Riding the AI wave
In 2009, Gay Hendricks published a book called the Zone of Genius.
in it, he outlines four zones where you can find yourself in a given job:
Zone of Incompetence - tasks you are bad at and others can do better.
Zone of Competence - tasks you can do adequately, but others can do them just as well.
Zone of Excellence - activities you are exceptionally good at and are often paid well to do, but you do not particularly enjoy them. Working here often leads to burnout.
Zone of Genius - the set of activities that you are uniquely suited to do, and when you do them, work feels effortless and energizing.
When Hendricks likely did not consider was which of the tasks in these zones would one day be accomplished by AI.
Tasks where AI can outperform humans:
Much of the work that lies in your zones of incompetence, competence, and excellence involve execution, summarizing, analysis, pattern matching, writing, and concrete processing.
AI can do all the heavy lifting in these tasks.
Photo by Noah Munivez on Pexels
But the things that AI can’t do lie in your Zone of Genius.
Things like judgement, having a POV, intuition, imagination, emotional intelligence, influencing others, and seeing new possibilities.
The skills that only you can do are also the things that make you human.
If you consider the intersection of where you have had the most impact in your career with the activities that energize you, what would be in that category?
Working in your Zone of Genius is no longer aspirational. It has become a matter of survival in your career.
Time to do the inner work to identify your Zone of Genius and double down on those things.
Love,
Audrey
