Why Work Isn’t Working: The 6 Overlooked Motivations Leaders Must See

Why do so many employees feel drained, unseen, or stuck at work? Often, it’s because leaders unknowingly still architect work as if everyone is driven by the same rewards. The truth? People come six distinct motivations, rooted in personal history, values, and nature itself. When organizations cater to only one, disengagement and frustration flourish. Join us as we explore James Root’s research and reveal how enlightened leaders can finally design work that inspires everyone to thrive.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the
answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose
at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their
lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization
that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their
highest potential. Business can be such a force for good
in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide

(00:51):
guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we
all want working on Purpose. Now, here's your host, doctor
Elise Cortez.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program, which has
been brought to you with passionate pride since February of
twenty fifteen. Thanks for tuning it again this week. Great
to have you. I'm your host, doctor Real Lease Cortes.
If we've not met before and you don't know me,
I'm a workforce advisor, organizational psychologist, management consultant, logo therapist,
speaker and author. My team and I at gusto Now
help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by building

(01:26):
a dynamic, high performance culture, inspirational leadership and nursery managers
activated by meaning and purpose. You can learn more about
us at gustodashnow dot com or my personal site at
last Coortes dot com. With us today is James Rutt.
He's a senior partner of bin In Company and chair
of Bane Futures. He's also the author of The Architect
Archetype Effect, which is what we're talking about today, and

(01:48):
that book is about offering readers a new way to
understand what motivates them at work every day and why
they feel how they feel about their job. He joins
us a DIF from London, where he's currently on site
doing some work his home in Hong Kong. A hearty
welcome James to working on Purpose.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Great to be here. Thank you, elease, so welcome.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
So glad I found you, and I stumbled across your
book and then I went up to my trusted friend
LinkedIn and reached out to you and said, Hey, come
play with me on my podcast. Let's talk about this
magnificent work. So let's first command and celebrate this beautiful
thing you put into the world. James. It's really gorgeous.
I loved reading every single last page of it.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
I'm so pleased, thank you, You're.

Speaker 3 (02:25):
So welcome, so welcome and considering. I also am a
meeting and work researcher and identity researcher and found fifteen
modes of engagement that I found when you looked at
the level of meaning that people ascribe to their work
and how that works relates to their sense of self,
I found fifteen. So your work is really interesting and
sort of helps align and further illuminate what I did.

(02:46):
So exciting. But you and I are kind of geeky
and weird in this way. So why did you why?
What's your fascination with motivations of work? Where'd that come from?

Speaker 4 (02:58):
I mean, it comes directly from my day job, if
I can call it that. Okay, as an advisor to corporations, public, private,
family founder led business says, trying to help them improve
their performance, which is what we do than is what
I've been doing for thirty five years. There was definitely
something changing in the way that the individuals at those

(03:19):
firms related to their jobs, and there was something also
changing in the needs that the firms or the organizations
had from those people. With the advent of more and
more waves of automation and technology and efficiency programs, something
was changing on both sides of the leisure So that
got me very very provoked on this topic.

Speaker 3 (03:38):
Thank you love it well. And then, of course, as
you were going through and we'll talk later in one
of other segments about just how it was that you
did this research, because that's pretty interesting too and really
what you were considering when when you looked at the
components of it. But you did make a delightful discovery
in that you've discovered pretty quickly that not everybody is
motivated to work for the same reason. No surprise there, I.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Think, no surprise, but an oddly sort of veiled secret,
and at least in the way that the conventional talent
management systems that are you know, the hrms that are
embedded in so many firms, whether from the giants, the
SAPs or Matters or the people's source what have, or
even from a smaller class assume. So the assumption that

(04:22):
underpins those systems I think are old. They're outdated. They
are fifty plus years old, and go back to a
time when you could meaningfully talk about an average worker
and design a talent system around an average worker. And
if I could sort of summarize what I mean by that,

(04:44):
it is an assumption that whether your labor, whether your management,
whether you're labor trying to become management, sometimes you are
in your job just trying to climb the pole, just
trying to take the next step up the ladder to
you know, more layers between you and everybody else and
wider spans and more responsibilities. And you know, that was

