Working Genius for Startups

If you have ever wondered why some types of work energise you while others leave you questioning your career choices, Working Genius holds the answer.

You built a startup with people who look perfect on paper. Technical chops, domain expertise, years of experience at known companies. Yet three months in, the founding team feels like three people rowing in different directions. Meetings end without decisions. Projects stall at the exact same stage every time. Someone is always frustrated, and nobody can name why.

This is not a skills problem. This is not a culture problem in the way most founders think about culture. This is a Working Genius problem. The framework, developed by Patrick Lencioni, names six types of work that every project requires. Each person on your team has two areas where they thrive, two where they are competent but drained, and two where they actively resist. When a startup does not understand this, talented people end up in the wrong seats doing work that empties them. You can learn more in the Working Genius implementation guide.

Here is what happens when you map Working Genius across your early stage team and actually build around it.

UNDERSTANDING THE SIX TYPES

Working Genius is not another personality test. It is a productivity framework that explains why certain work fills you with energy and other work makes you want to fake a meeting conflict. The six types split into three phases. Ideation covers Wonder and Invention. Activation covers Discernment and Galvanising. Implementation covers Enablement and Tenacity. Every startup project moves through all six types of work. Most startup teams are stacked in two types and completely missing the other four.

1. WONDER — THE STARTUP TYPE FOUNDERS OFTEN IGNORE

Wonder is the ability to ponder and ask the questions that provoke insight. People with Wonder as a genius sit in a product demo and ask why are we building this instead of that. They question assumptions most teams accept as given. They see gaps nobody else notices. Early stage teams often treat Wonder people like they are stalling progress. They are not. They are saving you from three months of work on the wrong problem.

The mistake most founders make with Wonder: They hire for Invention and Tenacity because those are the types that ship product. Then six months in, the team realises they have been solving a problem nobody actually has. A single person with Wonder as a working genius would have asked the uncomfortable question in week two that redirected the entire build.

Wonder people ask why before how.

They spot the question underneath the question.

They create space for the team to think, not just execute.

They feel like productivity drains to teams stacked with Tenacity.

Wonder does not show up on a resume. You will not find it listed as a skill on LinkedIn. But if your startup has a tendency to build fast and pivot hard every quarter, you are missing someone whose genius is Wonder.

If your team avoids big picture conversations because they feel unproductive, you do not have enough Wonder in the room. The cost shows up later when you have shipped a feature nobody uses or entered a market that does not want what you are selling.

Here is the pattern: Startups dominated by Invention and Tenacity move fast but often in the wrong direction. A single Wonder genius in the early conversations changes the entire trajectory. They do not slow you down. They stop you from spending six months running toward a cliff.

2. INVENTION — THE TYPE EVERY FOUNDER THINKS THEY NEED MORE OF

Invention is the ability to create original solutions and new ideas. This is the type startup founders over-hire. Three co-founders, all with Invention as a working genius, sounds like a dream team. It is actually a nightmare. Invention people generate ideas faster than any team can execute. They pivot before the first idea has been validated. They start new projects while old ones sit at 80 percent complete.

Invention is essential. A startup without it dies. But a startup with too much Invention becomes idea-rich and execution-poor. You have seventeen ways to solve the problem and zero shipped solutions.

What Invention-heavy teams look like in practice:

Endless whiteboard sessions that produce no next steps.

Slack channels full of ideas and empty of completed work.

A roadmap that changes every two weeks based on whoever spoke last.

Team members who are excited about the work but exhausted by the constant pivots.

The pattern that breaks Invention-heavy teams: Someone with Discernment or Galvanising finally pushes the team to commit to one idea. The Invention-dominant founders agree in the meeting. Then 48 hours later, a new idea arrives and the whole team is debating whether to restart. Without Discernment to evaluate and Galvanising to commit, Invention spins in place.

If you are a founder whose genius is Invention, your next hire should not be another Inventor. You need someone whose genius is Discernment or Enablement. Someone who can take your twelve ideas, pick the two that matter, and actually build them.

Invention without Galvanising is just brainstorming with no engine. The ideas never leave the room. This is why teams full of smart creative people still fail to ship.

3. DISCERNMENT — THE GENIUS THAT SAVES STARTUPS FROM THEMSELVES

Discernment is the ability to assess an idea and intuitively know whether it will work. People with Discernment as a genius listen to a pitch and immediately sense what is missing. They do not always know why the idea is wrong, but they know it is not ready. Early stage teams often mistake Discernment for negativity. It is not. It is the filter that keeps you from wasting three months on a bad idea.

Discernment people feel the gap between what the team is saying and what will actually happen when the product hits the market. They are the person in the room who says I think we are missing something, and two months later the thing they sensed becomes the thing that breaks the project.

