so well, right? You can't be a good manager. I'm sorry. You can't be a great manager without understanding the domain that you are managing because you will be able to foresee so many other ways that you can clear the path for people to run. Um, and this is, this is, I think that's such a key to it. Um, and so, uh, enablers just help others around them get it done. And it's often plays out on a daily basis as managers, but unfortunately, all too often line managers don't see themselves as enablers, they see themselves as people who have to make sure other people are working. Right. Um, and that's also such unbelievable nonsense.

22:17 Matt: Yeah. I've, I've always been a little skeptical of folks that, that say, um, when you slot somebody into a management role, they don't necessarily need to understand all of the tools and the technology you're using. I'm like, I'm not so sure that's true. I mean, they may not need to have the level of expertise as a person doing the work, but they need to have enough knowledge to where, like you say, they're, they're clearing the way they're giving their folks the tools that they need to get the job done. And if it's like you say, if management is just making sure that a butt is in the seat and then they're clocking the hours, that just doesn't, that just doesn't fly for me.

22:55 Dave: No, it doesn't. And it also doesn't recognize the fact that it's, that somebody's work, how good they are at it, how much they can get done is directly impacted by how well that manager clears the way, how well that person about them has already cleared the field to help them run free. Right. It matters so, so much. Um, I, I also, I once had somebody tell me, Oh no, I am better at my job because I am not a domain expert in this. I'm better. I can see more from the outside. And I think there's probably some level of truth to that. Certainly. Yep. Um, but it's also utter and complete nonsense because if you don't know how the sausage is made, how are you going to know what to put into it? Yeah. Right. How in the world will you even understand the realities of that level of ignorance doesn't help. Um, and it's nice. It's a nice warm blanket. It's a really nice idea to believe that I can do this without being an expert in this domain, um, because there are a lot of people who, who, who can be very good, who can be very good at a job and manage without being a domain expert. And that's great. And sometimes you have to, sometimes you have to hire people who aren't domain experts to get stuff done. Um, but the truth is if you want to be great, you've got to be a domain expert. It's just, it's not a level of is the notion that this is a question of whether or not it's important to be a domain expert is so fundamentally laughable. And I will tell you the truth. Every domain expert will laugh at that too. If you tell them, Oh, I'm better at my job because I'm not a domain expert. They're just going to laugh. They're going to laugh internally. I'm not gonna laugh to your face.

24:18 Matt: They're just going to know, ah, this person doesn't really know what's going on. Right. Yup. All right. How about tenacity?

24:24 Dave: What's that look like on the ground? Tenacity is a checklist. So often it's people who, uh, find every place in life, uh, to put a checklist and then just love taking those things off every last bit of it. I'll tell you what, I actually, I actually enjoy checklist quite a bit. Tenacity is one of my working frustrations. Um, I, I certainly enjoy a checklist and a checklist helps me out a lot. Um, but the tenacity people are ones that this just gives energy for. This is exactly like the woman on my team who was so good at that last 10%. That's what it looks like. Often, uh, tenacity, uh, looks like the adult in the room. Looks like the person on the team that's just going to happily go and take care of all the little bitty details at the very end. And unfortunately, tenacity is all too often not recognized as valuable. Uh, these are people that often get passed over, um, and somebody is not recognizing how key they were on a team. Cause it's so easy to overlook the person who's not handling the big picture. Who's getting in nitty gritty and all of the details and just taking care of those. But on the right team, tenacity is one of the most valuable things because it enables everybody else to take care of so many other things at the same time. It opens it up, right? This is about how if we can, at the right times in the company, if we can all come together and work with each other's strengths, we get so much more done. The notion that diversity is some, uh, nebulous thing and we just value it because it's a nice word that somebody came up with and isn't it good? To me, anybody who thinks that is somebody that I don't think gets much done, that they don't understand others and how they work very well. Like it's such a, I don't, I mean, I, we just spent this whole time tearing that notion apart, that diversity doesn't matter, right? That this is what this is. We are all different. And this is what it looks like boots in the ground too. We're not just talking, uh, diversity in the way that, you know, somebody might initially think of that word. We're talking about all the way we're talking about every single thing that everyone brings with them that makes them different. And that is where the richness comes from. That's where also where it becomes so much fun to work with other people who are so different from you, that you can look at them and you can wonder at them and go interesting, isn't that interesting? Look what they love. And it's got a way of catching, right? It's a passion is a, um, uh, passion is contagious and it's so much fun to be around passionate people and see that, see that spread.