(05:06):
kind of the model that informed organization design, reward structures,
performance management, career pathing for decades and decades and decades,
and it worked really well. Let's not pretend it was
a failure. It wasn't. It was really really good and
successful because we just didn't assume that individual motivations mattered
at all. And I think that you can no longer

(05:28):
get away with that. So both on the organization side,
where now you know, that concept of the professional manager
trudging is or her way up the ladder is is
still real, but it's no longer necessarily the main event.
In many firms, individual contributors are important. Coaches, advisor, expert
roles have become more and more important, do more and
more work, particularly supported by technology. And then on the

(05:51):
human side. You know, while we said to people, who
do you want to be? You know, we like to
empower you to be who you want to be at work,
a fantastic thing to do. Turns out, ironically they turned
around as well, I don't want to be that person
who's just climbing the ladder. Some do, and that's great
problem for them, but lots do not. They prefer a
different model, and yet our systems are still predicated on

(06:13):
that old set of beliefs.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
To that in, James, I really like what you say,
and but there's so many quotable pieces of your book,
But I like how you call for the need to
de average the employee and build good jobs and career
paths that meet the needs of this diverse workforce. To
your point, and what I find so exciting about your
work and part of the reason I wanted to have
you on is it's one thing to illuminate these this
opportunity and this problem. It's another to be able to

(06:39):
start help organizations to move toward a solution, and I
think your work really does that. So this idea of
de averaging the worker is pretty interesting.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
Yes, And trust me, I'm there's no false modesty and
what I'm about to say because you're a real psychologist,
I'm a business advisor and a strategist to understood that
without people are still the most valuable resource AI, cloud, mobile,
PC revolution and Internet notwithstanding, people are still the most

(07:08):
valuable resource that we have, and they are motivated differently.
I think we can prove that if it wasn't already obvious,
I can now approve them with this data, and yet
we treat them all the same. So yes, this idea
of doing something that we routinely do for our customers.
I mean it is absolutely standard behavior for decades to

(07:30):
say ment customers, to say, what is our least one
is that the same as what James wants? Well, maybe
I can give us something different within my category, and
yet we don't do that for our workers, even though
they're literally the same people, different times of day, different
days of the week, is literally the same people. So
we have all these highly sophisticated product companies selling our
services selling this products or increasingly technology firms selling our

(07:54):
profile and advertisers. Brother, why not they can? We can
always opt out if we want to. Most of us don't.
And yet those firms selling a products, selling our profiles,
they know a lot more about one way to basis
than the films we actually go to work for every day.
Something's really about that.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
Wow, that's profound, James, that's really profound. Thanks for sharing that.
I didn't I don't think I had that perspective at all,
even reading your book, I don't think I grab that perspective.
So now we need to talk about something really important, James.
But you and I opened our conversation around because at
first you had some reticence about coming on my on
my podcast, right because you were concerned that we would

(08:31):
only be talking about meaning and purpose and that there
would be an assumption that everyone wants it. And you've
of course discovered that not everyone does want meaning in
purpose in their work.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
Yes, and I really appreciate the way you you know,
you responded to my question on that it was extremely
proactive and helpful. So here's here's what I think I've learned. Okay,
and I'm wide open to returns and points of view,
but this is what I've learned from almost fifty thousand
people that we talked to. I wanted to distinguished first
of all, something that is not often not distinguished in

(09:03):
this dialectic, but that is between the purpose and meaning
of the firm, a purpose of meaning for the individual.
So firm meaning of purpose in our research is really important,
no doubt about it. About seventy percent of the people
we talked around the world will probably describe them later
as a very wide rage say that the purpose of
my firm, the meaning, the value, stem whatever I want

(09:25):
to call it, that matters to me. And about half
that number of thirty percent said it's really very important,
particularly when I'm making career decisions. Do I leave, do
I stay, Do I change jobs? Do I stay at
this firm? And that's I mean, that's not everybody, but
that's a good chunk of people. So all the work
that you do, all the work that I've done over

(09:45):
my career. All the work that clients I observe doing
on developing a purpose statement of some sort is very valuable.
I don't want to say anything about that except good,
keep going important. But it is not the case in
our research that individuals are all clamoring for their personal
meaning and purpose at work. Some are great. I hope