Here is what Discernment does for a startup:

Stops bad ideas early. Before the build starts, before the budget is committed, Discernment flags the problem.

Validates good ideas fast. When Discernment says this will work, the team can move with confidence.

Protects the team from founder blind spots. Founders fall in love with ideas. Discernment does not.

Creates psychological safety for doubt. When Discernment is valued, the whole team permission to question without being labelled negative.

Without Discernment, startup teams operate on hope and founder conviction. Sometimes that works. Most of the time it does not. A single person with Discernment as a working genius gives the team a reliable gut check before resources are committed.

The mistake teams make: They listen to Discernment, feel uncomfortable, and then override it because the idea is exciting or the founder is insistent. Six weeks later, the exact problem Discernment named becomes the reason the project stalls. Discernment does not kill ideas. It kills bad ideas. If your team does not have someone whose genius is Discernment, you are flying without instruments.

4. GALVANISING — THE TYPE THAT TURNS MEETINGS INTO MOMENTUM

Galvanising is the ability to rally people to take action on an idea. This is the person who hears a good idea and immediately says let's do this, here is who does what, we start Monday. Galvanising people create urgency and commitment. Without them, even the best ideas sit in Slack threads forever.

Early stage teams often confuse Galvanising with loudness or charisma. Galvanising is not about personality. It is about activation energy. Galvanising people move ideas from conversation to execution. They are the bridge between Discernment and Enablement.

Here is what happens in a startup without Galvanising: The team agrees on an idea. Everyone nods. The meeting ends. A week later, nothing has started. Nobody owns it. Nobody has communicated it to the rest of the team. The idea dies not because it was bad, but because nobody activated it.

What Galvanising looks like in practice:

The person who turns a decision into a project plan in real time.

The person who assigns owners and deadlines before the meeting ends.

The person who communicates the decision to the wider team within 24 hours.

The person who follows up without being asked.

Galvanising is the difference between a team that talks about doing something and a team that actually starts. If your founding team is idea-rich but execution-light, you are missing Galvanising. You have Wonder and Invention covered. You might even have Discernment. But nobody is moving the idea from evaluated to active.

Galvanising without Discernment is dangerous. You get fast execution on bad ideas. Galvanising with Discernment is the combination that lets startups move fast without breaking everything. One evaluates, the other activates. Together they create the rhythm between decision and action that most early stage teams never find.

If you are a founder whose genius is not Galvanising, find someone whose genius is. Otherwise every decision requires you in the room to push it forward, and that does not scale.

5. ENABLEMENT — THE GENIUS THAT ACTUALLY BUILDS THE THING

Enablement is the ability to provide support and structure to bring an idea to life. People with Enablement as a genius take a project that has been activated and figure out how to actually make it happen. They build systems, coordinate resources, remove blockers, and create the infrastructure the team needs to execute. Without Enablement, projects that start with energy die in the messy middle.

Enablement people do not get celebrated in startup culture. They are not the visionary. They are not the person on stage at the demo day. But they are the reason the product actually ships. Enablement is the type that turns a Galvanised idea into a functioning build.

What Enablement provides to an early stage team:

Structure without bureaucracy. Enablement people know the difference between helpful process and waste. They build the minimum structure the team needs to move fast.

Resource coordination. They know who needs what, when. They remove blockers before the blocker becomes a crisis.

Support for people doing the work. Enablement people do not just manage tasks. They clear the path for the people with Tenacity to execute.

The glue between Galvanising and Tenacity. Galvanising says go. Tenacity finishes. Enablement makes sure the middle does not collapse.

Here is the pattern that breaks teams without Enablement: A project gets Galvanised. The team is excited. Two weeks in, nobody knows who owns what. Resources are missing. Three people are blocked waiting on one decision. The person with Tenacity is trying to finish but cannot because the infrastructure was never built. The project stalls at 60 percent and nobody knows why.

That is a missing Enablement problem. The idea was good. The activation was strong. The finish line work is solid. But the scaffolding in the middle was never put in place, so the whole thing collapses under its own weight.

If your startup has a graveyard of projects that started strong and died halfway through, you do not have an execution problem. You have an Enablement gap. Find someone whose genius is building the support structure that lets other people finish.

6. TENACITY — THE TYPE THAT CROSSES THE FINISH LINE

Tenacity is the ability to push projects to completion and ensure they get done. People with Tenacity as a working genius do not stop at 85 percent. They finish. They handle the repetitive, unglamorous work that sits between almost done and actually shipped. Early stage teams burn out Tenacity people by putting them in roles that require constant Wonder or Invention. Tenacity people do not want to brainstorm seventeen options. They want to take one option and finish it.

