Leonardo da Vinci identified seven key traits or skills that one can cultivate to enhance intelligence and unlock the potential for genius.
Even after mastering these traits, one must overcome the fear of failure, which often prevents people from taking the first step. Likewise, da Vinci’s traits strongly align with the qualities of a facilitative leader, guiding others toward creativity and growth.
Therefore, da Vinci’s traits or skills or strengths include:
- Curiosita—an insatiable thirst for knowledge
- Dimostrzione—the ability to learn from experience
- Sensazione—the discipline of continuing to hone one’s senses
- Sfumato—the ability to cope with ambiguity
- Arte/ Scienza—holistic thinking
- Corporalita—what some people call sound mind and body
- Connessione—the ability to see deeply into the connection between things
More can be found in the book entitled “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci: Seven Steps to Genius Every Day” by Michael J. Gelb
Walter Isaacson
Subsequent to the original posting of this article, Walter Isaacson published a comprehensive and compelling biography, Leonardo da Vinci, that deserves a much higher ranking in a Google search. While nearly 600 pages in length, the well-researched and documented history of the polymath would provide an excellent return on your time and money. Isaacson identifies twenty Key Learnings. For more detail, you should turn to the original source. They include:
- Avoid silos.
- Be curious, relentlessly curious.
- Be open to mystery.
- Collaborate.
- Create for yourself, not just for patrons.
- Get distracted.
- Go down rabbit holes.
- Indulge fantasy.
- Let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
- Let your reach exceed your grasp.
- Make lists.*
- Observe.
- Procrastinate.
- Respect facts.
- Retain a childlike sense of wonder.
- See things unseen.
- Seek knowledge for its own sake.
- Start with the details.
- Take notes, on paper.
- Think visually.
- “Leonardo’s to-do lists may have been the greatest testament to pure curiosity the world has ever seen.” (pg. 523)
Finally, from a commercial perspective and in the spirit of radical innovation, here are some well-established “secrets”:
- Get intimate with your customers
- Make your own product obsolete
- Break the rules and be audacious
- Act small, think small—even nano small
- Celebrate failure—(see Thomas Alva Edison’s objectives)
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In a world where everyone can engage in decisions that affect them
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Lead the Change—One Meeting at a Time
Are you ready to transform how decisions are made, problems are solved, and alignment is built in your organization?
True meeting leadership goes beyond setting an agenda. It requires a facilitator who can navigate complexity, balance voices, and drive toward outcomes with clarity and consensus. Our Professional Meeting Leadership Workshop and facilitation training equips you to do just that—blending human-centric methods with structured analytical tools to foster rigor, inclusivity, and results that stick.
- Practice live.
- Get expert feedback.
- Build confidence that lasts.
Whether your meetings suffer from unclear objectives, disengaged participants, or decision fatigue, this workshop will help you identify the root causes, apply proven facilitation techniques, and emerge as the leader every team needs.
Take the first step today—transform your meetings and magnify your impact.
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👉 Click here to reserve your seat now.
#facilitationtraining #meetingdesign
Because every meeting should be a catalyst for change—not just another calendar event.
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And earn up to 40 professional development credits with our facilitation training.
- CDUs (IIBA)
- CLPs (Federal Acquisition)
- PDUs (SAVE International)
- SEUs (Scrum Alliance)
- 4.0 CEUs (General Professions)
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With Bookmarks no longer a feature in WordPress, we provide the following for your benefit and reference.
- 20 Prioritization Techniques = https://foldingburritos.com/product-prioritization-techniques/
- Creativity Techniques = https://www.mycoted.com/Category:Creativity_Techniques
- Facilitation Training Calendar = https://mgrush.com/public-facilitation-training-calendar/
- Liberating Structures = http://www.liberatingstructures.com/ls-menu
- Management Methods = https://www.valuebasedmanagement.net
- Newseum = https://www.freedomforum.org/todaysfrontpages/
- People Search = https://pudding.cool/2019/05/people-map/
- Project Gutenberg = http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
- Scrum Events Agendas = https://mgrush.com/blog/scrum-facilitation/
- Speed test = https://www.speedtest.net/result/8715401342
- Teleconference call = https://youtu.be/DYu_bGbZiiQ
- The Size of Space = https://neal.fun/size-of-space/
- Thiagi/ 400 ready-to-use training games = http://thiagi.net/archive/www/games.html
- Visualization methods = http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html#
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Terrence Metz, president of MG RUSH Facilitation Training, was just 22-years-old and working as a Sales Engineer at Honeywell when he recognized a widespread problem—most meetings were ineffective and poorly led, wasting both time and company resources. However, he also observed meetings that worked. What set them apart? A well-prepared leader who structured the session to ensure participants contributed meaningfully and achieved clear outcomes.
Throughout his career, Metz, who earned an MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University) experienced and also trained in various facilitation techniques. In 2004, he purchased MG RUSH where he shifted his focus toward improving established meeting designs and building a curriculum that would teach others how to lead, facilitate, and structure meetings that drive results. His expertise in training world-class facilitators led to the 2020 publication of Meetings That Get Results: A Guide to Building Better Meetings, a comprehensive resource on effectively building consensus.
Grounded in the principle that “nobody is smarter than everybody,” the book details the why, what, and how of building consensus when making decisions, planning, and solving problems. Along with a Participant’s Guide and supplemental workshops, it supports learning from foundational awareness to professional certification.
Metz’s first book, Change or Die: A Business Process Improvement Manual, tackled the challenges of process optimization. His upcoming book, Catalyst: Facilitating Innovation, focuses on meetings and workshops that don’t simply end when time runs out but conclude with actionable next steps and clear assignments—ensuring progress beyond discussions and ideas.