(10:08):
they find it fantastic. It must be just stupendously satisfying
with them if they do to find a kind of
almost religious experience at work that organized religion used to
provide for many people. That's something that a fascinating book
by Professor Carroll and Chen that Percy explores in Silicon
Valley is sort of approximation of work to religion. But
lots of people three of the archetypes that we're going

(10:30):
to talk about later in particular, are not looking for meaning,
a purpose, or self trelendents or self worth or identity
our work. They're looking for it if they do outside
of work, perhaps in their family, perhaps in faith, perhaps
in sports, I don't know, some other arena is where
they find that in their lives work serves different purposes.
Doesn't mean it's not important, very important, but not that

(10:51):
particular type of importance.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
You know, when I was doing my research, James was
again around meaning your work and identity, and I wanted
to understand experience that connection, that relationship between those two,
and I found in the beginning this idea that the
work was detached, their identity was detached from their work.
And so then I found within that different modes that
they could care less about, you know, how their what
their work, and that was like one percent of who

(11:15):
they were. The rest of their life happened outside of work.
So there's so much that we could unpack with this,
and I think it's so important. And one thing I
discovered too, James, is when I would be out doing
workshops on my first the five modes of engagement when
you didn't consider the meaning levels, and then the fifteen
when you did, and people would identify pretty readily which
one was their own. They would be like, you mean
people other people experience these other fourteen ways of working.

(11:36):
You're keeping me right. It's incredibly illuminating, which I think again,
were I want to get I want to go there.
Next is the opportunity and promise of understanding and embracing
these different architypes that you found to nurture and create
cultures and rewards systems accordingly is vast right. So if
you could sort of speak to a bit about what
you see as that promise, that opening, I see tremendous

(11:59):
promise in that.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
I mean, doesn't it always in these systems of typing
start with self knowledge, I think, and you know, and
I forgive anybody whose eyes are rolling at the idea,
oh gosh, another one of these times. You know, what
am I this week? Green donkey this week?

Speaker 3 (12:16):
Or what is it?

Speaker 4 (12:17):
But I do astually to use discretion in terms of
driving your usage of highly data driven samples like us.
But still I think it starts with self knowledge. If
I can appreciate, I think about my own career and
the time I'm a driver my name is James.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
And a driver and helper as well.

Speaker 4 (12:37):
I know, and you're a pioneer by the way, I know.
I know, yes, But the times I've taken risks in
my career, three or four of them I can focus
on very well and sort of acted like a pioneer.
Come on to these terms later, I was, I can
now understand what was making me a little bit uncomfortable
the whole time, just wasn't quite right, But so the

(13:00):
opportunity you asked about, Yes, I think it is. Start
with yourself. Understand why you hate your job, why you
love your job, why those people there are difficult to
work with, but these people here are easy to work with,
and then it builds from there. Whether you're in a
very senior leadership position or whether you're managing a team
of four or five people around you, doesn't matter. Any
kind of leadership dynamic is improved by an appreciation of

(13:21):
what other people are motivated. And I write about that
a lot in the book, obviously from some stories I've seen,
but it's the first principles idea that if I understand
that you are leadser a pioneer, and I'm the team
leader as a striver, I can probably allow you to
do things and behave in certain ways that if I
just assumed you were like everybody else or like me,
I would find intolerable. That's project, that's progress, and I

(13:44):
think it locks into what I said a few minutes
ago about just the way firms are valuing different kinds
of roles. You know, if you value the professional manager
drudging up the ladder, then you want someone who's looking
a bit like a striver to do that. That's right,
All sorts of other roles, individual roles, expert roles, coach roles.
I see roles the artists. Sound will be important, the

(14:06):
pioneer may be important, Given may be important. You have
a lot more leeway to kind of consider alternates. And
then the third thing that happens, so yourself, other people
around you. The third thing happens is you can understand
the predictable tensions. Yes, this is something I've studied quite
a bit, although not nearly enough, I have to say,
But I do talk about the ten tensions between different

(14:29):
motivation archetypes that I've seen most and try to unpack
them a little bit to help me out. Why would
it be so annoying for you and I to work together? Well,
you're a pioneer. You look at me. He's so focused
on money or he's so focused on just that milestone,
whereas I, as a pioneer, I changed that, we changed
direction last week when we decided we were going to
go after it right, And I look at you, she's