Tenacity does the work that everyone else finds boring. Final testing. Documentation. The third round of QA. The follow-up emails. The manual work that has to happen before you can call it done. Without Tenacity, your startup has a folder full of prototypes and nothing in production.

What Tenacity people need to thrive:

A clear finish line. Do not ask them to work on something ambiguous.

Stability. Do not pivot the project three times while they are mid-build.

Respect for the grind. Finishing is not less valuable than ideating.

Protection from constant context switching. Tenacity people finish when they can focus.

The mistake Invention-heavy founders make: They hire someone with Tenacity, then put them in a role that requires constant pivoting and re-scoping. The Tenacity person is miserable. The founder thinks they hired wrong. The actual problem is role misalignment. Tenacity people finish what you start. If you keep changing what you are starting, they cannot do their genius work.

A startup without Tenacity ships nothing. You will have ideas, plans, prototypes, pilots, and beta versions. You will not have a finished product in the hands of customers. Tenacity is the type that takes you from we are almost there to it is live.

If your team is full of people who love starting projects but hate finishing them, you need Tenacity. Not as a nice-to-have. As the type that determines whether your startup actually ships or just builds impressive demos that never leave the building.

PAIRING PATTERNS THAT MAKE OR BREAK STARTUP TEAMS

Understanding the six types individually is useful. Understanding how they pair is what changes your team. Every person has two working geniuses. Those two create a natural rhythm. Wonder and Invention pair as the ideation engine. Discernment and Galvanising pair as the activation filter. Enablement and Tenacity pair as the implementation machine. When your founding team is missing an entire pairing, certain types of work never happen.

7. THE WONDER AND INVENTION PAIRING — YOUR IDEATION ENGINE

People with Wonder and Invention as their geniuses are your idea generators. They ask the big questions and then create novel answers. This pairing is common in founding teams, especially technical co-founders. The problem shows up when both co-founders have this exact pairing and nobody on the team has Discernment or Galvanising.

Wonder and Invention together create endless possibilities. They explore. They prototype. They challenge assumptions and design new models. But they do not naturally evaluate which idea is best, and they do not instinctively activate the idea into a coordinated plan.

What this pairing does well:

Generates breakthrough ideas when the team is stuck.

Questions assumptions that need to be questioned.

Designs solutions nobody else would think of.

Keeps the team from settling for incremental when transformational is possible.

What this pairing cannot do alone: Evaluate their own ideas objectively. Move from brainstorming to building without external activation. Finish the idea once the novelty wears off.

If your founding team is two people with Wonder and Invention, your third hire should be someone with Discernment and Galvanising. Otherwise you will spend twelve months in ideation and never ship. The ideas will be brilliant. The execution will be nonexistent.

This is the team that has five pivots in the first year, not because the market rejected them, but because they kept inventing new versions before the first version was done.

8. THE DISCERNMENT AND GALVANISING PAIRING — YOUR ACTIVATION FILTER

People with Discernment and Galvanising as their geniuses are your decision engine. They evaluate fast and activate faster. This pairing takes a pile of ideas, picks the right one, and gets the team moving on it within 24 hours. Startups with strong Discernment and Galvanising pairings ship faster because they do not get stuck in analysis or coordination delays.

Discernment asks is this the right idea. Galvanising says yes, here is who does what, let's go. Together they create the bridge between ideation and implementation. Without this pairing, teams generate ideas that sit in backlog forever or execute ideas that should have been killed in the room.

What this pairing provides:

Speed. They cut through ambiguity and create forward motion.

Confidence. The team knows the idea has been vetted and the path forward is clear.

Protection from bad ideas. Discernment stops the team from committing to something that will not work.

Accountability. Galvanising assigns ownership, so nothing falls through the gap between decision and execution.

The risk with Discernment and Galvanising dominant teams: They can activate ideas before those ideas are fully formed. If the team does not have enough Wonder or Invention, Discernment and Galvanising will pick the best idea in the room and run with it, even if the best idea in the room is still mediocre. This pairing needs a strong ideation phase to work with, or they end up Galvanising average ideas efficiently.

If your startup makes decisions fast but those decisions do not feel transformational, you have Discernment and Galvanising covered but not enough Wonder and Invention upstream.

9. THE ENABLEMENT AND TENACITY PAIRING — YOUR IMPLEMENTATION MACHINE

People with Enablement and Tenacity as their geniuses are your finishers. They take activated projects and turn them into shipped products. This pairing builds the infrastructure, handles the grind, and crosses the finish line. Startups that lack this pairing have impressive roadmaps and nothing in production.

Enablement creates the support structure. Tenacity does the repetitive work that has to happen for something to be complete. Together they are the reason your product goes from demo to deployed. Without this pairing, your startup is permanently stuck at 70 percent done.

What this pairing does:

Finishes projects the rest of the team has mentally moved on from.

