The research is in. There are only four different types of jobs in the world.
YES! IN. THE. ENTIRE. WHOLE. WORLD!
Everything starts with an idea. This is the first of the four jobs – the Thinkers. Builders convert these ideas into reality. This the second job. Improvers make this reality better. This is the third job. Producers do the work over and over again, delivering quality goods and services to the company’s customers in a repeatable manner. This is the fourth job. And then the process begins again with new ideas and new ways of doing business being developed as the old ones become stale.
The Four Basic Work Types In Detail
Thinkers: These people are the idea generators, strategists, and creative types. They’re at the front end of the growth curve, and their work covers new products, new business ideas, and different ways of doing everyday things. Sometimes they get in the way once the company or projects begin to grow. An example of a performance objective for the Thinker could be, “Develop a workaround to the technical bottleneck to ensure the launch date is met.”
Builders: These people take ideas from the Thinker and convert them into reality. Entrepreneurs, project managers and turnaround executives are typical jobs that emphasize the Builder component. They thrive in rapid change situations, make decisions with incomplete information and can create some level of order out of chaos. They feel strangled in bigger organizations. “Rebuild the entire product management department in 90 days to support the global launch,” would be an example of a Builder performance objective.
Improvers: These are the people who take an existing project, process or team, organize it and make it better. In a moderately growing company they are charged with upgrading a new system, converting an outdated process or rebuilding a department. In a mature company they’re the ones that need to implement major and minor change despite heavy resistance. Here’s an example of an Improver performance objective: “Develop a detailed plan for upgrading the international reporting system over the next 18 months.”
Producers: Technical skills dominate the Producer Work Type. A pure Producer is someone who executes a repeatable process on a regular basis. More often, the Producer Work Type is a component of the job, for example, combining problem-solving (the Thinker) with some technical process to implement a solution. Here’s an example of a pure Producer performance objective: “Handle 6-7 inbound calls per day at a 90% resolution rate.”
Regardless of the size or scale, most work requires a mix of different thinking, project management, process improvement and executing skills. Getting the scale, scope and mix right is essential for hiring the right person.
Some types of work are more at the front end of the cycle, some bulge in the middle, some are heavily weighted towards process implementation and some are balanced throughout. Regardless, knowing how a job is weighted by these Work Types allows a company to better match people with the roles they’re being hired for rather than hoping there is a good fit.