A long-time client returned to coaching with me last week. What brought her back now was the classic challenge of working with a co-founder who has such different strengths that it is often extremely frustrating to work together.
As a visionary leader, she moves with lightning speed, turning corners quickly. She is a big-picture, future-focused, what-might-be-possible leader. She doesn’t need details or structure. She moves from idea to implementation while others are still debating strategies, plans, and what-could-go-wrong scenarios.
It’s her zone of genius…the source of her creative power and potential.
Keeping her in this zone is critical to the company’s ability to design compelling products that land big investors and dream clients.
Celebrating Differences
We first celebrated that Vivian gets to stay in her zone of genius as much as she does because she brought in a co-founder to do much of the work she doesn’t have the knowledge, skills, or experience to handle.
And, through our work together, she was fully aware of the tensions their complementary strengths would likely create.
The Paradox Of Strengths
While similar strengths are the source of both ease and inertia…differing strengths are the source of both conflict and productivity.
Vivian knows that her co-founder is a good partner to successfully build out her massive vision for their company, to successfully implement the systems and processes to ensure delivery of their unique products to global clients.
His accountability for so many of the roles, functions, projects, tasks, and details that would require too much of her time and energy is the first essential element to keeping her in her zone.
WHY Matters
It’s one thing to “know” about our differences and the value they offer, but how do we deal with the very real tensions they create?
Vivian and her co-founder have been close friends since college, through the many celebrations and challenges of life together. Their friendship is too important to allow work frustrations to strain their relationship.
So we spent some time feeling into the dream of how this company can serve clients, kids, investors, and other stakeholders. The dream inspires both of them.
Centering these important Why’s, along with understanding their unique contributions to growing the company, helps them both take a breath and show up with compassion and appreciation for each other and their differences…and their shared goals.
What’s Really Going On Inside Vivian?
Vivian still needed a strategy to deal with the many detailed requests her co-founder made. There were frequently operational details that required her input.
As I asked her questions, she revealed that her co-founder’s requests felt like an imposition. On her time. On her energy.
Specifically, attending to those detailed requests knocked her out of her zone of genius. They slowed down her speed. They took her focus off the big picture.
They took her away from investing her time and energy doing the things she loves, that she’s excited to do, that she is great at doing.
She noticed some previously unconscious resentment.
Blocking Time
When I asked Vivian how she felt about the possibility of blocking time on her calendar to make space for these requests that were important to her co-founder and to the business, I could see the relief in her face and her body.
We had co-created this strategy for her in a previous role and it had worked well. She just hadn’t seen how it could support her in this current situation until we had this coaching conversation.
Creating this time and space made it feel less like he was stealing time and attention from what she wanted to be doing.
And, she could let him know when she would be working on these tasks. If he needs anything from her, he knows when he needs to submit requests…or wait till the next time block on her calendar.
That was an important boundary that increased her sense of psychological safety.
Liberating Vivian’s Creative Potential
As a strengths-based coach, I know people can’t try to be someone they are not, to use strategies that work for others who aren’t like them. It’s like writing with your non-dominant hand…it takes longer, requires more mental energy, and the outcome is rarely as good.
To liberate her creative potential, Vivian must give herself permission to use her natural strength of racing the clock, her instinctive speed to move quickly through what she needs to get done.
Looking at her calendar, she realized she could drop in this time block before their weekly meetings. It was a perfect strategy to give her a real “finish line” and to focus her attention.
Perfect because it fit her strengths well…her creative power and potential.
How Can We Keep Visionary Leaders In Their Zone of Genius?
The first step is to find a collaborator or colleague with different knowledge, skills, experience, and ways of working to get things done.
Second, get clear on why your work together matters…use this as a touchpoint when tensions inevitably arise.
Finally, know your unique strengths, your zone of genius, and create strategies that allow you to work in your zone, leaning into your natural ways of taking action, as much as possible.
Whether you’re co-founders, working in traditional CEO<>COO roles, or the Visionary<>Integrator pairs of companies running on EOS, these factors are a recipe for maximum productivity.
And for liberating the creative power and potential of visionary leaders.