Builds systems that allow the team to scale without chaos.

Handles the unsexy work that does not get celebrated but has to get done.

Provides stability in a startup environment that is otherwise constant change.

What this pairing needs from the rest of the team: Clear direction. Do not ask Enablement and Tenacity people to also be the visionaries. They need someone else to set the direction so they can build the path and walk it to completion. If you keep pivoting the strategy, you are wasting the genius of your Enablement and Tenacity people. They cannot finish what you will not commit to.

The failure mode for teams without this pairing: Endless prototypes, beta versions, and almost launched products. The team is excited about the idea. The team can activate. But nobody wants to do the final 30 percent of work that takes it from functional to shippable. Projects die in the gap between good enough for us and good enough for customers.

If your startup has a habit of moving on to the next thing before the current thing is done, you are missing Enablement and Tenacity. You need people who thrive in the finish, not just the start.

COMMON STARTUP TEAM COMPOSITIONS AND WHERE THEY BREAK

Most founding teams are not evenly distributed across the six types. You end up with three people who all have Invention, or two people with Wonder and Discernment and nobody with Tenacity. Understanding where your team is stacked and where you have gaps explains why certain types of work feel impossible.

10. THE ALL-IDEATION TEAM — WONDER, INVENTION, DISCERNMENT

This is the team that can think but cannot ship. You have the people who ask great questions, generate brilliant ideas, and evaluate those ideas with clarity. What you do not have is anyone who activates the idea into a plan or builds the infrastructure to finish it.

All-ideation teams have the best strategy decks and the least product in market. They spend six months perfecting the vision and three weeks trying to execute before they realise nobody on the team actually enjoys building.

Where this team breaks:

After the idea is validated, nothing happens. Nobody Galvanises it.

If it does get started, it stalls in the middle. No Enablement to support the build.

The finish line work never happens. No Tenacity to push it across.

What this team needs: A co-founder or early hire whose geniuses are Galvanising and Enablement, or Enablement and Tenacity. Someone who does not need to be part of the ideation process but thrives once the decision is made.

If this is your team, stop hiring for intelligence or domain expertise. Hire for activation and implementation. You have enough thinkers. You need doers.

11. THE ALL-ACTIVATION TEAM — DISCERNMENT, GALVANISING, ENABLEMENT

This is the team that can execute but struggles to know what to execute on. You have the people who evaluate, activate, and support. What you are missing is the front end. Nobody is asking the big questions or inventing new solutions. The team defaults to executing conventional ideas efficiently.

All-activation teams ship fast but rarely ship anything transformational. They are great at taking an idea from decision to delivery. They are not great at generating the idea that is worth delivering.

What this team looks like in practice:

Fast execution on incremental ideas. The team ships, but what they ship does not move the market.

Difficulty pivoting. Activation-heavy teams resist big strategic shifts because they are wired to commit and execute, not question and redesign.

Dependency on external ideation. If a customer or advisor suggests an idea, the team can run with it. But they do not generate breakthrough thinking internally.

Frustration during strategy conversations. The team wants to decide and move. Ideation feels slow and unproductive.

What this team needs: Someone with Wonder and Invention who can sit in the ambiguity long enough to ask the uncomfortable questions and design the non-obvious solution. Without that, you will execute your way into irrelevance.

If this is your team, your next hire is not another operator. It is someone who thinks differently and makes you uncomfortable in the best possible way.

12. THE ALL-IMPLEMENTATION TEAM — ENABLEMENT, TENACITY, AND NOTHING ELSE

This is the rarest and most painful team composition. You have the people who finish, but nobody who decides what to finish or why. All-implementation teams can build anything if you tell them exactly what to build. But they cannot generate the idea, evaluate the options, or activate the decision.

This team is not common in founding teams because people with only Enablement and Tenacity as geniuses rarely start companies. They join them. But if this is your team, you already know. Every decision is torture. Every strategy conversation feels impossible. You keep waiting for someone to just tell you what to do so you can go build it.

What this team needs: The entire front end. Someone with Wonder or Invention to generate possibilities. Someone with Discernment to evaluate them. Someone with Galvanising to activate the decision. Without all three, the Enablement and Tenacity people have nothing to enable or finish.

If this is your team, you are not a startup. You are a services business waiting for a client to give you a brief.

13. THE FOUNDER-VISIONARY AND OPERATOR SPLIT

This is the most common two-person founding team. One person with Wonder and Invention. One person with Enablement and Tenacity. The visionary generates ideas. The operator builds them. On paper this pairing works. In practice it breaks at the activation layer.

The visionary has an idea. The operator starts building. Halfway through, the visionary has a new idea and wants to pivot. The operator is furious because they were three weeks from finishing. Neither person is wrong. They are just missing the middle.