(14:50):
so unpredictable. How much idea to stick with it and
let me get on with my right You can see
how that dialogue can break down a little bit and
then repeat that through all the various nodes of interaction.
I think, I think that's what it is. Yourself, the
team around you, could be your boss, could be people
who work for you, your peers, and then how to manage

(15:10):
and understand those predictable tensions that arise between the archetypes.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
That is so beautiful, James. I want to comment on that,
but let me let's let's go our first break here
and I'll do so afterwards. I'm your host, Doctor Relies Cortes.
We're on the air with James rut He's a senior
partner of Being in Company and a chair of Being Futures.
We've been talking a bit first to start about why
is it important to understand the motivations, the different motivations
that people have at work. After the break, we're going

(15:35):
to talk about the six archetypes that he came up
with this in his research and start teaching you how
to work with your people more effectively together through them.
We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning
and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies
visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired
leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and
commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite
Elise to speak to your organization, please visit her at

(16:23):
elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your
employees working on purpose. This is Working on Purpose with
doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to
open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise A.
L Se at elisecortes dot com. Now back to working

(16:47):
on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Interesting with us and welcome back to Working on Purpose.
I'm your host, doctor Elese Cortes. If you are just
joining the show today, my guest is James Rutt. He's
the author of The architect Effect, Unlocking the Six Archetypes
at Work. So my comment I wanted to share with
you before we went on on the break was because
there's a reason that I'm an organizational psychologist and not

(17:14):
a clinical psychologist, and that's because I believe in the
wonder and the power and this centrality importance of work.
It's something that we all need to do. It's a
function of life. And yet it isn't working for so
many people. People need to work on for different reasons,
they need to work part time when they were caring
for loved ones, et cetera. And most of the systems
are not built for any kind of anything outside of

(17:35):
you know, the as you say, the average person you're
trying to go after. So I'm such a fan of
your work and really feel like this could you've you've
You've got a way through this book and this research.
I think, James, to help people better understand where things
are broken than because of your vast experience in consulting,
help them understand how to get things back on track
and working for them again. So that's what excites me.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
More good jobs, I think is a good summary of that.
I'm not worry. I became worried in the course of
the last five years or so thinking about this just
not in not good jobs anymore. I wired that we
peaked twenty years ago. But so this, this is part of,
you know, a small contribution to many people's work on
that theme that you're you're also focused on.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
Indeed, we need more people chugging down this this this
path with us. Okay, so before we get into the
six archetypes. I do want to just briefly discuss you know,
I know that there were ten dimensions of motivations at
work and your study considered. We don't need to talk
about all of them, per safe, you don't want to,
but I wanted to help our listeners and viewers get
a better understanding of just the breadth and depth of
what you're really scrutinized here. So can you share a

(18:38):
few of those dimensions?

Speaker 4 (18:39):
Yes, yes, And the context is, you know, we, as
I said, we are not We are not trained psychologists
by any means. We're business people, business advisors. But we
were able, as you would imagine, to go very very
deep on all the existing systems out there, from MBTI
to Big five, which the ones that a lot of
people do know, even not psychologists, and then things that

(19:01):
are a bit more specialists inside the world of work
like Shines, Anchors and Hogan and the multitude of tests
out there. So we were able to look at all
of them, what do they look at, cherry pick a
little bit and then use our own intuition. So we
focus on ten. I mean, just the headlines would be
a very important one is how you know how work
centric are you?

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yes, that's what's one of mine too.

Speaker 4 (19:24):
How much of your ID you know yourself comes from work?
Another very important one would be sort of risk tolerance.
Am I at work? Am I'm willing to take big
risks even if I could be worse off? Well? Am
I really not? But I just prefer just to keep
my head, keep my head down and do a good
job and get home to you know, pick up running
FM football five o'clock. But that's the most important thing

(19:45):
to me. I think autonomy is another very important one
that we explored at least how much do I want
to be in control of what I'm doing versus sort
of part of a system that has very clear cut
colds in the wheel. I think mastery is one that
doesn't come up very much, and the other systems of
revalued highly. So how much satisfaction motivation do I get

(20:08):
from just being a master of what I'm doing versus
you know, eighty percent are okay and I'm mucky in
with the rest of the team. And then what we
were just talking about self transcendence? Does work? Deliver self
transcendence to me? Or is it just not where I
leave where I see that kind of aspect of satisfaction
in my life. So those are I think five and
the ten. We don't need to go to the other ones.

