The Working Genius Assessment: Cost, What Is Included, and How It Works

If you have ever looked at the Working Genius assessment and wondered what it actually costs, what you get for that cost, and whether it is worth it for your team, this is the breakdown you have been looking for.

The Working Genius model identifies six types of work every team needs to get done. Most leaders know the name. Fewer know the real cost structure, what is included beyond the individual reports, and how the whole system actually works from purchase to implementation.

I put together this list because most organisations buy the assessment, distribute the links, collect the reports, and then sit in a room wondering what to do next. The cost is more than the per-person fee. The value sits in what you do after everyone knows their pairing.

Here is everything you need to know about the Working Genius assessment before you book it for your team.

UNDERSTANDING THE CORE COST STRUCTURE

The Working Genius assessment operates on a per-person licensing model. You pay for each individual who takes the assessment. The cost sits somewhere most leaders can justify for a leadership team but need to think carefully about before rolling it out to 150 staff. What you are buying is access to the assessment itself, the individualised report, and a license to use the Working Genius framework inside your organisation.

1. The Base Per-Person Assessment Cost

The Working Genius assessment costs USD $25 per person at the time of writing in 2026.

That price gets you one assessment link, one completion, and one detailed individual report. The assessment itself takes about ten minutes to complete. The report that follows runs eight to ten pages and breaks down your two areas of Working Genius, your two areas of Working Competency, and your two areas of Working Frustration.

The price holds whether you are buying one seat or one hundred. There is no bulk discount structure built into the standard model. Some organisations negotiate pricing when rolling the assessment out to several hundred people at once, but that sits outside the published structure.

Each person receives a unique assessment link tied to their email address.

The link does not expire, but it can only be used once.

Once someone completes the assessment, the report generates immediately and gets delivered via email.

You cannot transfer a purchased link from one person to another after it has been issued.

If you are running this for a leadership team of eight, the cost is USD $200. If you are running it for a staff of 80, the cost is USD $2,000. Most schools and nonprofits I work with start with the senior team, then expand to middle leaders once they have seen the framework land.

The base cost is the start, not the total picture. What matters more is what happens in the room after everyone has their report.

2. What the Individual Report Actually Includes

The individual Working Genius report is more specific than most personality assessments and more useful than most team tools.

You receive a personalised breakdown of where you sit across the six types of work. The six types are Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanising, Enablement, and Tenacity. Your two areas of Genius are the types of work that energise you and that you are naturally good at. Your two areas of Competency are work you can do well but that does not fill your tank. Your two areas of Frustration are the work that drains you even when you are good at it.

What sits inside the report:

Your specific genius pairing with detailed descriptions of what each type means in practice.

How your pairing shows up in team settings, including the value you bring and the gaps you are likely to create.

The types of work you should seek out, the types you should manage carefully, and the types you should avoid where possible.

Reflection prompts to help you identify moments in your week where your geniuses were active or absent.

A breakdown of how your pairing interacts with each of the other 14 possible pairings.

The report does not tell you what role to hire for or which team member to fire. It tells you why certain work feels easy and why other work feels like you are walking through mud even when you are doing it well.

Here is what most people miss. The value of the report is not in reading it once and filing it. The value sits in bringing your report into a team conversation where everyone else has theirs, and watching the room realise why the same meeting feels energising to one person and soul-crushing to another.

The report is built for application, not admiration. If you read it, nod, and move on, you paid USD $25 for a ten-page PDF you will never open again.

3. Team Summary and Comparison Reports

When you purchase assessments for a group, you gain access to a team summary report that maps the collective genius profile of your group.

This is where the framework moves from individual insight to team design. The team report shows you the distribution of genius across your group. You see how many people have Wonder as a genius, how many have Tenacity, and where the gaps sit.

What the team summary reveals:

Which stages of work your team is naturally strong in and which stages have no representation.

Where bottlenecks are likely to occur based on who is missing from which part of the process.

Why certain projects stall at predictable points, usually because the team has no one with the genius required for that stage.

Who is working outside their genius most of the time and why burnout might be showing up in specific people.

If your leadership team has five people with Galvanising and Enablement and nobody with Wonder or Invention, you have a team built to execute ideas but not to generate or refine them. The team summary makes that visible in a way individual reports cannot.

The comparison tool lets you look at two people side by side and see where their geniuses overlap, where they complement each other, and where friction is likely. This becomes especially useful when you are trying to figure out why two talented people cannot seem to work together.

The team tools do not cost extra. They are included once you purchase assessments for a group. You access them through the Working Genius platform using the admin account tied to your organisational purchase.

4. The Facilitation and Workshop Cost

The assessment itself costs USD $25 per person. The session where you unpack it with your team costs more, and that is where most of the value sits.

You can run a Working Genius session yourself if you understand the model well enough, or you can bring in a Certified Working Genius Facilitator to lead the conversation. The cost difference is significant. The impact difference is more significant.

Self-facilitated session: You pay only for the assessments. You are responsible for designing the session, creating the exercises, managing the conversation, and helping the team translate insight into action. This works if you have facilitation experience, if you have used Working Genius extensively yourself, and if you are confident holding space for the moments when someone realises they have been working outside their genius for three years and is now questioning their entire role.