What is missing:

Discernment to evaluate which idea is actually worth building. Without it, the operator builds whatever the visionary said most recently.

Galvanising to activate the decision in a way both people commit to. Without it, the visionary thinks they decided and the operator thinks they are still exploring.

The relationship breaks because every conversation about direction feels like a fight. The visionary feels constrained. The operator feels whipsawed. The actual problem is that neither of them has the genius to bridge ideation and implementation.

If this is your founding team, your first hire is someone with Discernment and Galvanising. Not another engineer. Not another strategist. Someone who can sit between the two of you, evaluate the ideas, and activate the right one in a way you both respect.

This hire will feel like marriage counselling. It is. And it works.

HIRING FOR WORKING GENIUS INSTEAD OF SKILLS

Most startups hire for skills and experience, then wonder why talented people are miserable or underperforming. The person has the resume. They have done the job before. But they are in a role that requires geniuses they do not have, and the friction shows up as poor performance or quiet disengagement.

14. WHY SKILLS-BASED HIRING BREAKS IN EARLY STAGE TEAMS

Skills-based hiring assumes that if someone has done the work before, they can do it again. That logic works in structured environments with clear roles. It breaks in startups where every role requires multiple types of work and the role changes every quarter.

You hire a product manager because they built product at a known company. What you do not know is whether their genius is Wonder and Invention or Enablement and Tenacity. If the role requires ideation and they are wired for implementation, they will struggle. Not because they are bad at product. Because the type of product work you need does not match the type of product work that energises them.

Here is what happens:

You hire someone with a strong resume and they underperform in the first 90 days.

You assume they are not a fit and let them go.

The actual problem was role-to-genius mismatch.

You hire the next person, same resume, same problem, same outcome.

The cost of skills-based hiring in a startup: High turnover in the first year. Talented people who leave because the role drained them. A founding team that believes they are bad at hiring when the real issue is they are hiring for credentials instead of Working Genius alignment. For a practical approach to Working Genius for hiring, the process starts with the role, not the job description.

If you have churned through three hires in the same role, stop hiring for experience. Start hiring for genius. Map the role to the types of work it actually requires, then find someone whose geniuses match.

15. HOW TO HIRE FOR WORKING GENIUS IN PRACTICE

Hiring for Working Genius starts with mapping the role, not writing a job description. Most job descriptions are a list of tasks and required experience. A Working Genius role map is a list of the types of work the person will do daily and which geniuses those types require.

Here is the process:

Step one: List the actual work the role requires. Not responsibilities. Actual work. Brainstorming product direction. Evaluating feature requests. Coordinating between design and engineering. Running QA. Shipping releases.

Step two: Tag each type of work with the Working Genius type it requires. Brainstorming is Wonder or Invention. Evaluating is Discernment. Coordinating is Enablement. Shipping is Tenacity.

Step three: Look at the list. If the role requires four or more types of work evenly, the role is broken. No single person will thrive in it. Split the role or accept high turnover.

Step four: If the role requires two or three types consistently, hire someone whose geniuses align with the dominant two. The third type becomes their competency zone. They can do it, but it will drain them. Manage that intentionally.

Step five: In the interview, do not ask about experience. Ask about energy. Describe three types of work the role requires and ask which one energises them, which one drains them, and which one they avoid. Their answer tells you more than their resume.

What this changes: You stop hiring people who look good and start hiring people who will thrive. Resumes become secondary. Energy alignment becomes primary. The person you hire may have less experience but more natural genius for the actual work, and that difference shows up in retention and performance within 90 days.

If you are a founder who has been burned by hiring, try this once. Hire for Working Genius instead of credentials. You will notice the difference immediately.

16. THE ROLE-GENIUS MISMATCH THAT KILLS STARTUP OPERATORS

The most common hiring mistake in early stage startups is hiring someone with Enablement and Tenacity geniuses and putting them in a role that requires constant Wonder and Invention. You hire an operator to bring structure and execution discipline. Then you put them in a chaotic environment where the strategy changes weekly and every project pivots halfway through.

The operator is miserable. They were hired to finish things, but nothing stays stable long enough to finish. The founder is frustrated because the operator seems slow or resistant to change. The actual problem is you hired someone to bring order and then put them in an environment that rewards disorder.

What this looks like in practice:

The operator builds a system. The founder pivots and the system is irrelevant three weeks later.

The operator starts a project. The founder has a new idea and redirects the work mid-build.

The operator asks for clarity on priorities. The founder says everything is a priority.

The operator quits or quietly disengages within six months.

The fix is not hiring a different operator. The fix is either stabilising your strategy so the operator can operate, or hiring someone whose genius is Wonder and Invention who thrives in chaos. You cannot hire for stability and then provide chaos. The role and the environment have to match the genius.