26:50 Matt: How do you see these different working geniuses work out within the leadership at Fawn Awesome and how do we compliment one, one another, or where do you think we can grow to as a follow up to that?

27:01 Dave: I tell you what, just first understanding how these work. Uh, there's a region that spells out widget, right? It's a, the idea I had in my head, the thing I called it internally in my head was the life cycle of an idea all the way from when it starts all the way through, you know, adulthood, when it gets grown, all that. Um, and so it spells out widget cause you're making a thing, you're doing a concrete thing. And in order to do a concrete thing, these are the important parts. And if we just have the understanding of how work is done, how new things are created, we're more likely to be able to get it done because the way that we can change reality is by first understanding it. The most practical way, like immediately is to identify what kind of a meeting you're in and they tend to meetings tend to span three at a time. So if you are in a pure blue sky kind of meeting, what do we want to do next as a business, what do we want to do next? Pure blue sky. Well, you're living in some combination of wonder and invention and discernment all at the same time. Now you've got to be careful. You don't go too strong on the discernment too early or else you really might, you might squish some of those really interesting ideas because it turns out some of the craziest ideas out there aren't good on their own, but it's that they get when they're thrown out and they're taken somewhat seriously. I mean, you can wrap it in a joke and that actually works pretty well, but it gets other people thinking in a different direction. This is actually why humor is such a key part of this phase. That humility, right? That none of us take each other too seriously so that we can kind of throw out these jokes, but then it goes, makes you go, Hmm, interesting. Well, what if we did that with, and you really get to stay wrapped up in those first three WID and that's what a lot of these strategic, highly strategic planning sessions get to be. And then you've got other meetings, more boots on the ground that live in different places. When you are, when you're a last 20%, right? Where, when the work has been planned, laid out, everybody's been galvanized and you just got to get it done. Those are the, you know, this is like stand up in a way, right? Stand up really exists in agile software development for E and T for T people doing the work to raise up and, well, ideally they're raising up issues that they're having and the person listening is, is, is doing something about it. The problem is all too often people doing the work don't even recognize that I can't, that they can be helped. And so this is why it's really critical that you've got the right, domain expert, kind of, you know, person helping shepherd that work to be able to foresee those as they're happening, that somebody might not even recognize that they're getting slowed down. Somebody else who's there to stay leveled up on the, on the, on the plot and to make sure that it, that it keeps moving forward. Um, and so those kinds of meetings will sit there and then they've got different kinds of meetings they recommend, which are really, really interesting. And so they've got another, um, they've got a whole bunch of really good work. The table group has a whole bunch of really good work on how to do meetings well, uh, because it's really easy to do meetings really poorly. Most companies, uh, set everyone's time on fire in a meeting, right? The amount of money that just gets burned from some of these meetings is absolutely nonsensical. And for whatever ironic reason, this is the same company, uh, that tends to require management approval to buy a $50 book to learn about your job. Right. But you can, you can then instead set an hour meeting with 30 people in a room and set insane amounts of cash on fire. Um, I don't know why those go together, but they almost always go together. And so, um, a knowledge, a knowledge of this ideation process and knowledge of the six types of working genius, really, really practically can help you have better meetings and it does. Yeah. And it helps you, it helps you say, right? So my, my working geniuses are wonder and invention. And I in the past would bring those into meetings at the wrong time. Right. And if I'm aware, ah, we should get stuff done. I'm going to drive people crazy talking about other things we could have done instead, if only we had thought of them. But what, what a, what a, um, uh, what a, uh, just, it's just going to crush the joy in the room so quickly. Right. Like, is this going to air it all out really, really quick, whatever you're talking about what, oh, what could have been as if it's a problem, right? Instead of staying focused in the meeting of where it needs to be. And also recognizing now is not the time for that. There's nothing wrong with it, but now is not the time for it.

30:57 Matt: And when you have this awareness of each of these working geniuses, you know, who the folks are on the team, you know, how the, it works together. Then, uh, so long as there's humility among the team, somebody can, they can step back and go, okay, now it's time to really get things done here and we can pass it off to this person or this team. Um, then you're all working together effectively.

