I was thinking about “Commandoes, Infantry, and Police” recently. It attempts to strategically break down the personalities needed at each phase of a company. It also follows the “explore-exploit-execute” breakdown, pointing out that a company needs different kinds of people at different phases of its life.

I’ve been trying to fit Guildmaster’s neurodiversity model on top of this. We like fitting key personality types into a D&D style character class. We talk about rogues (masters of opportunity), fighters (tanks slogging it out), and wizards (specialists in the back row). Further, we break fighters into gladiators - these are the best fighters - and then run-of-the-mill fighters.

It’s important to remember that most people are fighters.

Explore

Rogues are the masters of exploration here. They’re good at starting businesses and mapping out what needs to be done. However, they often need help executing their vision.

Exploit

This is where Gladiators come in—gladiators are masters of execution. They’re the best of the best. While they’re capable of generating vision themselves, they’re more comfortable with a clear plan up front, which rogues can provide by scouting ahead.

Execute

Organizations capable of specializing in execution are large enough to begin to have many very specialized positions and thus become a great place for Wizards to live and thrive. Wizards need protection on the back row to, well, do their magic. Building out a firm with a clear mission and set of policies is exactly what Wizards need to do their thing.

Where are the Fighters?

Since fighters are most people, they will be at every phase. Like wizards, they’ll thrive more in the execute phase than the explore phase. Ultimately, fighters' strength lies in en masse training and organization, which also tends to come with large, mature firms practicing execute-level strategies.

Takeaways

Where do you think your firm is along the explore-exploit-execute continuum? Where have you seen different personality types thrive and add to the firm’s mission? Where have you seen them struggle?