Thread by @evanlapointe

The 4 kinds of people you will work with are:
1. Experts
2. Amateurs
3. Modifiers
4. Anti-Modifiers

Here's what they are and what you pay them for...

You pay experts to DO and TEACH.

You pay amateurs to LEARN.

You pay modifiers to THINK and SPEAK and CHALLENGE and FACILITATE.

You ask anti-modifiers to LEAVE and occupy senior roles at your competition.

As a quick reminder of definitions:

Experts do things well
Amateurs do things poorly
Modifiers change our projects and business into something better
Anti-modifiers prevent that change

Many businesses are caught up in the idea that they pay everyone to DO. This results in a catastrophe:

The experts attempt to DO well. They run into conflict with the amateurs who feel equally empowered, bungle up the work, resulting in hundreds of meetings, conflicts, rework.

The modifiers attempt to rethink and improve our approaches to work but are told to DO instead, putting them outsize of their zone. Their value to the org is dramatically reduced, and they are miserable doing things they know are wrong, outdated, inefficient, or just dumb.

The antimodifiers are kept around and asked to DO also, and they create meetings rather than output, where they have a profoundly negative impact on the morale and productivity of experts.

If you are a culture that can't stomach the idea that these people are paid for something other than DOING, you are a culture that will be trounced by competition that can. And if no competition is around, your business will be eroded by time itself.

But if you are a culture that can understand these types and ask each of these types of people to be in their zone, everything will reach its true potential.

Are you ready to pay people for more than just DOING?