(20:28):
But it's a pretty comprehensive list. We made it as
short as we could. You're still very hard to get
less than ten in our experience. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
I just think it's helpful for people to understand just this.
This is the kinds of things that you looked at
in your study, so robust. So I know you do
this beautifully in the book. You have the six archetypes,
but then you really also break them down. There's a
brillion a group of three, each of them having two
in that galization. Yeah, so maybe if you want to
start with just simply giving us that framework over the

(20:59):
three by two framework, and then I want to talk
about each of the archetypes as well.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
Okay, So the three kind of platforms I suppose are
relationships at work number one, and that covers two archetypes.
Learning at work covers two, and then achievement at work
covers too. So I can I can go straight on
if you want, or you can directly as you see
as you.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
Well, then do you want to go ahead and talk
about the two that comprise the relationships.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
First, yeah, okay, there's there's a there's a profile that
we call the giver that is quite prevalent. It's about
seventeen percent of the workforce. That doesn't mean it's seventy
percent of the workforce in your firm or in my firm,
but just on average across the world. The giver is
a profile that wants others to thrive. It's not that

(21:48):
they don't care about themselves. They do. They want to learn,
they want to grow. Of the six, by the way,
they're the least motivated by money. However, a good compensation.
Their mojo is I want to create teams or environment
sort of situations where other people are thriving, and that's
what gets who you are. That's that's the kind of
relationships at work are very important to them. The other

(22:08):
relationship driven archetype is the operator. Remember the largest cohort
of all almost a quarter of the working force around
the world. They they find meaning and things related to
meaning in life outside of work. That's they just you know,

(22:28):
there's there's a quote, the quote from this wonderful woman
we did an interview with called Beverly, who's an HR
manager and a telecoms company down south in the USA. Honestly,
she said, my job is just a job maps to me,
happens outside of work, and she was very successful woman
forty three years old, like you know, rising up just

(22:50):
but just that wasn't what it was about for her.
So they they love friendships at work. Often the backbone
people and the teams. They want to do good job,
but they want to keep the head down there not
risk takers, and they want to get out in order
to do the thing that really really makes a difference
to their lives. So that's the.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Operator, right, Okay, So two comments to that, James. First,
I will tell you that that one maps directly over
to one of my fifteen modes of engagement, which I
call instrumental marketable skill. I have a skill that I
can trade in the economy. I'm good at this thing.
I like it as well, but it's it's an instrumental
marketable skill for me. That's how it maps over for mine.

(23:30):
And then the other thing is that I need to
give you a thank you because as I was reading
this book preparation for this conversation, of course, I shared
it with my twenty two year old daughter who is
trying to figure out where she's going to go in
her life. And I said, which of these of these
types do you think you are? And she quickly identified
that she's an operator. Well that helps so much, and
how she's going to figure out what kind of job

(23:51):
she wants to get And now her dad is definitely
a striver and I'm a pioneer. Poor kid, you know,
she's like, you know, in the middle of all of this,
it's going to be exactly exactly. But I want to
say thank you because it helped give her more clarity
about Yeah, I don't want that kind of stuff in
my work. I don't want that. I don't want to
be a pioneer at all, and I don't want to

(24:12):
be a striver. So thank you for that, James, just
to me already.

