Our Recommended Professional and Self-Assessments

Alex 
Hello and welcome back to Season Two of Uncover The Human. I can't believe we have already had a full season under our belts. This is kind of crazy!

Cristina 
It is crazy. I still remember we were doing the first episode that I forgot to record, so then we had to do it again.

Alex 
I kind of wish we'd had video recordings at that time because I was in my closet, I believe, trying to dampen some sound because I did not have a good microphone at that point. If only that background was visible.

Cristina 
Yeah, I've done a few from the kids rooms sitting on the floor because they were smaller rooms. Probably tried a couple of closets. The evolution of podcasting! 

Alex 
It has been wild. I'm glad that A) they have some better microphones that are more easily accessible and B) we've kind of been on this journey for long enough, it feels a little more standard, because we've met a ton of awesome people through this, which we tried to go through within last season too, just if you want to recap on our guests, but that was really quite interesting. But super fun.

Cristina 
Yeah, I've got a whole setup now. I've got lights all over the place. Yeah, these lights, they're pretty cheap for like $30 on Amazon, and they don't create weird shadows and things.

Alex 
I need to do that, because currently, as is actually happening right now, it's very weather dependent. And that cloud is gonna change my face entirely.

Cristina 
Indeed. So we're going to talk about assessments because we love assessments. Doesn't everybody?

Alex 
I think anybody who likes, you know, self-discovery has done a lot of assessments. So we've been through, I think the wringer at this point. We've even come up with a couple of assessments that we'll be releasing here. We have all of our own opinions at this point on good assessments and different ones we've taken. So, we thought we'd share some of our favorites, as well as some of our results and how we apply those, and kind of go in the spirit of looking back and changing what we want to do going forward. So good time to look at assessments.

Cristina 
It is very refreshing to do assessments and to read the results. And also that continuous learning piece--I can understand a little bit more about myself and how others may see me, and I can make the necessary adjustments.

Alex 
Yeah. There's three main ones we can talk about today. We can talk about the Working Genius one, which is a productivity assessment. There's the Standout Assessment, which is a little bit more about your character strengths. And the other one that we can talk about a little bit because it's got good actionable stuff, and it is the Genesis Emotional Intelligence Assessment. They're all pretty fun ones. We won't go through too many of our specific results on the emotional intelligence one, that one is changing over time. But the other two, you have very discreet and easy to talk about results. And those are some of our favorites that haven't gone through many at this point.

Cristina 
Yes, yes. Yeah, I've gone through the via character, one, which you and I both got an email, asking us to take it again after the pandemic, to see if our results have changed, which will be interesting to do. I've done Clifton Strengths, I have done Enneagram, but I still don't remember what my Enneagram number is.

Alex 
I can't figure out Enneagram for life, I tell you. It was like this is your result, and it's got two wings on it, and I have no idea.

Cristina 
Yep, that's pretty much how I felt about the Enneagram, and I know a lot of people really value it and work with it. It was definitely more obscure for me to understand, and I found that I resonated with a lot of the definitions before I knew what my results were. Then when I got my results. I was like, "Huh, okay, and what about everything else?"

Alex 
Yeah.

Cristina 
So that was an interesting one. And I did DISC a long time ago. Can't remember my results there either. And I know most people know their Myers-Briggs four letters better than they do their blood type. I'm not one of those people! I do not remember Myers-Briggs. I think there was an I? That's basically it. I don't even remember what the other ones are supposed to stand for.

Alex 
Yeah, I did this one recently again, but it was the same result as before. Myers-Briggs is a super interesting one. If anybody hasn't taken it, it's more about personality. They call it the 16 personality tests as well, because there's 16 versions of these. There's four letters, two different I guess answers  or ends of a spectrum on each of them. And so 16 possibilities and they added, I think, a fifth one now for like turbulent versus assertive, and it's it's a whole thing. But that was super interesting for, I think, personal knowledge because it does... When I was reading it, I was like, "Man, that pretty much fits. That's uh, it's pretty accurate." So that one's a good one, if you want to do some self discovery, as far as personalities go. These other ones we're talking about are a little bit more around strengths. And there's different ways you apply yourself and how you work. 

