Money
Issue No. 30 - August/September 2006
Do you have finders, minders, grinders
by Mr Geoff Thomas
How many firms have you seen where everyone is exactly the same personality type as the boss?
He or she has hired in their own likeness: aggressive sales staff or tech-heads or bureaucrats tend to cluster together.
And the company suffers: the sales-led company doesn’t get its goods out on time while the tech-heads wonder why nobody bangs on the door demanding those better mousetraps they develop.
The bureaucrats are fully compliant with their OH&S procedures and feel fulfilled – and it’s easier to be compliant when you don’t have those pesky customers wanting to buy things off you.
Naturally, we tend to choose people who are complimentary about us, and are similar to us. What we need are people who are complementary, and have different skills.
A company needs all three elements — finders, minders and grinders — to be effective.
Finders are the business development team, the ‘rainmakers’ who go out and find new business.
They are the boys and girls with smart suits, a ready handshake and a willingness to make cold calls.
Minders are the people who maintain the functions of the company. They are client services managers, general managers, production supervisors and operations managers who organise the how, what, when and who to ensure work gets done.
Minders also look after existing customers, make sure they return, and expand their spending.
Grinders are the people who do the work, whether they are the blue collar workers on the factory floor, the senior associates of the professional services firm, the engineering group, the geeks in the cube farm, or scientists out in the laboratory.
Each group thinks they are the most important, and that the company would collapse without them. Of course, they are all correct.
Occasionally, all three skills are found in one person. It even more rare when that person can switch between different personalities as nee...