Speaker 4 (24:16):
I don't want to use up a lot of your
valuable time on this. But I have a twenty two
year old son who has also identified as an orator,
and his dad is a driver and am and something,
so I get it. He's trying to find his way
in the world of work as well. It's complicated that
these things can help absolutely had I wish I'd had
some kind of pramide like this myself when I was.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Talking to me too, me too, my life would have
made so much more sense earlier anyway. Okay, so let's
go to the learning motivation, and the two types for
the learning motivation are so the one.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
The first one we call him explorer and then clus
in the name. They really value freedom and experience. They
tend to live in the present, seek that careers that
provide lots and lots of variety and excitement. They place
a higher than average importance on autonomy because they want
to have the chance to say I don't want to
do this anymore, I want to try this. Interestingly enough,

(25:09):
they take a very pragmatic approach to their own sort
of skill development. They don't the strive of massively over
skills for everything, but they just explorer the skills up
as much as they think they're going to need to
do fine in this job, knowing somewhere that they're probably
going to be having a different job in a few years. Times.
So they explore multiple careers in their multiple careers in
their life, and I think enthusa in a trade off money,

(25:32):
trade off, status, trade off title for the chance to
continue to have that freedom. So let's the explorer the
other one.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
And hewn sorry, James Hewett, what percentage or so are they?

Speaker 4 (25:40):
Oh? Sorry, yes, the explores eleven? Okay, right. The artisan
is the other one linked to this idea of learning,
but it's a completely different angle on it. They seek
out work that fascinates and inspires them. We're motivated by
the pursuit what I was talking about earlier, the pursuit
of mastery. Always wanting to affect their expertise and their skills.

(26:02):
I always think sushi chefs when I think of I
can't get them out of my head. Now every day, Yeah,
do the same thing every day and just try to
get it absolutely perfect. It never will be when I
to keep trying and don't bug them with you know,
don't send them a form from HR saying please feel
this in by life chat to worry. They don't want
to do that stuff. Leave them alone to get on.

(26:23):
They want to produce work that's very valuable to their team.
They want they're up to be used. It's not some
sort of theoretical, purely academic exercise. But they don't want
to be you know, but they don't want to be
you know, have their time taking, by the camaraderie or
all the other things that go on to make up
of firm. So that's the other And what percentage are

(26:44):
they They are seventeen percent like the giveners.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
Okay, all right, all right, Now that means that we're
now bugging down to the achievement motivation types.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
Yes, so the striver is the first one. This is
a person has a strong desire to make something themselves
at work professionally. They like professional success, They like the milestones,
They like the recognition it comes with achieving a milestone,
whether that's money or promotion or title or just the recognition.
So you did a good job. We gave you a
task and you achieved it. Thank you very much. So

(27:15):
they get a lot done. Not big risk takers professionally,
and you know, at their worst that can be quite
transactional and it seem quite competitive. But certainly people that
twenty one percent of the workforce, and you know, they
get a lot of stuff done. In many organizations. The pioneer,
which is the last and the smallest cohort only ten

(27:37):
percent of the working population, is also motivated by achievement,
but their definition of achievement is completely different. It is
I want to change the world in some way. You
are a good example of that. So what they do
is they develop a very strong vision about the way
they think things should be at their firm and their work,
and they try and bend the will of everybody else

(27:57):
around that charged okay, and you they wanted to come
with them, but even if you're not coming with them,
they're going anyway. And there's a little bit of the
kind of move fast, break things aspect to them. Super
risk tolerant, I would almost say, risk seeking, and they

(28:18):
just they wanted them very much aligned to this vision
that they have, which were just them selfish. It's often
very altruistic. And when I say change the world, I
don't literally mean that. I mean it could be a
kind of musky and you know, let's become a multiplanetary
species type of thing. But an example I often use.
I have a friend who's a financial controller at a
medium sized firm. She's a pioneer. Her definition of change

(28:38):
the world is I want to change the way we
do the month. Then close, great, I get that's a
big change in many firms of small size, so great,
that is exactly what a pioneer would say. About their
desire to do that. So that's that's the Pioneer and
those are those are the six architects operate to twenty
four percent, strivers twenty one, artisans and givers both seventeen

(28:59):
explore it in a Pioneer only ten percent.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Yes, I do feel only yes, thank you for that.
So just briefly, when I did my research, I was
looking to really understand the experience people were having in
their work. How did they experience their work, how did
the experience meaning, and what do they mean they're mean
to their sense of self. So I also coded for
positive and negative experiences. So I have I think three

(29:23):
modes that are in the negative realm, and one of
those is an existential crisis. This is the most just
horrible place to be. And so that's that's part of
the reason I had came up with because I had
to value valance in negative and positive experience, I ended
up with fifteen modes versus like more like you're more
accessible six archetypes. So it's kind of interesting.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
Yes, we I'll go by the way at least was
to be as have as few as possible.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
Yeah, it's brilliant.