Cristina 
Yeah, and how others work with you and understand how you can best fit in a job, in a role, and a team in a company. And understanding really, "Like why is my energy getting drained in these situations and not in other situations?" And so how do you, in this great resignation, great awakening, whatever you want to call it period, and a lot of people are looking into finding purpose at work and not titles, positions and career ladders as much or at all. Apparently, understanding what kind of seat on the right bus is the one for you. They definitely help a lot.

Alex 
Yeah, so I think we should go personal to more macro. So I would say maybe just talking about The Standout first then go through Working Genius since that's more full relational.

Cristina 
Yes, sounds good.

Alex 
Awesome. So this Standout Reports! I don't have as much background on this, I just remember going through the results. Do you know much about The Standout or where this comes from? 

Cristina 
So it is from Marcus Buckingham and the ADP research group. And it basically comes up with nine strength roles. That's how you get right really. The nine ones are Teacher, Creator, Stimulator, Provider, Connector, Influencer, Equalizer, Pioneer and Advisor. And the assessment itself, like other assessments, is only 10 to 15 minutes. And you can't really predict which one you're going to fit into, until after you get your results. And then it gives you your top two results. The interesting part that I remember doing this is that it doesn't just tell you like the headline. So for example, I'm a Teacher/Creator, but it explains what their definition is, and what you can learn from it. So my teacher, one, for example, is very much around asking, myself and others, "What else is happening here? How can I help you? How can I help myself improve things?" And it's also kind of about, "What can you learn from situations? How can they become better?" And just figuring out, "What's known, what's not known? How do people learn best? And also that piece of actually helping others learn and understanding that everybody learns differently. So it's a little more broad than just saying, "Okay, Cristina, now go get your teaching degree and teach fourth grade." 

Alex 
Yes, it's teaching in the much more broad sense, which we all do at some point. It's just whether or not you kind of get that excitement from it. There's that teaching that we all do just guiding people through either, you know, learning a new job or learning as we train replacements, train other people to take over tasks we've started or processes we created. There's a lot of that teaching role that really, just, like I want to connect, I want to make sure that you understand that this applies to you, and that it makes sense to you. Yeah, that's one of the great parts about the StandOut Exam. It talks about how you operate when you're at your best and your two top roles, and some more about the roles that you're fitting in life and the two that really come out most strongly that you feel most connected to. And I agree with you Cristina, I think it's way harder to guide towards an answer while you're going through this survey. One, because it's hard to know exactly what they mean just by the word Connector or Teacher or Advisor. It's not easy to know everything that goes into that. And when I say Influencer, this was made in the era before Instagram influencers. So that was a little different at the time, but it's harder to guide your answers to it. So it kind of gives you a much better snapshot of,  "Hey, this is how you kind of show up and this is where you feel best." I think all of these really you can work backwards from your personal values, if you kind of go through some of the exercises that we had gone through at the end of the last season. They come into play here pretty well, like mine are Pioneer and Provider and so there's a lot of like, caring about other people and making sure that people feel supported in that, while looking for the things that are new, looking for how things work, and trying to push forward into like... basically the areas I feel strongest are places that involve curiosity and learning and doing something there. So the Pioneer part comes out and the Provider part comes out, and you can feel a pretty direct tie between the personal values that you find out and the roles that you fit with the StandOut roles.

Cristina 
Yeah, I like the tie into values that you just made because, especially when I read my report through those lenses, now, I can see that very clearly. You know, what my top value is his community and connections with people. And I read the first page of the StandOut report, which is when I am at my most powerful first sentence is, "Peoples' performance improves, when you're around, this is your greatest gift. Instinctively, people know that you care about them, and that your caring is genuine. You don't give up on people, you are intrigued by the process of helping them out. So clearly, connecting with people is important for me!