Certified facilitator session: You pay for the assessments plus the facilitator's fee. Facilitator pricing varies widely depending on experience, location, and whether the session is a half-day, full-day, or multi-day engagement. If you want to run a Working Genius workshop with your team, a half-day Working Genius workshop with a certified facilitator typically ranges from AUD $3,000 to AUD $8,000 depending on the facilitator and the size of the group. A full-day session can run AUD $6,000 to AUD $15,000.

What you get with a facilitator:

Pre-session design tailored to your team's specific challenges and goals.

Exercises that move beyond theory into real application using your team's actual projects and pain points.

Someone who can hold the tension when the conversation gets uncomfortable, which it will.

Post-session resources and follow-up structures to keep the insights from evaporating in three weeks.

Here is the line most organisations miss. The assessment is cheap. The facilitation is where you decide whether this becomes a team breakthrough or another workshop people enjoyed but did not use. The steps after Working Genius matter as much as the session itself.

I have watched teams spend USD $200 on assessments, run the session themselves, and see nothing change. I have watched other teams spend AUD $10,000 on a full-day facilitated session and restructure how they assign work, run meetings, and build projects. The cost sits in different places. The value sits in what the team does differently on Monday.

5. Licensing and Organisational Access

When you purchase Working Genius assessments for your team, you are also purchasing a license to use the framework inside your organisation.

This matters more than most leaders realise. You can reference the six types of work in your meetings. You can build your project workflows around the stages. You can use Working Genius language when assigning tasks, designing roles, and having performance conversations. You cannot, however, rebrand the model, sell it as your own, or use it as the basis for a consulting offer unless you become a certified facilitator yourself.

Organisational access includes:

A dashboard where you can purchase additional assessments, view team results, and download reports.

The ability to create sub-groups within your organisation so you can see results by department, location, or team.

Access to updated resources, including the latest version of the team exercises and application guides.

Permission to use Working Genius concepts in your internal communications, training materials, and leadership development programmes.

The license is perpetual for the people who have completed the assessment. If someone takes the Working Genius assessment while working for you, they keep their report and their results even if they leave the organisation. You cannot revoke access to an individual report once it has been issued.

If you want to keep using Working Genius as a central framework in your organisation, you need to keep purchasing assessments for new hires and for existing staff who have not yet completed it. There is no annual subscription model. You pay per person, per assessment, each time.

WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS

The assessment itself is quick, but the process from purchase to implementation has more steps than most organisations expect. Knowing what happens at each stage helps you plan the rollout and avoid the common mistakes that waste time and dilute impact.

6. How to Purchase Assessments for Your Team

You buy the Working Genius assessment directly through the Table Group website or through a Certified Working Genius Facilitator who can purchase on your behalf.

Direct purchase: You create an account on the Working Genius platform, enter the number of assessments you need, and pay via credit card. The platform generates unique assessment links for each person, and you distribute those links manually via email or through the platform's bulk-send function.

Purchase through a facilitator: If you have already engaged a facilitator to run your session, they can handle the assessment purchase as part of the engagement. This simplifies the process, especially for larger groups. The facilitator purchases the licenses, sends the links, tracks completion, and pulls the reports into the session design.

Steps in the purchase process:

Decide how many people will take the assessment and confirm the final headcount.

Purchase the exact number of licenses you need. You cannot split one license across two people, and unused licenses do not roll over.

Assign each license to a specific individual using their work email address.

Send the assessment links with a clear deadline for completion, ideally at least one week before your workshop date.

Track who has completed the assessment using the admin dashboard.

Send reminder emails to anyone who has not completed it three days before the session.

The most common mistake here is buying too few licenses and realising two days before the session that three people still need access. Licenses are issued instantly, but chasing people to complete the assessment at the last minute creates unnecessary stress and lowers the quality of the session.

Buy for the exact group who will be in the room. If someone is attending the workshop, they need to complete the assessment first. If they have not completed it, they will spend the session feeling like an outsider while everyone else is speaking a language they do not yet understand.

7. The Assessment Itself: What Your Team Will Experience

The Working Genius assessment takes about ten minutes to complete. It is shorter than most personality assessments and more focused than most team tools.

The format is a series of statements where you rate how much each statement resonates with you. The statements are specific, not abstract. You are not choosing between "I am a people person" or "I prefer to work alone." You are choosing between "I love the early stages of a project when anything is possible" and "I love the final stages of a project when we are pushing it across the line."

What your team will encounter:

Approximately 60 to 80 questions depending on the version, each asking you to rate a statement on a scale.

Questions grouped by type of work, moving through Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanising, Enablement, and Tenacity in sequence.

No right or wrong answers, no trick questions, and no time limit.

Instant results once you submit your final answer.

The tone of the assessment is conversational and practical. It does not feel like a clinical psychological instrument. It feels like someone who understands teams is asking you which parts of your job make you come alive and which parts make you want to close your laptop and go home.

Most people finish the assessment in eight to twelve minutes. Some people take longer because they want to think carefully about each question. Some people take less time because the answers feel immediately obvious.

The assessment does not measure intelligence, capability, or potential. It measures energy and natural inclination. You might be excellent at Discernment and still find it draining. You might be average at Galvanising and still find it energising. The assessment is looking for the second thing, not the first.