Speaker 4 (29:51):
Things I gave me Ti just way too many. Now
having said that it was six, it was not five,
and it was not seven. I mean, with this analytically
driven to get to six, we couldn't get only less
than that onek. Yeah, at SICK we could see clear
bright lines between the boxes. Of course courses over that.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
Sure, sure, sure, but I can clearly discern that which
which ones. I'm not right, I can clearly concern that,
discern that, and so I think can our listeners and viewers.
I think it's really important to point out that you
say in every country, because this is a multi country
study that you did, It's not that you've did this
in the US or in Hong Kong or London or
whatever are the UK, and you show that the operators

(30:29):
and strivers are the two largest archetypes combined and they
represent forty fifty percent of the working population. That's incredible,
that's important to understand.

Speaker 4 (30:39):
Incredible. So just quickly on the research to credentialize it.
Nineteen markets in the world. Those nineteen markets represent seventy
five percent of global GDP, so you know, developing markets
with younger workforces, mature markets with Asian workforces, and everything
in between. So I feel I feel pretty solid in
the quality is about fifty thousand people have done the

(31:00):
all research and about another one hundred and fifty thousand
people have taken the kind of the quick quiz because
I think you're going to give sent a link to
which just you know, it takes a minute and a
half and you've got a quick read on your profile.
So lots of lots of data to support. Because but yes,
I mean, if there's one thing to take away from
all this, if you're a leader of any sort, you know,

(31:21):
leading a small team at work, or leading a family,
or leading a basketball team, you better know whatever your
own architect is, you better know how to manage operators
and strivers, right because they are going to be roughly
half of the people that you're that you're managing. And
it's extraordinarily consistent from country to country, age group to
age group, gender to gender. I mean it's it's operators.

(31:44):
Drivers are anywhere from forty to as high as over
fifty percent in Japan are these two profiles. So they're
very very important to all firms.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
So much goodness to dig into here, let's grab our
last break here. I'm your host, doctor Police Cortez wore
on the air with James rut He's the author of
the architect archetype effect Unlucky, the six Archetypes at Work.
We've been talking a bit about the research and the
six different archetypes that he has researched found. After the break,
we're going to talk more about how organizations and leaders

(32:14):
can use this stuff to more productively engage and retain
their workforce, starting with this idea of where natural conflict
comes from among them. We'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
Doctor Elise Court says as a management consultant specializing in
meaning and purpose, an inspirational speaker and author, she helps
companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose
inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance,
and commitment within the workforce. To learn more, or to
invite a least to speak to your organization, please visit

(32:59):
her at at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how
to get your employees working on purpose. This is working
on purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program
today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an
email to a lease a l i se at Eliscortes

(33:21):
dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to Working
on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortez. If you
are just joining us now, my guest is James rut
He's the author of the archetype effect, unlocking the six
archetypes at work. So you mentioned this earlier before, James,
I do want to dig into a little bit more
deeply because I think so many leaders struggle with why
can't why people just get along? You know, why can't

(33:50):
they just make things work? But your research really helps illuminate,
and I like how you situate those those different you know,
well anticipated conflict that comes between these different modes, But
can you talk a bit about how natural conflict arises
between them and maybe what can be done to sort
of mitigate that.

Speaker 4 (34:10):
Yes, I mean maybe the quick preface is where I
recommend people in organizations start is do the research. It's
very simple to do. Do the research. Understand a little
bit about what the profile mix that you have is,
because it won't be the same as the firm in
the office next door. It'll be unique to you to
some extent, although of course it'll go from the apt
depending on your industry. It allows the leaders to know

(34:32):
what their archetypes are, and that's a huge topic how
leader archetypes can differ from the teams that they lead.
You a little bit of a view of by gender,
by age, by ethnicity, maybe by country if you're in
a multi country firm, or by job type. What did
you've got going on? Because I will get to your

(34:52):
question book. One of the friends that I have found
I've come to believe is that most firms unconsciously have
built there talent systems around one archetype. They didn't know
they were doing that, but that's what they did. It
could be to do with the founders or some seminal
event in the history, but most often I think it's
for a firm of any age twenty thirty, forty years.