Alex 
Yeah. It's cool to see these things come through. And that's I think, when you do the values exercises, I did it in reverse order. I did this first. And I did values exercises a little bit later, probably a couple years later, first on the StandOut. And it's kind of interesting to see the through line, even after years, because these are some parts that tend to be more core for us that, you know, these roles really do fill us with some kind of energy that we like to engage in. And so it's interesting to see these patterns come up over and over again, and when we talk about doing a number of assessments, you start to see some patterns in them in general. Except the Enneagram, which still makes no sense.

Cristina 
I'm sure we could probably go back and find patterns in that one now that we're clear on our values.

Alex 
The Enneagram felt more like a horoscope where like, "Well, yeah, I can fit into any of these nine buckets!"

Cristina 
But one of the beauties of the Enneagram, which I know it's part of self-development, I think they put a huge emphasis on the negativity of your personality, and how you show up. So it takes a lot of courage to even just read the report. Because you have to kind of reckon with like, "Oh, yeah, that's me. At my worst. And how often do I do that?"

Alex 
That is actually an interesting point that brings us to the ELI assessment. We've talked about the Energy Leadership Index, which is more a point in time, very much variable at the time, but that one talks a lot about how you're showing up when you're at your best and what happens when you're less optimal feelings. So I think it's a good tie in, and it is a lot harder when the report and the Enneagram definitely focuses a little more on, "Hey, here's your weaknesses!" and you're like, "Okay, yes, I feel it. And that's painful." Which, to be fair, I do this, I think, with StandOut, too. They talk a little bit about what things to watch out for. Like, for me, I like doing things that are new and ambiguous, which also tends to have the drawback of not always completing things, or wanting to move on to the next thing beforehand. Overly quickly, I guess would be a nice way of describing it. And committing to way too much--and all these things that you're like, "Okay, well, yep, there it is. Those are the obstacles I've tripped over or stubbed my toes on many times throughout life up to this point." 

Cristina 
Yeah, definitely. My second one is Creator in the StandOut. I remember one of the things that communicated to my husband, so that he could understand me better, was the fact that as a Creator--and the Creator in StandOut, it's not just the person that creates out of nothing, it's more the person that needs to understand how things have come to be who they are. So they need a lot of background, need to break things down, need to understand the tiny little pieces or the connectors, the concepts, everything. Which also means, and they say, if you have a Creator on your team, don't just throw a question at them on something they don't know anything about, because they won't be able to answer. They will feel stuck because they have to understand the background first. And that's very much me.

Alex 
And that ties in really well with what we'll talk about with the Working Genius one, as well. That one has a lot to do with the kind of stages of work and how/what we need to operate best. And it's worth noting for all of these, that they are great examples of strengths and some things to look out for. But I think we all know, having just experienced life long enough, we all have to do pieces of all of these roles, no matter what. It's just about knowing one's worth. That really speaks to us at a deeper level and we can interact a little better, we can interact as people better when we're in roles that guide towards these. Which allows us to make decisions like, "Hey, what kind of job would I like? How do I really want to work?" Because we've talked about this a few times: you can have the same job title, but you can approach it entirely differently.

Cristina 
Yeah, and recently, you actually pointed out the difference between a Software Developer and a Software Engineer.

Alex 
Yes. Comes from personal experience. I've worked in the technology space for a long time, and I studied things like theoretical math in college. I've done stand up comedy and acting and all kinds of stuff that eventually kind of bled into some technology careers, not directly, obviously, since that is hard to tie. But I became more of a software developer, because I just enjoyed what you could do with technology. Like experimenting with tools. And software development is a lot more of that, like, in my opinion, is a lot more that the developers are the ones who like the technology piece, and we're working with what can work or what's possible. And then the software engineering portion is much more concerned with it, "Let's really buckle down and figure out what the right deficiencies are, making sure we have everything as tight as possible. And kind of looking for all the edge cases, which again, as we were just talking about, this plays in well to the StandOut results. Like the Pioneer portion of this is charting ahead and seeing what's new, what could happen, you know, getting very curious about and not really caring if not everything is known at the time. And so that feels more like software development, and doesn't mean that software engineers don't also do the developer portion of things, or vice versa. I've had to do lots of, "Let's go back and make sure we have all the right performance pieces in place, and we're doing what we need to do." It's just about where you kind of initially react from. 

