Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Discover Your Working Genius and Beat Career Burnout | Patrick Lencioni | E147
24 Feb 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is the six different things that are required in any kind of work, whether you're starting a company, launching a product, planning a family vacation, rebuilding your home. Any work, any project involves six different activities.
Chapter 2: What early experiences shaped Patrick Lencioni's career?
Patrick Lencioni is a pioneer of the organizational health movement. He's also the creator of the six types of working genius.
All of our kids took this ridiculous assessment that said, you should be a garbage man or an astronaut. And it was like... When people in their marriage, in their teams, understand what they are and they're not, they celebrate other people's geniuses that aren't their own.
There was something about working genius that was explaining the nitty gritty of day-to-day work in a way that I had never understood before.
In companies, there's constantly hard moments, but the initial one is really, really hard because there's a lot of unknown. What is it like for you, that journey?
Oh, okay, I'll tell you. I wish I had understood
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Chapter 3: How did Patrick Lencioni navigate his decision to leave Oracle?
Welcome to the Leap Academy with Ilana Golan's show. I'm so glad you're here. In the Leap Academy podcast, I get to speak to the biggest leaders of our time about their career, how they got where they are today, the challenges, the failures, and countless lessons. So lean in. This episode is going to be amazing.
I'm on a mission to help millions reinvent their career and leap into their full potential. land their dream roles, fast track to leadership, jump to entrepreneurship, or build portfolio careers. This is what we do in our Leap Academy programs for individuals and teams.
Chapter 4: What challenges did Patrick face while starting The Table Group?
And with this podcast, we can give this career blueprint for free to tens of millions. So please help my mission by sharing this with every single person you know, because this show has the power to change countless of lives. Deal? Okay, so let's dive in.
So,
Today's guest has spent 25 years figuring out why some teams soar while others stumble. Patrick Lencioni is a pioneer of the organizational health movement, founder of The Table Group, the author of 13 bestselling books with over 8 million copies sold, including the legendary The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He's also the creator of the six types of working genius, which I just found.
Chapter 5: How did the concept of Working Genius originate?
And it is so cool. So I can't wait for you to hear more about it. So great to welcome you, Pat.
It's great to be here, Ilana. I'm really glad. This is going to be fun.
Chapter 6: How can Working Genius be applied to career choices?
Just the prep talk we just had, we know there's a lot to talk about here.
There's going to be a lot to talk about, and I'm excited about it. But I want to take you first back in time. As a kid or when we grew up, what shaped you? What are some experiences that you remember that shaped you to the person that you are today?
Well, in terms of the work I do, I remember when I was a kid, my dad, God rest his soul, and him and my mom didn't go to college. He had just two jobs in his life, but he'd come home from work and he would be frustrated by something called management.
Chapter 7: What are the Six Types of Working Genius?
And I didn't know what that meant. I just said, my dad should not be frustrated. He's been gone for like nine and a half hours. He should come home happy. And I remember just thinking, what is that all about? And what's this work thing? What's the deal with work? And I remember thinking, I think I'm supposed to work one day. I'd kind of like to figure out why this isn't so fun.
And I remember him saying to me when I was a kid, if it were fun, they wouldn't call it work. And I thought, oh no. Then I got my first jobs in school and then I went to college and we were on the poorer side of things. The very first job I had was like an odd job.
Chapter 8: What personal insights does Patrick share about healing childhood scars?
I was at the barbershop when I was 12 and he said, hey kid, you want to make $20 this Saturday? And I said, sure. So he drove us out to the oil fields outside of Bakersfield, California, where I lived. And we would sit in a foxhole And then they'd blow a horn and we'd have to get up and prop up these metal pigs and other animals at a shooting gallery.
And then they'd blow a horn and we'd have to dive back in the foxhole and people would shoot at these targets. And I remember thinking, I think I'm going to go to college. Then I was a busboy at age 13 and I worked in a bar, which was illegal, but I didn't know that. And then I was a bank teller, really simple things. And I had no idea that there was a corporate world out there.
I lived in a pretty rural-ish place and went to college, first generation. I studied really hard because my purpose in life is to get a job, make enough money to make my dad proud.
And what did you study?
I studied economics with a minor in Spanish because I studied abroad. But what's funny is my dad sent me to college and said, study economics, accounting and computers. That's where all the jobs are going to be. Well, he didn't know about DISC and Myers-Briggs and certainly Working Genius because I didn't know. None of those were really up my alley.
I was a creative person, but he was very much into safety and hard work. So I barely held on to economics, studied Spanish, took psychology classes, writing classes. I was really a liberal arts kid who wanted to be a writer. But I was like, no, my dad spent money for me to go to college. I better get a good job.
And you wrote some screenplays or something in college. No, what was it? Tell me more.
I took a screenwriting class in college my senior year and was totally hooked. And I wrote five screenplays in the next five or six years. And Ron Howard's company read one of them. And I went to a conference and some directors took an interest in some. But I realized I'm going to have to go move to Hollywood and work at a Starbucks. Yeah. and pitch these damn things for the next 20 years.
And I was like, okay, this can be a hobby. And what's crazy is years later, when somebody suggested I write a book about this theory I came up with, I decided to write fiction. And all of my books, except for one, one's not fiction, read like a screenplay. I write lots of dialogue, lots of quick moving parts. So all of that screenwriting I did really factored into my books.
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