If you have lost three operators in two years, you do not have a hiring problem. You have a founder problem. Your working genius is probably Invention. You love the pivot. The people you are hiring do not. Either change your environment or change who you hire for.

17. THE ROLE THAT REQUIRES ALL SIX TYPES DOES NOT EXIST

Every startup has a role that requires the person to ideate, evaluate, activate, coordinate, and finish. It is usually called Head of Product, or Chief of Staff, or VP of Operations. The job description lists fifteen responsibilities that span all six Working Genius types. The role is unfillable.

No person has all six types as a genius. Most people have two. The role you just described requires someone to be exceptional at Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanising, Enablement, and Tenacity. That person does not exist. If you hire someone who claims to be great at all six, they are either lying or delusional.

What happens when you post this role:

You get applicants who look good on paper because they have done pieces of the role before. None of them have done all of it, because nobody can.

You hire someone and they excel at two types of the work and struggle with the other four. You think they are underperforming. They are just human.

You cycle through hires every nine months because nobody can sustain a role that demands all six types equally.

The fix: Split the role. If the work genuinely requires all six types, it is not one role. It is two roles, maybe three. One person handles the ideation and evaluation. Another person handles the activation and coordination. A third person handles the finish work. You will spend less on three part-time people who thrive than one full-time person who burns out.

If you have a role that has churned through five people in three years, audit the role against Working Genius. You will find you are asking one person to do the work of three.

FIXING TEAM FRICTION USING WORKING GENIUS

Most founding team conflict is not about values or vision. It is about Working Genius misalignment. One person wants to explore options. Another person wants to decide and move. A third person wants to finish what was started two months ago. All three are frustrated with each other, and none of them can name why.

18. THE MEETING WHERE NOBODY AGREES ON WHAT JUST HAPPENED

This is the meeting every startup has monthly. The team talks for an hour. Everyone leaves thinking a decision was made. Three days later it becomes clear that everyone heard a different decision, and nobody is aligned on what happens next.

This is a Working Genius problem. The people with Wonder heard we are still exploring. The people with Discernment heard we evaluated and this option is best. The people with Galvanising heard we decided, here is what we are doing. The people with Tenacity heard nothing useful because no finish line was defined.

What causes this:

The meeting moved through ideation, evaluation, and activation without naming the transitions.

Nobody said out loud we are done exploring, we are now evaluating.

Nobody said we have evaluated, we are now deciding and activating.

Each person assumed the meeting had moved to their preferred type of work.

The fix is simple but requires discipline. Name the type of work happening in the meeting. Say out loud we are in Wonder mode right now, we are asking questions, we are not deciding yet. Then later say we are moving to Discernment, we are evaluating these three options, speak now if you see a problem. Then say we are Galvanising, here is the decision, here is who owns what. You can also read about how to run a Working Genius workshop to bring this framework to your whole team.

When you name the type of work, everyone knows where they are in the process. The Wonder people stop feeling rushed. The Tenacity people stop feeling frustrated that nothing is decided. The meeting becomes productive because everyone knows what job the conversation is doing.

If your team has chronic misalignment after meetings, try naming Working Genius phases out loud. The clarity is immediate.

19. THE CO-FOUNDER CONFLICT THAT IS ACTUALLY A GENIUS CONFLICT

You have a co-founder who drives you insane, but you cannot name why. They are smart, they work hard, they care about the company. But every conversation with them feels like friction. You want to move forward. They want to pause and think. Or you want to explore options and they want to commit. The relationship feels broken.

This is not a personality conflict. This is a Working Genius conflict. Your geniuses are at opposite ends of the process. One of you is Wonder and Invention. The other is Enablement and Tenacity. You are wired for different phases of work, and neither of you understands that the other is not being difficult, they are just operating in their genius.

What this conflict looks like:

The Invention co-founder suggests a pivot. The Tenacity co-founder is furious because they are three weeks from finishing the current build.

The Wonder co-founder asks a big strategic question. The Enablement co-founder shuts it down because the team is mid-execution and does not have time to re-think everything.

The Galvanising co-founder wants to decide and move. The Discernment co-founder says we are not ready, something is missing.

Both people think the other is the problem. Neither person sees the Working Genius mismatch underneath.

The fix: Map your geniuses together. Sit down, take the Working Genius assessment, and compare. You will immediately see why certain conversations feel like pulling teeth. You are not misaligned on values. You are misaligned on where you thrive in the work process.

Once you see it, you can design around it. The Invention co-founder brings ideas to the Discernment co-founder before Galvanising them. The Tenacity co-founder tells the Wonder co-founder when they need stability to finish. You stop fighting and start collaborating in a way that uses both geniuses.

