Tortured Genius Versus Collective Genius- How to Increase Collaboration

Tortured Genius versus Collective Genius- If you cannot find the person causing poor performance, maybe you are that person. There is a significant difference between pride-filled excuses (failure) and humility-based collaboration (success) leadership. These two contradictory leadership styles lead us to some critical tactics on how to own success. 

What is a Tortured Genius?

A “Tortured Genius” is a term used to describe individuals who are exceptionally talented or brilliant in some way but also carry a burden or struggle, often related to mental health or personal challenges.

In the context of leadership and extreme ownership, it might be interpreted as recognizing that even highly skilled and talented individuals can face internal struggles. The leader, in this case, would need to understand and navigate the complexities of working with someone who possesses exceptional abilities but may also be dealing with personal challenges or difficulties.

It’s essential for leaders to be aware of the well-being of their team members, foster open communication, and provide support when necessary. In the military context that Willink often draws from, effective leadership involves not only taking ownership of tasks and responsibilities but also understanding the human dynamics within a team.

Jocko Willink’s Extreme Ownership

In Chapter 2 of the book Extreme Ownership the author states, “There are only two types of leaders: effective and ineffective. Effective leaders that lead successful, high-performance teams exhibit Extreme Ownership. Anything else is simply ineffective. Anything else is bad leadership.” -Jocko Willink.

In Jocko Willink’s book Extreme Ownership, a company brought in his Echelon Front Consulting team to help the company. The CEO brought the former Navy Seal Commander and his team in to roll out Extreme Ownership corporately. The company was failing after its recent product launch and needed to change quickly.

Despite not winning in the market place the company’s CTO continued to state, “We may not be winning, but we are making the right decisions.” The book outlines Jocko’s attempt to have the CTO engage in Extreme Ownership practices. However, the CTO took no ownership, made excuses, and stuck in a cycle of blaming others. He did the opposite of extreme ownership, clinging to his product, and the team was doing things right. With his continued neglect to improve performance, Jocko labeled the CTO as a “Tortured Genius.”

Tortured Geniuses in the Workplace-

Later in that chapter, Jocko shared the principle of Extreme Ownership the CTO violated, thus being a “Tortured Genius.”

First, I would like to outline that this post is NOT talking about actual neurological and mental disorders. This post is not about the notion that tortured genius is a person who excels at work but has inner demons.

Instead, I am discussing the person with a lack of humility. The tortured genius is a person refusing to own their piece of the business failures. Typically, this person pushed shoddy quality work upstream or downstream without recognizing the impacts. The organization is failing, but they show they recognize their team for such a great job. Ironically, their work is usually the actual blockade to success.

What is Collective Genius?

The concept of collective genius highlights the collaborative nature of innovation and underscores the importance of diverse perspectives, constructive conflict, and a supportive organizational culture in driving creativity and progress.

“Organizations need leaders who create and sustain an environment that unleashes the slice of genius in each of their people and then combines that ‘collective genius’ into a single work of innovation.” – Linda Hill.

Conversely, in the book Collective Genius, The Art and Practice of Innovation, by Hill, Brandeau, Truelove, and Lineback, they identify a completely different aspect of leadership. The authors draw conclusions where collaborative activity produces success. The book focuses on innovation and innovative environments. However, winning in the workplace takes cultivating innovation principles.

What many leaders fail to see is that continued success requires innovative thinking. There is not a market, distribution channel, or operation without transformative evolution. To have successful outcomes across the entire organization requires collaboration and collective thought. Like Jocko’s scenario, it also requires those participating in taking ownership of their area of work.

Collective Success-

Successful innovation and collaboration start by pulling the right members of the organization together. The authors state that the leader’s role is to “create a community that is willing and able to innovate over time.” As a result, the community includes building a common purpose, shared values, and rules of engagement across the collaboration. When a leader successfully creates ability across the organization, there is an infectious sense of ownership. The partnership generates innovation and success. At this point, you have “Collective Genius.”

Collective Geniuses in the Workplace-

In my experience, collective genius leaders are usually more humble servant leaders. They typically work extraordinarily hard to identify roadblocks. Seek the resources, personnel, and organizations who need to collaborate to resolve the issues. For instance, they master the art of gaining agreement on what needs to resolved through the innovation process. Lastly, the collective genius owns and works hard to share ownership in creating success.

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12 Principles of Extreme Ownership Creating Collective Genius-

Principle 1: Extreme Ownership-

First, the leaders bear the full responsibility of performance and creating solutions to issues. Explaining the strategic mission, outlining the tactics, training, and resourcing enables the collaboration to succeed. Each leader needs to own this principle. As a result, they need to make sure their segment of the partnership executes.