31:20 Dave: Yep. And it's, it's also interesting to how, you know, from the macro perspective and making a product, you can see how this applies, but even as you start to zoom in, these things also apply. Uh, if you are given a task of doing something on a project, you often go through a little mini, uh, a little mini widget, right? Cause you're making up, you're just making a piece for a bigger part and it's got to go through the same kind of process. And so it's really, really helpful to be able to zoom in and zoom out on these. Um, and really can impact how efficiently you can work and how you can work better, especially with others. And it's so much of the side benefit of this is that people understand each other better and you see what's right in others and you see, Oh, okay, this can often look like this. Uh, I get it. This is just their working geniuses playing out maybe at the wrong time. I get it. It can allow so much grace for other people, for people, especially like me, who need lots of grace, because if I am stuck in WI, uh, at the wrong time, that can be a painful process for others. Also, if I don't get to live in WI for some amount of time on a regular basis, um, I'm going to be bored. I'm going to be super, super bored. I can live in my, uh, working competencies, but I'm just going to be super bored. Yep.

32:39 Matt: Not nearly as engaged. Yeah. Or you'll be Mr. Grumpy pants.

32:43 Dave: Mr. Grumpy pants. Yeah, that's, that's what it, when you, when you have to live in those final, and in your working frustrations, you can often, often turn into that. Oh yeah. Uh, and so this is why this is such a, such a useful practical thing for teams. And this is not, this is someone's idea, right? This isn't, this isn't a thing, right? This isn't an object like a tree, a tree objectively exists and it does these things and this is what it is. There aren't actually six types of working genius, right? There's more than that. They don't actually spell the word widget, right? But this is just such a great framework to help think in a different direction and maybe a more complete direction about what's right with others. How do we work better together? And, and this weird side effect of how do we just get more done too?

33:29 Matt: You know, we're talking at Fawn Awesome as a pretty small team. You know, we've got what? Seven, uh, 18 folks now on the team. Um, 19. Ooh, 19.

33:39 Dave: 19. Oh, what am I? Shoelace. Oh, that's right. Cory's with us. Yep.

33:42 Matt: Yes. 19. Nice. Um, so speaking to other companies that are maybe in that ballpark, what might a leader or an organization be feeling that will give them a clue that maybe it's

33:56 Dave: time to bring in these sorts of frameworks? Well, I would say the first thing is it's like a four hour audio book to listen to. It's relatively short. You can plow through it on your own and see what you think. There's, there's no cost to doing that. I mean, well, there's a cost. It's the cost of the book and that's relatively small compared to what this might be able to do. So first thing I would say is we'll see what you think. Spend some time. They've got good materials on the site. Go through it. See what you think. They've got an awesome assessment. They've got a spectacular assessment. I would honestly say, see what you think. Dig into it. See what you think. Is this worth something? Is it not? Um, it's been a, I'm not going to say it's been a game changer for us because we're really weird. We already work pretty well together. We already understand that the differences are our strengths. Right. We already know this as a company. Uh, we already live in that world, but I think for a lot of people, this could dramatically be a game changer. There's also an organizational health piece of this, where if people are living in their working geniuses, they're going to be more satisfied at work. You want to get rid of churn, right? In your company, people leaving right there, right? If they're more satisfied in what they're doing, they're going to stick around more. Um, it's one of the saddest things in tech that people leave at an average of 18 months to two years, that's there's no reason that needs to be like that. Absolutely not. So I think something else that's interesting is that while this definitely works for a team like us, where the whole company is only 19 people, this can work on any team of any size, because this doesn't have to be something that is applied organizationally for it to work. Uh, this can be applied just an individual team. So even a manager, um, who's just, uh, who's got a team of a certain size, uh, it can work that way. And it's interesting that how much it spreads, how, when you start doing it, how much this kind of thing spreads to others, because there's a, there's just, there's, there's so many good ideas wrapped in this. This is such a good thing to help people getting, thinking along a different direction to help figuring out how do we help our people work better together? How do we be more efficient as a company? How do we be more satisfied in life and work?

35:57 Matt: This is a, this is potentially something that can have a huge impact on teams. Thanks for listening in to podcast. Awesome. A special thanks to Dave Gandhi for coming on the show. If you'd like what we've heard, please subscribe and give us a rating and review and share this with your nerd friends. Podcast. Awesome is produced and edited by yours truly, Matt Johnson. The Fawn Awesome theme song was composed by Ronnie Martin and audio mastering was done by Chris ends at lemon productions.