Cristina 
Well, it's a good distinction, because from the outside world of technology, I wouldn't necessarily know what the difference is between a software developer and a software engineer. I mean, I've always thought it was just preference on title, from above. 

Alex 
And that's definitely how it used to be. Because not a lot of people would necessarily make that separation. And if the throw out a software developer job, you'll get just as many people from a software engineering background, by the definition that I've just put forward. Yeah, you'll have people come from either one of those angles. But that is the feeling that I get more on the when I interact with people, there are some people that split more towards, "I just want to break out and try new things and build as much as possible as quickly as possible," versus the like, "Hey, this really made sure this works, works well is really nicely put together. It's very elegant, very efficient, very robust." There's  kind of an end of the spectrum of how the problem is approached. 

Cristina 
And it's important, both for a team perspective and a company perspective, to understand the two, and who stands on which one. Because they're going to interact very differently, they're going to produce very differently, they're going to be at their best in very different situations.

Alex 
Yeah. And you get the chance to apply them at the right time, right? And this is some of the great parts about it. And that's why StandOut is fun. It's good to know about yourself, but this actually ties us really well into the next one we want to talk about, which is the Working Genius one, which is more about where in the process of work do you fit? And where do you most get the excitement out of, because when you can know that about yourself and your team, it's easier to understand, fill in the gaps and put people where they will most excell, and get better solutions and better projects based on where they are in the overall workflow. Maybe it's time to move towards working genius.

Cristina 
I think it is. The Working Genius was a fun one. Because when I first did it, first of all, it took me a long time to actually take it. You kept recommending it to me and I'm like, "Yeah, whatever." And then I can't remember why I did but I finally did. And I found it extremely interesting, very discerning, and we'll get to the discernment piece in a bit. And I understood it much more once I started listening to the podcast they did on the Working Genius. So the working genius team is actually the table group team from Patrick Lencioni's company. And they created a whole podcast where they break it down and they explain what each of the results mean. Which of the each of the six geniuses would they mean. How to understand, and how to read them, how to work with those people. And the best part that I like about this is: how do you put a team together once you understand where everybody fits? Because, if you have a team full of inventors, well, nobody's gonna get anything done. You're just gonna get a lot of inventions.

 Alex 
That's exactly it. That's kind of the power of this one. This one is not as much on personality or on your specific strengths necessarily, individually. It's more about how you fit into the whole process, which is kind of the exciting part of it. I remember I did recommend this many times and you resisted, and then you got to it like, "I think that's wrong!" And then you hit the podcast like, "Nope, nope, this was dead on." 

Cristina 
Yeah, yeah. I thought it was completely wrong. I'm like, "No, those are not my geniuses. They didn't get it right." Then I got onto the podcast and I'm like, "Yep, those are exactly right." 