If you are in a co-founder relationship that feels harder than it should, Working Genius is probably the answer. Not therapy. Not a mediator. Just a shared language for why you work differently.

20. THE TEAM MEMBER WHO SEEMS LAZY BUT IS ACTUALLY MISALIGNED

You have someone on the team who is underperforming. They are late on deadlines, they seem disengaged in meetings, and their work feels low-energy. You are starting to think they are not a fit. Before you let them go, check their Working Genius alignment.

The person who seems lazy in a role that requires Tenacity might be exceptional in a role that requires Wonder. The person who seems slow in a role that requires Galvanising might thrive in a role that requires Discernment. What looks like underperformance is often just a genius-to-role mismatch.

Here is the diagnostic:

Ask them what type of work energises them. If they say brainstorming and exploring, and their current role is execution-heavy, you have a mismatch.

Ask them what type of work drains them. If they say repetitive tasks and their role is finishing-heavy, same problem.

Ask them if they would rather start projects or finish them. Their answer tells you whether they are Invention-heavy or Tenacity-heavy.

Look at when they are engaged versus disengaged. If they light up in strategy conversations and fade in execution meetings, their genius is upstream.

If the person is misaligned, you have two options. Move them to a role that matches their genius, or let them go and hire someone whose genius fits the role you need filled. What you cannot do is keep them in a misaligned role and expect performance to improve.

Most founders wait too long on underperformers because they assume the problem is effort or skill. Half the time the problem is Working Genius mismatch. The person is capable. They are just in the wrong seat.

21. THE TEAM THAT NEVER FINISHES ANYTHING

Your team starts projects with energy and momentum. Three weeks later the project is at 60 percent and stalled. A month after that, someone quietly moves it to the backlog. This happens with every project. The team is not shipping, and you cannot figure out why. This is a common pattern that Working Genius team building strategies are specifically designed to address.

This is a Tenacity gap. Your team is strong in the front end. You have Wonder, Invention, maybe Discernment and Galvanising. But nobody has Tenacity as a working genius. The team loves starting. Nobody loves finishing. So everything stalls in the last 30 percent.

What this team looks like:

A roadmap full of things that are almost done.

Meetings where someone says we just need to finish X, but nobody volunteers to actually do it.

New projects that get started before old projects are complete.

A backlog that grows faster than your shipped features.

The pattern is predictable. Ideation happens fast. Activation happens. The build starts. Then the grind work arrives. Testing, QA, documentation, edge case handling, final polish. Nobody wants to do it. The project sits.

The fix is not process. The fix is hiring someone whose genius is Tenacity. Someone who gets energy from crossing the finish line. Someone who does not need the work to be novel or creative. They just need it to be clearable.

If your team has this problem, your next hire is not another strategist or builder. It is someone who loves the work everyone else finds boring. That hire changes your entire output.

22. THE TEAM THAT EXECUTES BAD IDEAS EFFICIENTLY

Your team ships fast. Decisions get made, work gets done, products go live. The problem is the products do not work. You are executing efficiently on ideas that should have been killed in the room. This is a Discernment gap.

The team has Galvanising, Enablement, and Tenacity covered. You can activate and finish. But you do not have anyone whose genius is evaluating whether the thing you are activating is actually worth building. So you ship, the market rejects it, and you pivot. Then you do it again.

What this looks like in practice:

The team rallies around an idea fast. Someone Galvanises it, everyone commits, the build starts.

Three months later the feature launches and nobody uses it. The team is confused because the idea seemed good.

In hindsight, there were warning signs in the early conversations. But nobody stopped to evaluate. The team was in execution mode.

The cycle repeats. Fast execution, weak outcomes, pivot, repeat.

The fix: Add someone with Discernment to the early conversations. Before you Galvanise, pause and evaluate. The Discernment person will ask the question or name the gap that everyone else missed. Sometimes they will say this will not work, and you will be annoyed. Six weeks later you will be grateful.

Discernment feels like friction when you want to move fast. But it is the friction that keeps you from spending three months building something the market does not want. If your team ships a lot but struggles to find product-market fit, you probably need more Discernment in the decision process.

23. THE FOUNDER WHO CANNOT DELEGATE BECAUSE NOBODY THINKS LIKE THEM

You are a founder who cannot delegate. Every time you hand something off, it comes back wrong. Not because the person is incapable, but because they approached the work differently than you would have. So you take it back and do it yourself. You are now the bottleneck in every project.

This is a Working Genius awareness problem. You are probably Wonder and Invention or Discernment and Galvanising. You approach work from your geniuses. The person you delegated to has different geniuses. They approached the work from theirs. Neither of you is wrong. You are just working from different types.

