Maintainers, Implementers, Creators by Elia Sheldon
Ever find yourself in a discussion with someone and you are having difficulty getting her to understand your perspective? Ever tried to solve a problem but everyone in the room keeps offering the same opinions as the last meeting, and none of those ideas worked when you tried them last week?
There’s a way to increase the chances that you’ll emerge from the above scenarios successful. It involves leveraging a personality classification system that was introduced to me early on in my career and has served me well. Part of this model harkens back to my I.L.R. days at Cornell University where one of the required courses was Micro-organizational Behavior where we studied people and group dynamics in an organization. Part of it comes from discussions with fellow colleagues and friends. I searched high and low for a book, article, or blog entry to which I could attribute credit for what I’m about to explain in this column, to no avail. If you happen to know where it comes from, if you have a source I could cite, please e-mail me so we may give credit where it is due.
The model is simple. There are three broad classifications into one of which a person may fit:
- Maintainers – those who are best at operations, keeping the lights on, optimizing repeatable processes. Example: System Administrator
- Implementers – those who function best in a climate of change, who can see the big picture but are best when it comes to ensuring that the details needed for the change to happen are delivered. Example: Project Manager
- Creators – those who are inclined to take the status quo and throw it out of the virtual window, who are best at big ideas and leveraging inspiration to create true revolutions in thought and strategy. Example: Creative Director
Every job can also be classified into one of more of these categories, but in general, one will dominate over the other. For example, a Project Manager is an Implementer, however, he or she may have responsibility for running a team of maintainers who conduct standard clean-up’s of file libraries or critical regression tests that ensure system integrity. In order to run this team, the Project Manager will need to put the Maintainer hat on in order to get into the right frame of mind to be effective.
But I would argue that each person can fit into one and only one category as the true area for which they have affinity. This doesn’t mean that they aren’t good or can’t be good at all three, but what it does mean is that there is something innate in each of us that draws us to one particular area, whether we are in that job or not. One really useful career strategy which I’ll talk about later on is to align your job as closely as possible with your category to maximize the chance that you’ll be successful and truly enjoy your work.
So where do you fit? Do you enjoy the thrill and sleep deprivation of an installation weekend or the satisfaction of getting the books closed in three rather than the standard four days at month end? If you enjoy the former, you’re probably an Implementer; the latter, a Maintainer.
Another key message regarding this model is that any successful organization must have a balance of all three categories. If you have too many Creators, you won’t get a lot accomplished and your existing products will fall into disrepair. It will be an interesting, maybe revolutionary disrepair/despair, but it will happen. If you don’t have enough Creators, stagnation will grow and market share will wane. Too many Implementers and you have solutions developed that are looking for problems that don’t exist. A one way ticket to failure.
To illustrate my point, allow me to share with you that I’m an Implementer. Anyone who has ever known me will tell you that from the very beginning, I’ve always had a plan and I’m someone who enjoys making things happen. But if you asked me to take on a role where I had to hustle into action when something went wrong (this can be a server crashing, a transaction not going through correctly, for example), I couldn’t enjoy it. I’d quickly tire of such a job because I’d keep obsessing about what kind of changes or projects I could implement to improve the situation. In some cases, a change isn’t possible. You just have to keep things operating as best as you can and optimize the current process or perfect the right procedures. We need those people who can rise to the challenge of keeping the gears moving. These are the men and women who ensure that when you flip on a light switch that electricity is delivered without more than a finger’s flick of effort to you. It reminds me of that quote from A Few Good Men where Jack Nicholson says, “You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.”
The real life applications of this categorization paradigm are many, but I’ll tackle the two I introduced at the beginning of this column.
The first situation involves trying to connect with someone and you just aren’t understanding each other. If you have assessed your type (let’s say you are a Creator), you are already halfway to figuring out how to bridge the communication gap. All things being equal, if you have difficulty connecting with someone on a work topic, perhaps they might be a different type from you. You may be a Creator and trying to discuss things from a new, fresh perspective and all the other person seems to care about is that you haven’t signed off on the latest press release. Boring (to you). But if you really want to connect with this person and you determine that he or she is more of an Implementer or a Maintainer, you might find a way to steer the conversation to something productive for both of you. Maybe he or she won’t appreciate your ideas about how to use Bounce to ward off killer bees but they might be more interested if you can cover their territory first and make them comfortable that they are able to check that box or mark that to-do list item as completed.
When you’re looking for fresh ideas, it’s best to have some Creators in the room. No offence to the Maintainers or the Implementers reading this column, but you guys just aren’t the best at thinking outside the box. Heck, you like your boxes and they have served you well. Go with it. Own the box. Be the box. We need you on that wall.
On the other hand, if you are looking for solutions that are founded in rock solid reality you will want some Implementers in the room too or your action plan will have too much fluff and not enough foundation to stand a chance of being successful. I’m using an extreme scenario on purpose. Of course there are Creators who can form ideas founded on what may be implemented, but the best people in the room for telling you if something can or cannot be done will be your Implementers.
If you can figure out what makes someone tick in terms of this paradigm, you will go a long way towards being able to better leverage their skills and partnership to make both of you successful. Need a fresh idea or someone to help with a brainstorm? Pick up the phone and call your Creator friend. Need to understand how a process works today? E-mail your Maintainer buddy and she’ll tell you all about it. Want to put together a plan of attack and don’t know where to start, the Implementer in the cubicle next to you will ask you all the right questions to get your plan off to a strong start.
Some may scoff at this classification system because it seems overly simplistic or that it’s not as useful as a Myers-Briggs scores, for example. I would argue to you that it easily fits in with the other paradigms to which you may have been introduced. Consider it an additional tool in your toolkit that you may choose to leverage when you need another, simpler perspective to explain the sometimes perplexing behavior of your fellow co-workers.
A final note. If you don’t love what you do, you may want to stop and consider that you may not be matched with the type of job that fits your categorization. A Creator in a Maintainer role might be bored to the point of tears. A Maintainer put into an Implementer role might be frustrated that people don’t understand how important it is to prioritize standardization. An Implementer asked to perform the role of Creator might spend too much time doing research and not enough time ideating on something original.
Determine what category best suits you, assess your fellow co-workers, and then leverage that knowledge to help yourself and those around you become more successful by adjusting your actions, words, and deeds to address the Implementer, Creator, or Maintainer within each one of us.
Elia Sheldon is a working mother of two daughters who lives in Chatham, NJ and manages large scale programs for a Fortune 50 company. She enjoys time with her family, working on her novel, and attending hot yoga classes. Her column focuses on providing ideas, thoughts, and advice to help demystify the corporate jungle and achieve better work life balance. Need advice? Send questions to: elia@eliasheldon.com.
