302: Build a Genius Team with Steven Wilson

Steven Wilson, CEO of Parallel 42 Coaching & Consulting, Certified Working Genius Facilitator, and Six Sigma Black Belt, helps leaders unlock potential by applying Patrick Lencioni’s Working Genius Framework to transform teams and organizations. His mission is to guide people and businesses to be better at who they are, what they do, and how they serve others.

We explore Steven’s journey from Lean Six Sigma process expert to leadership coach and how the Working Genius Framework helps individuals identify whether they’re in the right seat, boosts productivity by focusing 80% on natural strengths and 20% on personality, and increases team collaboration. Steven explains how the six types of genius align with the phases of any project and how leaders can recognize where people are most engaged to build resilient, high-performing teams.He also shares why organizational “health” often matters more than “smarts,” how hungry, humble, and smart behaviors strengthen culture, and how servant leadership creates accountability, trust, and long-term success.

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Build a Genius Team with Steven Wilson

Good day, dear listeners. It’s Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Steven Wilson, a Certified Working Genius Facilitator, a Six Sigma Black Belt, and the CEO of Parallel 42 Coaching and Consulting. Steven, I hope I didn’t butcher this. Welcome to the show.

No, not at all. I appreciate the opportunity, Steve. Good to be on.

Okay, I had to focus on the Parallel 42 because I know another company called Parallel37 here in Richmond, Virginia. And yeah, I just didn’t want to confuse. But anyhow, exciting to have you here and I’m excited about your “Why,” to hear your “Why” and how you manifested it in your coaching practice.

Yeah, well, again, appreciate the opportunity and my “Why” really comes from, and I really, I think I discovered this even more so in working with Patrick Lencioni and some of his programs. The “Why” is I really enjoy helping individuals or helping organizations. One of my downfalls, we can always talk about how strengths can become weaknesses. There’s a bright side and a dark side to our strengths. And so, when I happen to hear somebody say, hey, I’d like to do X, I’m generally all in and I’m asking, how can I help? And so that’s really the foundation or the basis behind why I wanted to begin and do what I do is looking for opportunities. How can I help individuals become better at who they are, what they do, and how can I do the same thing within organizations?

Yeah, that’s great. Organizations are made up of people and when you help organizations, you help people and then organizations also serve other people, so there’s the multiplier effect. That’s exciting. And I’m excited about you being a kind of a Patrick Lencioni expert because I love Patrick Lencioni’s stuff as well. I think he’s got really good insight in the human element and the human dynamic in companies. So let’s talk a little bit about that. So how did you get to choose Patrick Lencioni’s portfolio of products and tools to work with?

Yeah, and I’ve always been a fan of Lencioni and his work. And for those of you that might be familiar, and those that are truly experts of Patrick Lencioni, you may challenge my expert status, but so I appreciate that, Steve. But what I found about them is that they are so down to earth. Their advice. Because there’s many things that are not new under the sun. And Lencioni has taken these concepts and these ideas and all of these things and his practice as an organizational and an industry leader. And he dials into the people. He dials into the people side of things because I think, again, he looks at it from a, yes, a technical, a very high level, but then he’s able to communicate these things in a very applicable way.  And that’s why Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Ideal Team Player, Working Genius, all of those things resonate with me so much.

Because even in my work with Lean Six Sigma,

I like to focus on the people side of change, the people side of improvement.
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Matter of fact, just on LinkedIn today, I saw somebody had made a post that one of their leaders early on after college said, hey, yes, the technical skill set is critical, but you can’t lose sight of the people. And that’s the reality because technical things can be taught. People things, we really have to work with those individuals. And if we’ve got the right people, wow, we can do amazing things. And so I like to work with individuals that recognize their need for change, their need for development, and just help them along that journey. And when we talk about Parallel 42, the name of it comes from, I’m from Iowa, many know it as a flyover state. It confused us with Ohio and Idaho, but we’re right on the parallel, 42 is where we’re located. But then also parallel in the sense that we come alongside, we’re gonna work alongside and walk alongside with our individuals and the organizations. And then we also have parallel paths where I work with profit, nonprofit, faith-based organizations as well. And so in parallel and in working with those organizations, but the emphasis is people.

Yeah. And people are really important. I mean, this is all what companies are. They are a group of people committed to a cause, and if you get them to be invested, not just mentally and technically, but emotionally into your cause and work for your company, and you can bring the best out of them, then you’re gonna go a long way. And one of the things I like that Lencioni talks about is this distinction between healthy and smart. So, most companies who are in business for any length of time, they’re smart enough. They’re 80% smart, 90%. You can tweak the dial a little bit, but the healthy, there’s so much upside for most companies to create a more cohesive team and the more healthy, drama-free team that care about the purpose of the company. There’s a huge opportunity there.

Right, because when drama increases, productivity goes down, accountability goes down. And so the more things that you can do to eliminate that drama, reduce it at least, the better off the organization is as a whole.

Absolutely, absolutely. So let’s talk about Working Genius. This is a book that Lencioni came out with probably two or three years ago, and it turned into a program, and a lot of coaches teach it. I also have taught it to my clients, but I don’t profess, I’m not certified. I don’t want to say it loudly because my clients might listen to this, but I didn’t do a stellar job on it. I think the product was so good that it was easy to do an adequate job.

Yes.

So tell me a little bit about, and our audience, about the Working Genius framework and what it does.

Yeah. So I love tying in Working Genius with some of other, Lencioni’s other works that we talked about, The Ideal Team Player, we’re looking at then also Five Dysfunctions of a Team. And

I think what really kind of transpires here is The Ideal Team Player speaks to having the right people.
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As you mentioned, hungry, humble, and smart. So Ideal Team Player focuses on that component, having the right people. Working Genius helps us identify that right seat piece. Right people, right seat, and then Five Dysfunctions of a Team, that’s all about right behaviors. And so what I do is I’ll do this trifecta where I’ll include all three of those disciplines in working with individuals and organizations, but specifically, Working Genius is one that I have most recently been working with and working with organizations. And Working Genius came out of, as many times things come out of, frustration of Patrick himself.

Why do I feel frustrated at the end of my day? What is it that I do? And why am I frustrating others with what I do? And all of these things there. So Working Genius, the framework, and we talk about it, there’s many different assessment types. There’s Myers-Briggs, DISC. I always like to say, Myers-Briggs, Briggs and Stratton, Braxton Hicks, the mothers in the crowd generally get that joke there. But what’s different about Working Genius is that it’s 80% productivity, 20% personality. So it focuses on how we work and how we work together and how we work best. So if we can dial into the strength and the power of Working Genius and the assessment and the results and get a full understanding of it, we’re going to become a more productive organization. And so Working Genius, it stems from that there are six geniuses and they go Wonder, and it spells out WIDGET if you need it to write something down there, but Wonder, Invention, Discernment, Galvanize, Enablement, and Tenacity. So those are the six. So the framework work