Understanding/Discovering My Genius

It has taken me nearly 60 years to identify and precisely formulate my peculiar mix of skills. Along the way I was helped, mostly negatively, by people. This "negative help" came in two forms. The first was a "you can do anything you want"-type of statement made by my mother/parents and reiterated by unthinking people along the way. I say it is unthinking because one moment of reflection will show that you can't do anything you want--physical, economic, linguistic, geographical and other limitations have a lot to do with how one chooses. Indeed, even if one has an inclination to do some things, often you shouldn't do it. For example, I think it would have been a singular mistake for me to have abandoned my doctoral program while I was in Germany, slogging through the dull parts of the dissertation, because I was suddenly struck by how interesting the study of Central Africa was...

Second, I have learned my skills by seeing others fail. What I mean by that is that I have often gone to meetings, seen projects described, and watched as people were unable to grasp the full contours of the project, order the essential elements in a project or express the various aspects with clarity or vividiness. I have said to myself, "I can do this much better...." (what they are attempting, mostly unsuccessfully to do)... In order to make this more precise, then, I will first describe four kinds of people and then, in the next essay, turn to my 'self-analysis.'

Four Kinds of People

Someone has said that there are two types of people in the world: those who divide the world into two types and those who don't. When I double that by saying there are four kinds of people in the world, I mean there are, in general, four types of ways to approach the creation and doing of any particular enterprise in life. In brief, I call these people the "visionaries," the "conceptualizers," the "executive directors/managers," and the "worker bees."*

[*Two trusted friends with whom I shared this template felt that the word "conceptualizer" might be confusing. They preferred four terms derived from the building trades to describe the template, and, from the top, they are: a "design architect, structural architect, general contractor, carpenter." In other words, I am trying to describe four essential, but distinct, components of every "job." These are, admittedly, Weberian "ideal types," meaning that they are presented here primarily to advance analytical clarity. Not everyone is a "pure type" of any of the categories, but we understand ourselves better by identifying these types..]

Each one of us most likely has a mix of several of these types of person; it is extremely rare for each type to be equally strong in any one person. In addition, it isn't as if one is "confined" in any one of these four for the rest of one's life--indeed, the most frequent pattern I have seen over the years is that one goes from the "worker bee" to the "executive director/manager" type of person. Let me clarify these categories.

A. The Visionary/Design Architect

The visionary (I have such a person in mind), is able to see how previously unconnected ideas come together to form a better future. The effectiveness of the visionary in this world rests on several other abilities, however: the ability to tap people from diverse fields to see things his/her way; to organize a project to put the ideas into effect; to raise money or some kind of resources so that the project will be seen through to completion. Often these other skills are provided by other people. Indeed, a brilliant visionary may need thousands of people to "work out" the implications of his/her ideas. Whether such a person is "born" or "grown" can be a matter of debate; I would say that such a person "grows into" the role once s/he develops knowledge in a particular area. Yet, of course, that inclination to connect ideas from widely divergent sources may be something that is innate.

B. The Conceptualizer/Structural Architect

As with the visionary, the conceptualizer might have an array of gifts/skills, but the fundamental skill here is an ability to see how things can get done. That is, s/he is able to take some of the thoughts of the visionary, reduce them to terms that are understandable or explicable in this world and figure out a way to make the idea come alive. Normally a conceptualizer has to have a broad enough mind so that s/he can understand the various facets of a project that may only be a glint in a visionary's mind. Using a biblical illustration, if the visionary says, "Let there be light," the conceptualizer would say, "OK, let's figure out all the systems necessary to generate, distribute, capture, and pay for the light." Normally the visionary and conceptualizer can imagine the aspects of their tasks fairly quickly (it is "natural" to them) even though the working out of the ideas can take decades or longer.

C. The Executive Director/Manager/General Contractor

The primary difference between the conceptualizer and executive director is that the latter actually gets all the personnel together to do the work, laid out by the visionary and the conceptualizer. Such a person must be nimble in mind, irenic enough in personality to get along with people, driven enough not to let obstacles of personality or rebuff discourage, smart enough to be able to hire the right people, and task-oriented enough to know that each day you need to identify and do lots of things to work towards the goal. An executive director type needs to know how to hold him/herself and others accountable for tasks. An executive director may or may not be an inspiring person; his/her essential characteristic is the ability to get a variety of things done. For example, in a project I am working on now, an executive director type is one who either has to do the following himself or hire those to do it: negotiate a contract for leased space; write memoranda of understanding with a variety of key players, from medical folk to medical institutions, think through a public relations strategy, come up with a budget, work with a program director, etc. etc. An executive director-type realizes that the genius is in the details and has to make sure that all the details are done--though s/he probably won't do them.

D. The Worker Bees

There need to be hundreds, even thousands of worker bees to support a visionary; hundreds to support a conceptualizer and dozens to support an executive director. Most people begin their careers as worker bees; indeed, you do so because you need to develop a fund of knowledge from which you can draw upon to be useful to people. This knowledge is only partially supplied by your schooling. Indeed, the primary benefits of an education, in my judgment, are in acquiring helpful skills of written and oral communication, organizational ability, and skills to analyze documents and arguments. So, almost everyone begins as a worker bee. Most people are content, for a number of reasons, to spend their lives as worker bees. They might not have the ambition or ability to do more; they may want to "work to live" rather than "live to work." They might not be that skilled; they might also be incredibly skilled but just want to be the best insurance adjustor that the world has ever seen, for example.

I would say that nearly 30% of people at one time either go from being a worker bee to an exeuctive director role or have seriously thought about doing so. They have learned, by mastering their field, not only what the essence or content of the field is, but what is so wrong with the field. And, they think they might be able to do it in a better way. Or, alternatively, they are drawn to the greater complexity of the world of an executive director-type.

Putting It All Together

At present in the psychological inventory are lots of tests to determine almost anything--the most visible is the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, but assessment tools, like the spirits coming out of the Gadarene demoniac, are Legion. I have taken the MBPI a few times, scoring differently each time; as a result I am skeptical of the value of most of these instruments. But, based on the analysis above, I think we need another kind of assessment tool--one that would be mutually helpful to employers and the employee. It would consist of four parts: (1) An explanation of the four types, described above, with examples and nuance; (2) An essay written by the person/employee, describing which category s/he felt described him/her best; (3) A part, to be given to the employee two weeks before part (4) is administered, which would be given to at least two friends or people that know the person well, for them to write what they perceive the personalty type of their friend (i.e., the employee) is; and (4) a test instrument itself which, by questions, scenarios and short answers, would enable the test-giver to assess the person's "type."

The result could be much more helpful, I believe, than personality inventories or "What Color is My Parachute"-types of books. Maybe it could be used in conjunction with other resources once a person's "basic type" was indicated. In any case, I wouldn't want others to have to wait nearly 60 years to find their "type." The next essay reflects more on my own "type."

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