8. How the Algorithm Determines Your Genius Pairing

The Working Genius assessment uses a forced-choice scoring model to identify your two geniuses, your two competencies, and your two frustrations.

You cannot have three geniuses. You cannot have one. The model is built on the assumption that every person has exactly two types of work that energise them naturally, two that they can do but that do not fill their tank, and two that drain them even when they are good at it.

How the scoring works:

The algorithm looks at how you rated the statements tied to each of the six types. It ranks your responses from highest to lowest energy. Your top two become your geniuses. Your middle two become your competencies. Your bottom two become your frustrations.

The model does not allow ties at the genius level. If you rate Wonder and Invention almost identically, the algorithm will still assign one as your primary genius and one as your secondary genius based on the specific pattern of your responses across the full assessment.

This structure is intentional. Patrick Lencioni, who created the model, built it on the observation that most people have two types of work that genuinely energise them and that trying to be energised by all six types leads to burnout and shallow contribution.

Here is what this means in practice. You might think you love every stage of a project. The assessment will show you which two stages you actually get energy from and which four you are either performing out of competency or grinding through out of frustration.

The forced-choice model makes some people uncomfortable, especially high performers who are used to being good at everything. The assessment is not saying you are bad at the other four types of work. It is saying those four types cost you energy, and if you keep doing them without recovery, you will eventually burn out.

9. Reading and Interpreting Your Individual Report

The individual report lands in your inbox immediately after you complete the assessment. It is eight to ten pages long, and it is written in plain language, not jargon.

The report opens with your genius pairing. This is the headline. Everything else in the report builds out from this.

What each section of the report covers:

Your two geniuses: A detailed description of each, what it looks like when you are working inside it, and why it energises you.

Your genius pairing: How your two geniuses work together, the unique value you bring because of this combination, and the types of roles and projects that will let you work in your genius most often.

Your competencies: The two types of work you can do well but that do not energise you. How to manage this work without burning out.

Your frustrations: The two types of work that drain you. How to minimise this work where possible and how to recover when you cannot avoid it.

Team dynamics: How your pairing interacts with other common pairings, where you will naturally align with certain people, and where friction is likely.

Application prompts: Questions designed to help you identify where you are currently working inside or outside your genius.

The report is not trying to box you in. It is trying to give you language for something you have probably felt but could not name. The moments when work feels easy. The moments when work feels like you are dragging a piano uphill.

Most people read the report and immediately recognise their pairing. The description feels specific enough that it does not apply to everyone, and broad enough that it explains patterns across multiple jobs, projects, and teams.

Here is the part people miss. The report is not the end. It is the start. The value comes when you bring your report into a room with seven other people who have theirs, and you start talking about why the last project went sideways.

10. The 15 Possible Genius Pairings

There are six types of work in the Working Genius model. Each person has two geniuses. That gives you 15 possible pairings.

Your pairing is not random. It reveals the natural rhythm of how you approach work, where you add value without trying, and where you create gaps without realising.

The 15 pairings:

Wonder and Invention

Wonder and Discernment

Wonder and Galvanising

Wonder and Enablement

Wonder and Tenacity

Invention and Discernment

Invention and Galvanising

Invention and Enablement

Invention and Tenacity

Discernment and Galvanising

Discernment and Enablement

Discernment and Tenacity

Galvanising and Enablement

Galvanising and Tenacity

Enablement and Tenacity

Each pairing has a distinct profile. A Wonder and Invention pairing spends most of their energy at the front end of a project. They love asking the big questions and creating the new ideas. They often struggle to stay engaged once the idea is built and the work shifts to execution.

A Galvanising and Tenacity pairing spends most of their energy at the back end. They love rallying people to action and pushing projects across the finish line. They often get impatient during the ideation and discernment stages.

Your pairing reveals the rhythm of how you work. It shows you where you will naturally lean in and where you will naturally check out. It shows you the types of projects that will energise you and the types that will drain you even when you are doing excellent work.

Most teams have a mix of pairings. The healthiest teams have representation across all six types so that every stage of work has someone who is energised by it. The most dysfunctional teams have everyone clustered in two or three types with entire stages of work that nobody wants to touch.

11. Understanding the Six Types of Work in Detail

The Working Genius model is built on the idea that all productive work moves through six stages. Every project, every initiative, every piece of work your team does requires all six types. Missing one type creates a predictable gap. Overloading one type creates a predictable bottleneck.

The six types in sequence:

Wonder: The work of asking why, pondering the need for change, and identifying the problems worth solving. People with Wonder as a genius are naturally curious. They notice what is missing, what could be better, and what is not working. They ask the questions that make everyone else uncomfortable. Without them, teams keep doing the same things and wondering why the results never change.

Invention: The work of creating solutions, generating ideas, and building new approaches to the problems Wonder identified. People with Invention as a genius love the blank page. They are energised by brainstorming, by prototyping, by coming up with ten ways to solve the same problem. Without them, teams identify problems and then sit in meetings complaining about them without ever generating a solution.

Discernment: The work of evaluating ideas, assessing fit, and deciding which solutions are worth pursuing. People with Discernment as a genius have a gut instinct for what will work and what will not. They can look at three ideas and immediately know which one aligns with the organisation's strengths and which one will waste six months. Without them, teams execute ideas that should have been questioned long ago.