What is happening:

You delegate a task that requires Wonder. The person you delegate to has Tenacity as a genius. They execute on the brief without questioning the brief. You wanted them to rethink the brief.

You delegate a task that requires Discernment. The person has Invention as a genius. They come back with three new ideas. You wanted them to evaluate the existing idea.

You expect people to work the way you work. They do not. You take the work back.

The fix: Name the type of work when you delegate. Do not just say handle this proposal. Say I need you to evaluate this proposal and tell me if we are missing something. That is Discernment work. Or say I need you to take this proposal and figure out how we actually deliver it. That is Enablement work.

When you name the Working Genius type required, the person knows how to approach the task. They are not guessing what you want. They know whether you want them to explore, evaluate, activate, support, or finish. The work comes back aligned because you were clear about the type of work, not just the task.

If you are a founder who struggles to delegate, the problem is not your team. The problem is you are not naming the type of work you need done.

24. THE STRATEGIC OFFSITE THAT PRODUCES NO CHANGE

You take the team offsite for strategy. You spend two days working on vision, priorities, and alignment. The offsite feels productive. Everyone leaves energised. Three months later, nothing has changed. The team is doing the exact same work they were doing before the offsite.

This is an activation gap. The offsite was all Wonder, Invention, and maybe Discernment. You explored, you brainstormed, you evaluated. But nobody Galvanised the ideas into a plan with owners and deadlines. Nobody built the Enablement structure to support execution. Nobody assigned the Tenacity work required to finish.

What happens in these offsites:

Day one is ideation. The team explores big questions, generates ideas, debates options. It feels generative.

Day two is more ideation. Maybe some evaluation. By the end of the day, the team has a list of priorities and a loose plan.

The offsite ends. Everyone goes back to work. Nobody owns the follow-through. The list sits in a deck.

Ninety days later, leadership asks what happened to the offsite priorities. Nobody has a good answer.

The failure is not the offsite. The failure is what did not happen in the 48 hours after the offsite. Nobody Galvanised the decisions into activated projects. Nobody Enabled the team with resources and structure. Nobody assigned Tenacity work to finish the initiatives.

The fix: End every offsite with a Galvanising session. Before people leave, assign owners, set deadlines, and define the first action for every priority. Then within one week, have someone with Enablement as a genius build the support structure. Create the Slack channel, set the recurring check-in, assign the resources.

If you do not activate and enable in the first week, the offsite ideas die. If your offsites produce no change, you are missing the activation and implementation phases.

25. USING WORKING GENIUS TO BUILD YOUR STARTUP ROADMAP

Most startup roadmaps are built around features or milestones. A Working Genius roadmap is built around the types of work required in each phase. The ideation phase requires Wonder and Invention. The decision phase requires Discernment and Galvanising. The build phase requires Enablement and Tenacity. If your team does not have the geniuses required for the current phase, the roadmap stalls.

This is why some startups move fast in ideation and die in execution. The founding team is stacked with Wonder and Invention. They can generate and explore all day. But when the roadmap shifts to building and finishing, nobody on the team has the genius for that work.

How to build a Working Genius roadmap:

Map each phase of the roadmap to the Working Genius types it requires. Q1 is ideation-heavy, so it needs Wonder and Invention. Q2 is decision and activation, so it needs Discernment and Galvanising. Q3 is build and ship, so it needs Enablement and Tenacity.

Audit your team against the roadmap. Do you have the geniuses required for each phase? If Q3 requires Enablement and Tenacity and nobody on your team has those geniuses, Q3 will fail.

Hire or contract for the missing geniuses before you enter the phase. Do not wait until you are in Q3 and stalled to realise you need Tenacity. Hire for it in Q2.

Sequence the roadmap to match your team's geniuses. If your team is Discernment and Galvanising heavy, put decision-intensive work early. If your team is Enablement and Tenacity heavy, put build-intensive work early.

What this changes: Your roadmap stops being aspirational and starts being realistic. You build around your team's actual capacity, not your ideal timeline. You hire for gaps before the gaps break the plan. You sequence work in a way that uses your team's strengths instead of exposing their weaknesses.

If your roadmap consistently slips, map it against Working Genius. You will see exactly where your team does not have the genius to execute what you planned.

Your startup does not fail because your team lacks talent. It fails because talented people are doing work that does not match their Working Genius. The framework gives you the language to see the mismatch and the tools to fix it before the friction becomes a crisis.

Your next step is simple. Take the Working Genius assessment with your founding team. Map your geniuses. Look at where you are stacked and where you have gaps. Then hire, delegate, and build your roadmap around the types of work your team actually thrives in. If you need help mapping your team or diagnosing where the friction is coming from, reach out at jonno@consultclarity.org.

Working Genius is not the whole story. But it is the clearest lens for understanding why smart startup teams still struggle to execute together.