Alex 
They break it down into the idea of work, and the idea of a project or something coming out of initiative, into basically six stages. And you can kind of remember it with their acronym that they use, which is WIDGET. So there's their six geniuses, six letters there: you've got the genius of Wonder, which is where you kind of think about, "maybe there's a new way of doing things, you know, maybe there's an opportunity here for something." And then there's the genius of Invention, which is more about, "Hey, here's a potential solution, I'm just gonna throw it out there. Maybe you've questioned whether there could be something in the Wonder phase or you've questioned whether there's something available there, and the Invention phase, it's, "Hey, here's something we can try!" And there's excitement in the creating, like, maybe this would work, maybe this didn't work. And then there's the genius of Discernment, which is the ability to take all the ideas and decide which ones are good and bad. The enjoyment for people who are good at Discernment is much more in, "Hey, yeah, I implicitly understand. I think this will work, I think this will not work. Here's the things that I would change about it." They're good at taking and honing ideas to make sure we're on a good path rather than if you leave it up to inventors and wonders, it could be just about anything. And  that's the fun part. So we're through WID, we'll get to the Galvanizing portion of this. That's where you bring other people in, you say, "Hey, this is the idea. We think it's the right idea. We need support, we need people to be excited about this." And those people get really excited about going out, winning the support of the crowd and getting people on board with this idea. Which brings us into Enablement. So, if you've got those people on board, it's getting people the support, they need to get that done. The genius of Enablement is not you know, like the negative enabling sense, it's in the kind of coaching/supporting role, where you really plug in and make sure people have what they need. So they can really deliver on this idea. And that brings us to the final stage, which is the genius of Tenacity, which is just nuts and bolts, getting all the details right and finishing the project out. So you start from this whole, you know, very abstract concept of maybe there's an opportunity here all the way to now let's see it to his delivery as you go through these six stages. 

Cristina 
The other thing that I really liked about the assessment is that it then breaks those down in three categories. So you've got your two working geniuses. So this is what energizes you, what you're good at, and you get energized when you do that. And for me, they are Discernment and Enablement, which again, when this first came out, I'm like, "Nope, totally wrong. I am in the Inventor and in the Wonderer piece." Until I realized what the definition was, and I'm definitely in Discernment and Enablement because while I do like to create things, I come from, well, the Creator definition of StandOut which is, "I need to understand where all the pieces are to then Discern what's going to work, what doesn't work, what's missing, what are the connective tissues, what do we need to do from now?" And then the Enablement piece is very much encouraging others and providing assistance for projects and ideas because it's like, "Okay, now that we have a plan, let's get the team together to make the plan happen." And then you've got the working competencies, which are things that I am good at, but will drain me if I had to do a lot of. And for me, those are the Galvanizing and the Wonder, which was surprising.

Alex 
The competencies or the frustrations?

Cristina 
No, those are, for me, the competencies: Galvanizing and Wonder. So again, like I can cheerlead and get people on board but if I do it a lot, I get very tired. And the Wondering I also get tired of which is... I'm capable of pondering possibilities and looking at potential opportunities, but that's just not enough. It's draining. The frustration ones, or the working frustrations are the ones that, while I'll have to do that in life and I can't get away from, that's just soul sucking.

Alex 
That definitely speaks to the energy level. Right? It's second you get the frustration. That's where it's draining. 

Cristina 
Yes, yes. And the tough part, which also came out from the same part of the podcast was that Tenacity for me is one of my working frustrations. So, actually getting things done from incomplete, from beginning to end. And I know that for a fact. This is not the first time this has come up in assessments, and in life. It's just that, like if I just have to put my head down and just do without any of the other things, I will just... it's soul sucking. And it's tough as a mother, because there's a lot of tenacity in my daily life all the time.

Alex 
Yes. Yeah, tenacity ends up being important in a lot of anything, really, I mean, you just have to get some things done. Which, I'll go through some of mine as well, because the interesting part is how this starts to mix as a team. So when it comes to my two areas of genius, the first one is invention, which makes sense, I just really enjoy creating. We talked about, like being a software developer versus an engineer, and also just the Curiosity/Pioneer version. It's just super interesting to consider what could happen. What's a possible solution here, to what's possible there, and, "Hey, we could spin this out to a whole different software product." And I think Cristina probably is flashing back to many times where I've said all of those things when she shouted out a random thought. The second one is Wonder. So I really, really heavily lean on the first end of the spectrum here, just thinking about it. What could be? What is? What if? and where I understand that to be a frustration for Cristina, and for other people, I could probably sit in a wonder phase most of the day and be perfectly happy. Which becomes a problem over time. This is another great example of like, "Hey, you have to do all six of these things. Nobody can get away from them. It's just about knowing what/where you best plug in." But then I guess, working competencies, which interestingly, are both of your working geniuses: Discernment/Enablement. So we have pretty good coverage on those two, but that then also falls into the working frustrations, which are Galvanizing and Tenacity. It's the actual getting things done. It's a miracle we've anything, and have a podcast that has a second season here.