Galvanising: The work of rallying people, generating enthusiasm, and creating the momentum required to move from decision to action. People with Galvanising as a genius are natural mobilisers. They communicate the vision in a way that makes people want to be part of it. They create urgency without creating panic. Without them, teams agree on a plan and then never start.

Enablement: The work of providing support, removing obstacles, and helping others succeed. People with Enablement as a genius are energised by making other people's work easier. They anticipate needs, coordinate resources, and respond to requests without resentment. Without them, teams start projects and then run into barriers that could have been removed with a single conversation.

Tenacity: The work of pushing through to completion, finishing what was started, and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. People with Tenacity as a genius are energised by the final 20 percent of a project when everyone else has mentally moved on. They follow up, they check the details, they make sure it actually ships. Without them, teams start ten projects and finish two.

Every team needs all six types. Most teams are missing two or three. The gaps show up as recurring problems. The project that never launches. The meeting where great ideas get discussed and then nothing happens. The initiative that starts strong and dies halfway through.

12. How Competency Differs from Genius

Your two areas of Working Competency are the types of work you can do well but that do not energise you.

This is the part of the model people misunderstand most often. Competency does not mean you are bad at it. Competency means it costs you energy even when you are good at it.

What competency looks like in practice:

You might have Discernment as a competency. You can evaluate ideas. You can assess whether a solution will work. You can make good decisions. But doing this work does not fill your tank. You finish a day full of discernment conversations and feel drained, not energised.

You might have Enablement as a competency. You can support people. You can coordinate resources. You can help someone succeed. But if you spend your whole week in Enablement mode, you start to feel resentful, even though you are doing it well.

Competency is sustainable in small doses. You can work in your areas of competency for part of your week without burning out. The problem comes when your role is built entirely around your competencies and you never get to work in your genius.

Here is the pattern I see most often. A talented leader gets promoted into a role that requires a different genius pairing than the one they have. They perform well because they are competent. But they never feel energised. They start wondering if they are in the wrong job, when the real issue is that they are working outside their genius 80 percent of the time.

The solution is not always to leave the role. Sometimes the solution is to redesign the role so you spend more time in your genius and less time in your competency. Sometimes the solution is to pair with someone whose genius covers your competency.

If you are working in your competency most of the time, you will perform adequately and feel miserable. That is the gap Working Genius is designed to expose.

13. Recognising and Managing Your Areas of Frustration

Your two areas of Working Frustration are the types of work that drain you even when you are good at them.

Frustration does not mean incompetence. Some of the most frustrating work is work you can do at a high level. The difference is that it costs you more energy than it gives you, and the cost accumulates over time.

What frustration looks like in real terms:

You might have Tenacity as a frustration. You can finish projects. You can follow up on details. You can push things across the line. But every time you do it, you feel like you are forcing yourself. You procrastinate. You resent the work. You finish it and feel depleted.

You might have Wonder as a frustration. You can sit in strategy sessions. You can ask big questions. You can ponder the need for change. But you find it exhausting. You want to move to solutions. You get impatient with the open-ended exploration.

Frustration work is not sustainable as a regular expectation. You can do it in a crisis. You can do it for a deadline. You can do it occasionally when the team has no other option. But if your role requires you to work in your areas of frustration most of the time, you will burn out no matter how talented you are.

The mistake most organisations make is assigning work based on capability rather than energy. They see that you can do Discernment well, so they put you in charge of evaluating every idea. They do not realise that Discernment is your frustration, and that every evaluation meeting is costing you energy you cannot recover.

Here is the shift Working Genius creates. Instead of asking "Who is good at this?" you start asking "Who is energised by this?" The second question leads to better assignments, less burnout, and higher performance over time.

If you cannot avoid working in your frustration, the key is recovery. You need time in your genius after extended periods in your frustration, or the resentment builds and the quality of your work declines.

APPLYING WORKING GENIUS IN YOUR ORGANISATION

The assessment is useful. The real value comes when you apply the framework to how your team assigns work, runs meetings, and structures roles. This is where the cost of the assessment becomes worth it or where it becomes another report that sits in a folder. For a deeper dive on this, see the Working Genius implementation guide.

14. Using Working Genius to Redesign Team Roles

Most roles are built around tasks, not around genius. The job description lists what needs to be done. It does not ask whether the person doing it will be energised by it.

Working Genius gives you a different lens. You can look at a role and ask which types of work it requires most often, then match that role to someone whose genius aligns.

How to audit a role using Working Genius:

List the major responsibilities of the role.

Identify which of the six types of work each responsibility requires.

Calculate how much time the role spends in each type.

Compare that breakdown to the genius pairing of the person currently in the role.

Look for the gaps where the role requires a type of work that sits in the person's competency or frustration.

If a role requires 60 percent Tenacity and Enablement, and the person in that role has Wonder and Invention as their genius pairing, you have a mismatch. The person might perform adequately, but they will never thrive. They will leave, or they will stay and quietly disengage.

The fix is not always to replace the person. Sometimes the fix is to redesign the role, to shift responsibilities, or to pair that person with someone whose genius covers the gap.

