Do this, and you'll be a genius.
What does it feel like to write a song like James Taylor? Walk on a basketball court as LeBron James? Solve a math problem like Einstein? Write a musical like Lin-Manuel Miranda? Or author a newsletter like...
You can know exactly how it feels.
Gay Hendricks, the author of The Big Leap, created a framework to help us discover our genius and write our own version of Hamilton.
In his framework, there are Four Zones of Function that give us a peek into why some work burns us out, and other work delivers us from it:
Zone of Incompetence
The first years of a business feel impossible because you're incompetent. Sorry, because entrepreneurship forces you to do tasks that exist in your zone of incompetence. You're super smart. In this zone, you're doing work that doesn't align with your gifts. A nice way of saying, not even your mom would tell you you're good at them. When I got married, I gave my wife a long list of tasks in this zone: doing dishes, cleaning, putting a towel on a hook, not putting clothes on the random chair in our room, and not leaving every cabinet open. After ten years of marriage, she's come to agree those are areas of incompetence for me.
You're drained by tasks in this zone. If you're doing work here, create a plan to stop. If you're paying someone to do work in their zone of incompetence, you're paying the wrong person.
2. Zone of Competence
The tasks in this zone are summed up as, "I can do it, but I probably shouldn't be." Or "Once I can pay someone to do this, I will." In your zone of competence, you can do the tasks, maybe even do them well, but you and your business will thrive when you aren't the one doing them.
3. Zone of Excellence
When people find themselves tugged by the tension of "I'm really good at it" and "I can get paid lots to do it, but I don't know that it's what I was created to do," they're in their zone of excellence. In the ZoE, you're doing work you are good at. The natural skills were there, but you have practiced and honed your craft into work you are proud of, or perhaps excellent at that's helping you make the big bucks 😉. Careers are made in this zone, but souls are lost.
4. Zone of Genius
This is "get to" work, not "have to" work. Like a flow state, where time flies, and you snap out of your focus to realize three days have passed, the Zone of Genius is when you feel like a star, and the stars have aligned. Everyone is creative; it's the arena where each of us expresses our creativity that is unique. In this zone, your creativity comes alive, and humanity is counting on you to spend as much time as possible in it. Passion follows gifts, and your zone of genius is where your passion and gifts combine to create meaningful work.
How do we get the most out of this framework for ourselves and our business?
Write out your zones: What activities in your life live in each zone?
Audit your calendar: The first thing I do when coaching CEOs is auditing their calendar. If they're feeling burnt out, odds are they aren't spending enough time in the right zones, or their employees aren't spending time in the right zones, leaving them to compensate.
Outsource the incompetence: If there is a zone of genius for everyone, it means we can outsource our incompetence to them and see the positive outcome of that delegation.
Audit your org chart: How much time are your employees spending in their zone of genius? Ask your team to be transparent about what their zone is, and map their responsibilities to it. Let them spend as much time there as possible; you'll be the beneficiary.
Find your Drews: But who will do the boring tasks if we're all working in our zone of genius? For every activity that feels 'blah' to you, there is someone out there who can't believe they get paid to do it. Let me tell you about my best friend Drew. He's an incredibly unboring person who loves what I think is boring. His zone of genius sits within data and analytics, nestled cozily in my zone of incompetence. He's the best kind of team member.
Hire for their genius: Know an employee's zone of genius before you hire them. That 'ick' feeling you have when you hire someone to do the wrong job is most likely because you hired someone who could do the job (zone of competence), but wasn't created to do it.
Allow space for creativity: In an interview with Forbes Gay Hendricks shared the value of starting with 10 minutes of space for it per day:
"As with any other kind of lasting, meaningful change, commitment is the gateway to the zone of genius. When I work with busy executives, I start by asking them to make a commitment to block out just ten minutes a day in their calendars to devote to cultivating their genius. The ten minutes can involve journaling, meditating or any number of other activities, just as long as you are focusing on your genius for ten uninterrupted minutes. After you have gotten your ten minutes a day you’re your routine, then bump it up to fifteen minutes. Ultimately I want to see people I work with spending 90% of their time in their zone of genius, but you’ve got to start somewhere.
I just reread the headline, and it should have said, "Do this, and you'll be in your zone of genius," but who's to say you won't end up a genius if you spend more time in it?