Cristina  

It is, I'm not really sure how that's happening, because neither of us are really tenacious people.

Alex 
We thankfully have known a lot of people who are excellent at it, and we definitely will  deliver for deadlines. It's just not always the fun part, I think. But we also have a good system of accountability between the two of us. And this really does point out like, you kind of need to balance on the team. We have each other, we're co founders, and we need to bring other people in when we need to push through some of the larger things.

Cristina 
Yes, we definitely need some Galvanizing and Tenacity, since Tenacity is in both frustrations, so that's just... there's no hope for that one! And the Galvanizing... It's, you know, I have it in my competencies, but it's going to be draining if I do it all the time. And I do feel that. I do feel that. Because, if I look at social media, for example. I love being on social media, well some of it, I love being on LinkedIn and some Instagram. But I love the interaction and the connections I make with people on social media. I like the Discernment and Enablement in social media. Having to constantly Galvanize, for our business... It's draining. It's draining to do all the time.

Alex 
Yeah, and that's a great example. Because this is how it applies, you know, in various aspects of a business, of a career, enough life, too. Like you're talking about how you talked to Jeff about being a Creator and needing to break things down because that is how you understand things. It's how you can move forward with things best. This  is another good report, even though it is a productivity report, it is generally geared towards how work happens. But it's really helpful to know when you think about a household as well. What the things that we need right now? What are the things we both excel at? And the interesting part is, that for me anyway when I was going through this, is that it felt real enough... like I understand the frustration of tenacity for me. I understand that that is something that I struggle with continuing to get back on the grindstone to make sure things complete and finish every detail of. And the interesting part is when you see it as a frustration, you understand it as a frustration. And then I get that reinforced because I know that's a frustration for you as well. It becomes, in my mind, it becomes the feeling of like, "Does anybody like tenacity? Does anybody do this?" And I have since met people taking the assessment and they do. That's what they enjoy. And I'm so so grateful.

Cristina 
It's true. That's why it's so important to know this in a team. You know, if we go back to, again, the great resignation, the great awakening, the great adaptation, the great... whatever is happening right now. The great humanization, I was going to call it if I had to pick a name, of the work place right now. When we have a team, we do have everybody take this because if we're forcing people to constantly work in their competency and frustration areas, well, you might as well sign their leave paper when you sign your acceptance letter, because you're going to get there. And right now, they're not tolerating it, people are leaving. 

Alex 
And another interesting thing too, is that you have the chance then to realize that maybe this person... it's so easy to see somebody who didn't do the task that you asked, or doesn't seem engaged, and be frustrated with them. You'd think that they must be lazy, they are not going to be finishing what they said they would be, or what they should be doing, or whatever we come up with very quickly in our minds of like writing off this person and saying, "They're not they're not pulling their weight around. I can't believe they wouldn't do this." This gives you a glimpse into, "What if that's just not the type of work that's going to do well for them?" And I'm gonna go back to the idea of being like software developers and engineers. And that's just a donation that I made. You could have any two software developers and they could be totally different ends of the spectrum. Maybe one would be a great person to have on R&D for a new project, one's a great person to have on QA and making sure everything is still solid, and really well designed, and fits well with the rest of the system. Maybe that's where they excel, and maybe the other person excels at something brand new--totally same title, totally same responsibilities, theoretically, on paper, by job description. Totally different approaches. 