Example redesign: A deputy principal has Wonder and Discernment as her genius. The role as currently designed requires 70 percent Enablement and Tenacity because she is responsible for timetabling, managing relief staff, and coordinating events. She is good at it. She is also exhausted. The solution is to shift the Enablement and Tenacity work to someone whose genius aligns, and to redesign her role around strategy, problem identification, and decision-making.

This is the conversation most schools and organisations avoid. They know someone is struggling. They assume the person is not capable. The real issue is that the role was built for a different genius pairing, and the person is grinding through competency and frustration every day.

15. Assigning Projects Based on Genius, Not Just Availability

Most teams assign projects based on who has capacity. Working Genius suggests you assign projects based on who has the genius the project requires.

Every project moves through the six stages. Some projects spend most of their time in Wonder and Invention. Some projects spend most of their time in Galvanising and Tenacity. Matching the project to the person whose genius aligns with the dominant stage creates better outcomes and less burnout.

How to assign work using Working Genius:

Identify which stage the project is in right now.

Assign leadership of that stage to someone whose genius matches.

Rotate leadership as the project moves through the stages.

Make sure every stage has someone who is energised by it, not just someone who is capable.

A project that requires deep ideation and problem-solving at the start needs someone with Wonder and Invention leading that phase. A project that requires rallying stakeholders and coordinating resources in the middle needs someone with Galvanising and Enablement. A project that requires relentless follow-through at the end needs someone with Tenacity.

The mistake is assigning one person to lead the entire project when their genius only aligns with one or two stages. They will excel in their stages and struggle through the others. The project will stall at predictable points.

Try this instead. Build a project team that includes representation from all six types. Rotate leadership based on the stage. Let the Wonder person lead the exploration phase. Let the Discernment person lead the decision phase. Let the Tenacity person lead the completion phase.

This approach requires more coordination. It also produces better work with less individual burnout.

16. Running Better Meetings Using the Six Types

Most meetings are designed as if everyone is energised by the same type of work. They are not.

A meeting that spends 90 minutes brainstorming ideas will energise people with Invention and frustrate people with Tenacity. A meeting that spends 90 minutes reviewing task lists will energise people with Tenacity and frustrate people with Wonder.

Working Genius helps you design meetings that serve the work the meeting is trying to do.

How to structure a meeting based on type:

Ideation meetings should include people with Wonder and Invention. Keep the group small. Limit the time. Create space for open exploration without forcing decisions. Do not invite people with Tenacity unless you need a reality check on feasibility.

Decision meetings should include people with Discernment. Present the options clearly. Give people time to assess. Do not rush the evaluation. Do not invite people with Invention unless you are genuinely open to new ideas, because they will generate five more options mid-meeting.

Activation meetings should include people with Galvanising and Enablement. Focus on next steps, resource allocation, and removing obstacles. Do not spend the meeting debating the idea. The decision has been made. This meeting is about making it happen.

Execution meetings should include people with Enablement and Tenacity. Review progress. Identify blockers. Assign follow-up tasks. Keep the energy focused on completion, not exploration.

Most leadership team meetings try to do all four types in a single session. That is why they feel exhausting to everyone. You are asking people to shift between Wonder and Tenacity every 15 minutes, and nobody is working in their genius long enough to add real value.

A better structure: Name the type of meeting in the agenda. If it is an ideation meeting, say so. If it is an execution meeting, say so. Invite the people whose genius matches the meeting type. Let the others skip it.

17. Reducing Conflict by Understanding Genius Friction

Some of the most frustrating team conflict is not about personality. It is about genius mismatch.

A person with Wonder as a genius will keep asking questions long after the person with Tenacity wants to move to execution. The Wonder person is not being difficult. They are working in their genius. The Tenacity person is not being impatient. They are also working in their genius. The friction is baked into the pairing.

Common genius friction points:

Wonder versus Tenacity: Wonder wants to explore. Tenacity wants to finish. In meetings, this shows up as the Wonder person reopening questions the Tenacity person thought were settled.

Invention versus Discernment: Invention wants to generate options. Discernment wants to narrow them. The Invention person feels shut down. The Discernment person feels overwhelmed by too many ideas.

Galvanising versus Enablement: Galvanising wants to rally people and create momentum. Enablement wants to slow down and make sure the support structures are in place first. The Galvanising person feels the Enablement person is dragging their feet. The Enablement person feels the Galvanising person is moving too fast.

Working Genius does not eliminate the friction. It reframes it. Instead of thinking the other person is difficult, you recognise they are working in their genius and you are working in yours, and the two geniuses are pulling in different directions.

The solution is not to make everyone the same. The solution is to sequence the work so that each genius gets space to contribute without undermining the others. Let the Wonder person ask the questions first. Let the Discernment person evaluate the options next. Let the Galvanising person rally the team after the decision is made. Let the Tenacity person own the follow-through.

When you sequence the work correctly, the friction becomes productive tension instead of destructive conflict.

18. Hiring for Genius Alignment, Not Just Skill

Most hiring processes assess capability. Can the person do the job? Do they have the right qualifications? Do they have the right experience?

Working Genius adds a second question. Will the person be energised by this job? Does their genius align with the work the role requires most often?