Principle 2: No bad teams, just bad leaders-

All leaders and collaboration members are not created equally. However, this does not mean they do not have value. During collaboration sessions, observe and measure milestone achievements. If a team is not keeping up with the project or slowing performance, you may need to assess the leaders’ competencies. As a result, you need to strengthen the weakness by coaching and development.

Principle 3: Be a Believer-

Clarity is the key to growing believers. To gain belief in the process, project, or breakout session, be clear with the strategy and intent. Explain to the collective team what we are looking to achieve and why. Teams and employees gravitate to something they believe.

Principle 4: Check the Ego-

Most importantly, “Ego clouds and disrupts everything.” Jocko. Within the collective genius process, we must put our ego aside. Hidden and personal agendas will hinder the collective. Humility needs to be at a premium and awarded in the process. Everybody wants to win, but in a business environment, winning is a team sport. Remember, the tortured genius was alone in his thinking in the example and not winning.

Principle 5: Cover and Move-

Cover and Move is a critical principle in a team collaboration environment. The principle explains when smaller teams use teamwork across departmental teams. After that, a leader can create this ‘cover and move’ by overlapping independent tasks and ensuring each unit ties to the overall goal. I believe in encourage collaborating across the team by connecting it to compensatory results.

Principle 6: Keep it Simple-

In addition, you need to seek excellence, not perfection. There are times leaders tend to ask for too much data or process, creating complexity. Attempting not to make mistakes creates complexities. The tasks are complicated by themselves. Use lean tactics to remove waste and add simplicity to the motion continually.

Principle 7: Prioritize and Execute-

High achieving leaders have the gift of breaking down tasks in order of priority. Mediocre to low-performing employees tend not to prioritize. The compound issues by thinking they can multitask. By creating proper prioritization of issues and tasks, then communicating helps achieve greater focus. This prioritized execution strategy should come from leadership and should be continually updated.

Principle 8: Decentralize Command-

To work in collaboration with other workgroups and teams requires empowered junior leaders to make decisions. Empowerment is not a delegation of authority. True decentralization is being completely clear with your strategy, culture, decision matrix, and desired outcome to your subordinates. The clarity allows them to function as a supported, empowered extension of you to make decisions.

Principle 9: Plan-

Above all, planning is the meat and potatoes of collective genius. The ‘Plan’ and reason for innovating results as a collective unit was why we started collaborating. Therefore, future planning needs to continue to involve frontline employees, managers, and sometimes clients. During planning, detach as a leader to gain broader strategic focus. As the plan solidifies, build buy-in based on the collective feedback. After all, it was their input that created the plan objectives.

Principle 10: Leading Up and Down the Chain of Command-

Conveying critical information up and down the ladder of command is essential to operation success. For instance, having a monthly or quarterly read-out of the collective team KPIs provides a bi-directional output. The units can point out resource needs. Therefore, the executive team can offer steering guidance based on either confidential or 20,000 ft view perspectives. Completing the review, broadcast the appropriate information and milestones so all employees are informed. Above all, it calms people to know things are getting worked on, spurs creative thought.

Principle 11: Act Decisively Remove Uncertainty-

“There is no 100% right solution.” -Jocko. A straight line is the shortest distance between point A (current) and point B (success). Work and life are not a perfect short line. The line also can not and should not look like a heart rate monitor. Use the collective genius of the team leaders to act decisively to move forward with swift adjustments. Calculated risks and informed decisions enable you and your teams to make high-velocity adjustments. 

Principle 12: Discipline Equals Freedom-

There is excellent freedom executing within a cadenced framework. Leaders empower then teams and structure by being clear on the culture, strategy, and expectations. As a result, decentralized command and disciplined execution create flexible, adaptable, and efficient freedom. Disciplined execution is where extreme collective ownership genius takes place.

Conclusion-

The power of collective genius is contagious. The blending of Extreme Ownership with the Collective Genius innovative process yields a brilliant blueprint of collaboration. The creative process in the technology world can bring more complex scenarios. However, employing the principles above effectively streamlines collaboration into environments outside of tech companies. Remember, we are seeking constant success in innovation.

Throughout Extreme Ownership, the authors outline examples of team members working collaboratively with other teams. Those chapters are riveting reminders of how critical the success of the war relies on collective efforts. Few would doubt Jocko could break someone’s spirit with one simple, “Good!” (look it up on YouTube, you will understand.) Therefore, it is humbling to hear the powerful voice of Jocko Willink leading and communicating through the collective genius of the battlefront.

Lastly, the Extreme Ownership of the collaboration of the US Armed Forces showed the collective genius. As a result, following and applying the principles outlined in the book will help you increase the effectiveness of your collaborations. As Jocko would say, “Get after it!”

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