Cristina 
Yeah, another big advantage, I think, for teams and projects is when you're thinking about the composition of a teamwork project. Instead of staffing projects based on bandwidth, and whatever other arbitrary non-human decisions are made behind staffing projects... staff them based on the fact that you are going to need all six of the Working Geniuses on a team, or at least, you know, the majority. You're going to have to make sure you don't have any one that's missing. Especially if it's a significant project. And so, use the Working Genius, have everybody take it, which is not going to change all that much. It's not something you have to take before every single project. And so everybody takes it and really uses it! Start from there, start from the human side. When we talk about humanizing the workplace and having a human perspective and a human-centered workplace, this is one of the things that we apply. Which is: what's the human perspective of staffing a project? And bandwidth, or budget, or I don't know what other third random thing it is that is used... it's not humanizing. You're not considering the humans, you're considering the Excel spreadsheet. Get away from the Excel spreadsheet, put the Working Genius in an Excel spreadsheet, if it makes you feel better, but look at the humans and realize that, "Hey, if this is a project, where we're creating something new!" and you don't have a single person that has a Working Genius in Invention, you're going to have a problem. 

Alex 
And it's also a great idea for teams to know how each other interacts, right? Because then if you know, just based on, you know, based on timelines, budgets, deadlines, just who was currently available. If you know that you're going to have a gap, it's so much easier to acknowledge that upfront and have everybody kind of chip in on the area that they know that they're not going to necessarily enjoy or relate well to, and just acknowledge it upfront. It's, you know, classic change management. It's classic anything that has to do with change, or any kind of work, which might result in some kind of frustration. It's better to get that buy in and understanding. "So look, we happen to have a team of inventors right now or something and we need to get this one thing done. So  let's just set the expectation now that these next three days we have to finish this might not be the best or might not be the most enjoyable or connected to us, but we all can see the importance of this, understand why we're doing it and understand that, yes, it might be frustrating. But we're going to do this for a different purpose, a different reason." Having this kind of shared language allows you to have that conversation.

Cristina 
Indeed, that's an excellent point. It's not about always putting people in a position, in a role or a task or project where they're Working Geniuses are the only thing that they need to focus on. It's about acknowledging what's gonna happen, acknowledging that we're humans; we all have our gifts, and we all have our frustrations, and sometimes we have to, we just have to, you know, spend the next two weeks making appointments for vaccines for the kids. Do I love it? Absolutely not. Am I gonna do it? I'm gonna do it.

Alex 
And that is a great example cuz that ties to a pretty large purpose. The purpose is to help your kids. Yeah, I'm going to dive right in on the tenacity portion of this. Sure. Is it frustrating to have to refresh this page a lot? Yeah, sure. Of course it is. But it's important.

Cristina 
I click on literally every single link from the website on finding an available slot that doesn't say, "This clinic is full," multiple times a day. Yeah, not not fun. I wouldn't do it every day. Am I gonna get it done? Of course, I'm gonna get it done.

Alex 
Yes. And it's another great point. We've said this a couple times already, but you don't escape other portions of work. You don't avoid those, you'll have to do some of them. But it's so much easier to face this, when you have a language, you understand what might be frustrating about it, and you have a chance to go approach that. For tenacity, for me, one of the fun parts is coming up with the system to get myself back to it. And I've come up with different ways of, you know, basically incentivizing creating habits, creating the right way to get back into a workflow of progress, a process so that I will finish those things. That way, I can kind of apply the areas that I do enjoy to the areas I know I will be frustrated at if I don't have something I find enjoyable about it. And so it gives you this whole other framework to evaluate. Tell yourself, "Okay, here's, here's how I can apply this. Here's what's exciting about something even if the actual task isn't."

Cristina 
Yes, yeah, all very good things. And to kind of tie it back to StandOut, which is an assessment that Marcus Buckingham has created. One of the things that he always talks about is that we only need to be dedicating 20% of our time to what we love to do. So it's not about 100%. On a work week, it really is about one day, one day out of the workweek, where if we could do a little over one day of things that we love, then the rest of the week will go by, we'll find enough energy to get through the rest.