How to use Working Genius for hiring:

Before you post the role, identify which types of work the role requires most often.

Write the job description to reflect those types explicitly.

During the interview process, ask questions that reveal the candidate's genius without directly referencing the model.

Listen for energy, not just competence. Ask the candidate to describe a project they loved and a project they found draining. Notice which stages they describe.

Once you have a shortlist, consider having finalists complete the Working Genius assessment as part of the process.

If the role requires 70 percent Enablement and Tenacity, and your top candidate has Wonder and Invention as their genius, pause. The candidate might accept the job. They might perform adequately. They will not stay long, or they will stay and quietly burn out.

The cost of a bad genius fit is higher than the cost of extending the search. A mis-hire costs you six months of onboarding, six months of underperformance, and another six months to replace them. Hiring for genius alignment reduces that risk significantly.

This does not mean you only hire people whose genius perfectly matches the role. It means you go in with your eyes open. If you hire someone whose genius does not fully align, you redesign the role to give them more time in their genius, or you pair them with someone whose genius covers the gap.

19. Onboarding New Staff Using Their Genius Profile

Most onboarding programmes teach new staff what to do. Working Genius lets you teach them how they are wired to contribute.

When someone joins your organisation, have them complete the Working Genius assessment in their first week. Use their report as part of their onboarding conversation.

What to cover in a genius-based onboarding conversation:

Walk through their genius pairing and what it means for how they will experience the role.

Identify which parts of the role will energise them and which parts will cost them energy.

Name the types of projects and tasks they should seek out and the types they should flag early if they feel overwhelming.

Introduce them to other team members and highlight whose genius complements theirs.

Build a 90-day plan that gives them early wins in their areas of genius.

This conversation changes the first three months. Instead of the new hire wondering why some tasks feel easy and others feel like a slog, they have language for it. Instead of assuming they are bad at something, they recognise it sits outside their genius.

Most onboarding programs are generic. They assume every new hire needs the same information delivered the same way. Working Genius lets you personalise the onboarding to the person's wiring, which accelerates their integration and reduces early attrition.

20. Building High-Performing Teams by Balancing Genius Types

The healthiest teams have representation across all six types of work. The most dysfunctional teams are missing two or three types entirely.

When you are building a team, Working Genius gives you a lens for assessing balance. You can map the collective genius profile of the group and see where the gaps sit.

What a balanced team looks like:

At least one person with Wonder or Invention to generate ideas and identify problems.

At least one person with Discernment to evaluate options and make sound decisions.

At least one person with Galvanising to create momentum and rally people.

At least one person with Enablement to support others and coordinate resources.

At least one person with Tenacity to push projects to completion and follow through on details.

A team with five people who all have Galvanising and Enablement will start ten projects and finish two. A team with five people who all have Wonder and Discernment will identify every problem and generate no solutions. A team with five people who all have Tenacity will execute flawlessly on the wrong priorities.

If you inherit a team that is missing a type, you have three options. You can hire for the gap. You can train someone to work in their competency for that type. You can partner with another team that has strength in the area you are missing.

The worst option is ignoring the gap and hoping it resolves itself. It will not. The gap will show up as a recurring problem, and the team will keep hitting the same wall.

21. Using Working Genius to Diagnose Team Dysfunction

When a team is not working, the issue often sits in one of two places. Either the team is missing a type of work entirely, or the team has too many people working outside their genius.

Working Genius helps you diagnose which problem you are facing.

Diagnostic questions to ask:

Which stage of work does this team consistently struggle with? Is it generating ideas? Is it making decisions? Is it rallying people? Is it executing?

Who on the team is working outside their genius most of the time? How long have they been doing it?

Where is the friction showing up? Between which people? Which types of work are they arguing about?

What types of projects does this team start but never finish? What types of work do those projects require?

If the team keeps starting projects but never finishes them, you are missing Tenacity. If the team executes brilliantly but never questions whether they are working on the right things, you are missing Wonder. If the team generates great ideas but never turns them into action, you are missing Galvanising.

Once you identify the gap, you can address it. Sometimes that means hiring. Sometimes that means reassigning work. Sometimes that means pairing your team with someone from another department whose genius covers the gap.

The other common dysfunction is a team full of talented people who are all working outside their genius. Everyone is capable. Everyone is miserable. The work gets done, but the culture is slowly dying. This is the dysfunction Working Genius is uniquely built to expose.

If this is your team, the solution is not motivation. The solution is redesigning how work is assigned so people spend more time in their genius and less time grinding through competency and frustration.

LONG-TERM INTEGRATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

The assessment is a starting point. The real question is whether Working Genius becomes part of how your organisation operates or whether it becomes another framework people tried once and forgot.

22. Embedding Working Genius Into Your Leadership Language

The framework only sticks if it becomes part of your everyday language.

You know Working Genius has embedded when people start using the six types in regular conversation without prompting. Someone says "We need more Wonder in this meeting." Someone else says "I think I am working outside my genius on this project."

How to embed the language:

Reference the six types in team meetings when assigning work or reviewing projects.

Use genius language in performance conversations. Ask people where they are working in their genius and where they are working in their frustration.

Include genius alignment as a criterion when designing new roles or restructuring teams.

Encourage people to name when they are working outside their genius and to ask for support or reassignment.

The language becomes self-sustaining once the leadership team models it consistently. If the principal or CEO references Working Genius in every leadership meeting, the rest of the team will start using it. If the leadership team never references it after the initial workshop, the language disappears in three months.

This is where most organisations fail. They run the workshop. Everyone loves it. Then they go back to assigning work the way they always have, and the insights evaporate.

23. Running Follow-Up Sessions to Maintain Momentum

The initial Working Genius workshop creates insight. Follow-up sessions create behaviour change.

Most organisations run one session and assume the work is done. The organisations that see lasting impact run follow-up sessions every 90 days for the first year.

What to cover in follow-up sessions:

Three-month follow-up: Review what has changed since the initial session. Identify where people are working more in their genius and where they are still stuck in frustration. Adjust role design and project assignments based on what you are learning.

Six-month follow-up: Introduce new team members to the framework. Map the current genius profile of the team and compare it to the profile from six months ago. Address any new gaps or imbalances.

Twelve-month follow-up: Assess whether Working Genius has become part of the organisational language and decision-making. Identify the areas where it is working well and the areas where it has not yet embedded.

Follow-up sessions do not need to be full-day workshops. A 90-minute team conversation is often enough to keep the framework alive and to course-correct where people have drifted back into old patterns.

The key is consistency. If you run one session and never revisit it, the framework fades. If you revisit it every quarter, it becomes part of how the team thinks.

24. Measuring the Impact of Working Genius on Team Performance

Most organisations struggle to measure the ROI of team development work. Working Genius is no exception.

You cannot measure genius in a spreadsheet. You can measure the downstream effects.

Metrics that indicate Working Genius is working:

Project completion rates: Are you finishing more projects than you were 12 months ago? Are projects moving through the stages faster?

Staff retention: Are people staying longer? Are exit interviews revealing fewer complaints about role misalignment?

Meeting efficiency: Are meetings shorter and more focused? Are decisions getting made faster?

Employee engagement scores: Are people reporting higher levels of energy and satisfaction at work?

Quality of work: Are deliverables improving? Are fewer mistakes slipping through?

The impact of Working Genius is often most visible in what stops happening. The projects that used to stall at the ideation stage now move to execution. The team members who used to quietly disengage are now contributing at a higher level. The friction between two senior people has reduced because they understand each other's genius and have stopped assigning intent to behaviour.

If you want to measure impact formally, run a baseline assessment before the initial session and then reassess at six months and twelve months. Measure the same things each time. Project completion. Retention. Engagement. Meeting efficiency. Quality.

The organisations that see the clearest ROI are the ones that integrate Working Genius into hiring, onboarding, role design, and performance management. The framework becomes infrastructure, not an event.

25. What to Do When Working Genius Reveals a Role Mismatch

One of the hardest conversations Working Genius creates is the moment when you realise someone is in the wrong role.

You run the assessment. You map the genius profile of the team. You look at a talented leader whose genius does not align with the role they are in. They are performing adequately. They are also slowly burning out.

What to do when you spot a mismatch:

Have the conversation early. Do not wait until the person is at the edge of resignation.

Name what you are seeing. "Your genius is Wonder and Invention. This role requires 80 percent Enablement and Tenacity. I think that mismatch is costing you."

Explore options together. Can you redesign the role? Can you shift responsibilities to someone else? Can you create a new role that aligns better?

If the role cannot change and the person cannot move, name that reality clearly. Give them permission to make a decision about whether they want to stay.

The conversation is uncomfortable. It is also kinder than watching someone grind through competency and frustration for another two years and then leave exhausted and resentful.

Here is what most leaders miss. The person already knows. They have felt the misalignment for months. They have questioned whether they are failing. Working Genius gives them permission to name it, and it gives you language to address it without making it a performance issue.

Sometimes the solution is internal movement. You move the person into a role that aligns with their genius. Sometimes the solution is an external move. The person finds a role in another organisation where their genius is the asset, not the liability.

Either way, the conversation is the right conversation to have. The alternative is watching someone slowly disengage and wondering why they are not performing the way they used to.

26. Avoiding the Common Pitfalls of Working Genius Implementation

Most organisations make the same mistakes when implementing Working Genius. Knowing the pitfalls in advance helps you avoid them.

Pitfall one: Treating the assessment as the work. The assessment is not the work. The assessment creates the conditions for the work. The work is changing how you assign projects, design roles, run meetings, and have performance conversations.

Pitfall two: Using genius as an excuse. "I cannot do that, it is my frustration" is not a valid reason to avoid all work outside your genius. You will spend some time in your competency and some time in your frustration. The question is proportion, not elimination.

Pitfall three: Ignoring competency. Most people focus on their genius and their frustration and forget about their competency. Competency is where most of your work sits. Learning to manage competency work without burning out is as important as learning to maximise genius work.

Pitfall four: Running the session and never following up. The insights from the initial session fade fast. If you do not revisit the framework every 90 days, it becomes another thing people learned once and forgot.

Pitfall five: Overloading one person with all the genius work. Just because someone has Tenacity as a genius does not mean they should own every single follow-through task on the team. Spread the work. Let people work in their genius, but do not burn them out by making them the only source of that type.