Alex 
I heard an interesting kind of inverse concept of that. I think it comes from Germany because of course, German has a word for this. They call it a hate day. Like basically you've designated a day in like a month, or a week or something, where you're like, "Yep, this is gonna be my admin task day, or something. This is when I catch up on emails with scheduling or something, or this is not gonna be the good day, but I'm just gonna bucket it." But I really love the idea of having, basically... you don't actually need to be in flow all the time, nor is it in any way possible to be in flow all the time. But if you have, you know, up to 20%, or whatever of flow, you're going to carry through the rest, you're gonna feel fine about it, which is a good reason to take care of yourself to figure out what you need, what works for flow for you, and to find and carve out the time to do it, because it will allow you to do the things that you currently feel frustrated about, or you feel like you have to do too much of.

Cristina 
Indeed.

 Alex 
I'm trying to remember the stat now, but there was an article about employees, and people in general, are something like, I think it was 10 times more effective, when working in flow. So if you think about it, you know, if you spent an hour in flow that's worth 10, that 10 hours you spend, you increase that two hours, you that's like 20 hours worth of effort, worth of productivity, worth of something that feels engaging. So something to keep in mind, too, is that it's not just about finding these, because it will help keep people a little more sane. There's huge productivity boosts if you tap into this. 

Cristina 
Yeah, that definitely is, I mean, the advantages are all around, and the benefits are all around. And it's really doesn't take that much, at all. It just takes some getting out of the default mode. It takes getting out of, "Oh, let me just look at somebody's resume and decide how they fit in this box I created for them."  

Alex 
[Laughing] You don't think that works?

Cristina 
Does it work with cats? [Laughing]

Alex 
Every single time. A cage. Yeah, they love it. Always. Yeah.

Cristina 
I would say it works just as well with humans.

Alex 
Yeah, yeah, it's not right.

Cristina 
Lots of scratching, lots of screaming and until they finally you know, chew the latch out of the block and get the hell out. 

Alex 
So if you don't want that to happen if you want to avoid the great resignation/awakening/humanization/great white shark that we have going on. These are good ways to tap into it.

Cristina 
Yes, very much so. And we will put the links of all of these areas and assessments in our show notes. We do not get any endorsements. We do not get any advertising.

Alex 
Yeah, we're just doing this for free here!

Cristina 
Yeah, it's just free advertising. Maybe one the Table Group and Marcus Buckingham's association will look back and be like, "Oh, we have to pay you back on endorsements!" But, that's not why we do it, we do it because we want people to stop leaving their jobs. Well, continue to leave your jobs! 

Alex 
If they're bad jobs, please leave! Yes, if so, please leave! No, but seriously, we want to see humans being treated like humans. Yes. That's the whole point of knowing about these things and taking these kinds of roles and giving them, and it's one of the things I love about the Working Genius. It's so easily applicable to a larger organization. These are the beginnings of answers when people are like, "I know there's a morale problem. I know that I have employees that are frustrated, but I don't know what to do." These are great places to start and give you a ton of information and a very actionable plan for, "What do I need to do going forward?"

Cristina 
And call us if you need a plan. We have lots of ideas.

Alex 
That's true. Yes, we apply all of these in workshops. These are exactly how we start a lot of good culture initiatives and good changes to help people understand and live a much more human workplace and human experience.

Cristina 
Yeah, exactly. We do our own advertising. My Galvanizing is strained, but I'm trying to get it out there. 

Alex 
It's easy, though, when you find the things that you're excited about. Like that's one thing that's been just a blast about doing Siamo and doing this podcast. Yes, there's tenacity that goes into this, but it's just so enjoyable to have this. And there's such a purpose that is so clear, it's easy to push through some of the more straining parts for the majority of the time, because it just means so much to be able to do this. And it's nice to kind of connect to something that feels like it has a larger purpose. And that's, I think, what we've both found here.

Cristina 
So have fun, and let us know what you find out.

Alex 
Yeah, let us know what you think. And yep, thank you for coming back for season two. We're super excited. Please check out any of season one you might have missed, especially some of the stuff we went through at the end for values and our previous guests because, man, we had an all star cast and we already have many recorded for this season that are just incredible people. So, I'm really looking forward to sharing that with you. Thank you guys so much for coming back for season two.

Cristina  
Thank you!