Pitfall six: Using Working Genius to label people. "She is a Wonder-Invention person" is fine shorthand in internal conversations. It becomes a problem when it turns into a box that limits what people are allowed to contribute.

The framework is a lens, not a limit. It helps you see patterns. It does not define everything a person can do.

27. Combining Working Genius With Other Frameworks

Working Genius is not the only tool you need. It works well alongside other frameworks, and most organisations use it in combination with something else.

Common pairings:

Working Genius and StrengthsFinder: StrengthsFinder identifies your natural talents. Working Genius identifies the types of work that energise you. The two frameworks overlap but they measure different things. You can be talented at something and still find it draining.

Working Genius and Enneagram: Enneagram maps your motivations and fears. Working Genius maps your energy and contribution patterns. Teams that use both find that Enneagram explains why people react the way they do, and Working Genius explains what type of work they should be doing.

Working Genius and DiSC: DiSC maps communication and behavioural styles. Working Genius maps work preferences. DiSC helps you understand how to communicate with someone. Working Genius helps you understand what work to assign them.

The key is not to treat these frameworks as competing models. They are different lenses on the same team. Use the one that addresses the problem you are trying to solve.

If the problem is communication and conflict, DiSC or Enneagram might be more useful. If the problem is burnout, disengagement, or projects that never finish, Working Genius is the better tool.

28. Teaching Your Team to Self-Advocate Using Their Genius

One of the most valuable long-term outcomes of Working Genius is that it gives people language to advocate for themselves.

Most people feel guilty saying no to work, even when that work is draining them. Working Genius gives them permission to name the cost.

What self-advocacy looks like in a Working Genius culture:

"This project requires a lot of Tenacity and that is my frustration. Can we pair me with someone who has Tenacity as a genius?"

"I have been working in my competency for the last six weeks and I am starting to feel it. Can I take on something in my genius next?"

"I would love to lead the ideation phase of this project, but I will need someone else to take over once we move to execution."

This kind of self-advocacy only works if the leadership team responds well. If someone names that they are working outside their genius and the response is "Just push through," the framework loses credibility fast.

The leadership team sets the tone. If leaders model self-advocacy by naming when they are working outside their genius and asking for support, the rest of the team will follow. If leaders never acknowledge their own frustration and just grind through everything, the team will do the same.

Teaching self-advocacy is not about letting people opt out of hard work. It is about creating a culture where people can name what is costing them energy and ask for help before they burn out.

29. Using Working Genius in Performance Reviews

Most performance reviews focus on what someone achieved. Working Genius lets you add a second layer. How much of that achievement happened in their genius versus their competency or frustration?

Questions to add to your performance review process:

Over the last six months, how much time did you spend working in your genius? In your competency? In your frustration?

Which projects energised you? Which projects drained you?

Where do you want to spend more time in the next six months?

What support do you need to work more in your genius and less in your frustration?

This shifts the conversation from performance evaluation to role design. You are not asking whether the person performed well. You are asking whether the role is letting them perform in a way that is sustainable.

If someone is performing well but working in their frustration most of the time, that is a red flag. The performance is costing them too much. They will not sustain it. The review becomes an opportunity to redesign the role before the person burns out or leaves.

If someone is underperforming and working outside their genius most of the time, the issue might not be capability. It might be role misalignment. The review becomes an opportunity to explore whether the role can change or whether the person needs to move.

Working Genius does not replace traditional performance metrics. It adds context. It helps you understand why someone is thriving or struggling, and it gives you language to address the root cause instead of just the symptoms.

30. Building a Genius-Aligned Culture Over Time

The ultimate goal is not to run one great Working Genius workshop. The goal is to build a culture where people regularly work in their genius, where roles are designed around energy as much as capability, and where teams are balanced across all six types.

What a genius-aligned culture looks like in practice:

New roles are designed with genius alignment in mind from the start.

Project teams are built to include all six types, and leadership rotates based on the stage of work.

Performance conversations include questions about genius, competency, and frustration as standard.

People self-advocate when they are working outside their genius, and the organisation responds with support rather than judgment.

Hiring decisions weigh genius alignment as heavily as skill and experience.

The leadership team models working in their genius and naming when they are working outside it.

This kind of culture does not happen in six months. It happens over two to three years of consistent reinforcement, follow-up sessions, and leadership modeling.

The organisations that build genius-aligned cultures see the payoff in retention, engagement, and performance. People stay longer because they are working in roles that energise them. Teams perform better because the right people are doing the right work. Projects finish because every stage has someone who is energised by it.

The cost of building this culture is higher than the cost of one workshop. The value is also higher. You are not just improving team dynamics. You are redesigning how work happens in your organisation.

The Working Genius assessment costs USD $25 per person. The real cost sits in the facilitation, the follow-up, and the work of embedding the framework into how your organisation operates. The real value sits in what happens when people stop grinding through work that drains them and start contributing from the place that energises them.

Your next step is simple. If you have a leadership team that is talented on paper but struggling to work together, if you have people quietly burning out in roles that do not fit, if you have projects that stall at predictable points and nobody can figure out why, Working Genius is worth the investment. Reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org if you want to explore what a Working Genius session could look like for your team.

The assessment is not the whole answer. But it is a powerful place to begin.