(35:13):
It's just we just assumed everybody's a striber, So talent
systems for stribers because that's easy. So back to your question.
You the observation this is observational rather than I would
say quantitative. And it goes like this, the my door

(35:34):
bells ringing, wouldn't you know? Right in the middle this
is something about Murphy's law. When you're in a hopel
r that it's okay.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
It adds to the color of it, no worries.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
You come back later place that's okay before. So what
I do is I basically try and profile everybody has
a working style for all of these six archetypes. I
just described them to you briefly. What I didn't get
into is the kind of the working style. What do
they come to with risk in terms of environment, in
terms of degree of direction, mat of uncertainty. They like

(36:05):
to do predictability for hours, you know, those kinds of things.
And when you start to look at those, and they're
all fully documented in the in the book and the research,
you can actually have a predictive sense of where tensions
are going to arise. Tensions arise at work for many reasons.
Roles can be at aults with each other, People's sense
of values at work can be different. People's power dynamics

(36:28):
can get them into tentions. All sorts of things cause tensions.
My belief is that archetype differences also can cause tensions
as well as alliances. Of course, some some pairs of
arccess work very very well together. I mentioned earlier you
and I cartooned ust as pioneer and strubber. But you
know you put you put an artisan together with a giver.

(36:48):
The artisan is the least teamy of all the archetypes.
Let's all, let's have a training, says no, I don't
want to do that. Let's have let's have drinks for
the team to get to know each other better. I
don't want to get to know you better. It doesn't
make me a bad worker. I'm just write my code
or do whatever. The giver, by contrast, is the most
team I love the team. It's all about the team.

(37:11):
So you can see how those two blockheads, and the
same for the explorer and the operator. I'm going to
get into all the details of the of the ten,
but it's super powerful to have a look at what
you are and then think about the people you work
most closely with and say that's working well, why that's
not working as well? Why? And this I'd like to

(37:33):
predict that this will help you understand that in some
in some ways.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
No question, no question. So I like the idea that
we start first with assessing your work your workforce. What
are what what what have you got in terms of
percentages of usue of the six archetypes, and by the way,
what is that? Let's get that. Now, what is the
assessment link? Where do they where do they go to
get the assessment?

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Well, you can only get the miniature one. The other
one is that we do it. Yeah, the main team
will do it. But it's going it's not a very
invasive process and it's noise at a very difficult process,
but it's We've got the databases, you know, being run
by our teams in the backups in India and they
can do all the benchmarks of you versus everybody else,
so that the quick quiz that you've taken at least

(38:15):
can be done, you know, a minute and a half
by everybody in our team. It's not a bad place
to start. Nothing other than it's going to ban dot
common finding.

Speaker 3 (38:22):
It okay, gotcha perfect? Okay. So then after we've done
that work, then the next thing you talk about is
it's really important that ortivations examine the culture that was
built to reward What are we rewarding here? And I
do that too when I'm doing the surveys and employee
engagement services, getting under the hood of well, hang on
a minute, what behaviors are we actually rewarding here?

Speaker 4 (38:43):
So good, Yeah, I'm not surprised that you do that
as part of your work. It's it's so revealing about
what's going on in the firm, even in an unwritten way,
what the kind of operating values are. When you put
a person up in front of the organization at the
town hall and say, hey, we're promoting leaves this week,
you say, okay, that's that's what's working here. So I,

(39:04):
you know, I prowl around the offices of my clients
sort of observing these moments of recognition, celebration and make
little mentalness. I never guess people's archetype. I have to say,
I really try to avoid that because for one simple reason,
people can seal aspects of who they are at one
the DEI especialists to prove it that to us even
if we didn't already know it. So don't guess, but

(39:26):
just ask people politely, if you've taken it, would you
would you like to take this too? And we can
have a shit chat about the differences between us. But yes,
it's I'm not surprising to do.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
That as well. And essentially the way that we ask
it is, you know what, what what will get you
praise here? What will what will get it. So it's
it's amazing what people say. You've already mentioned. You know,
that's important that you consider too that who was your
talent system built for, and invariably it was probably leaders
from twenty years ago, if you if you've been around

(39:57):
that long or whatever it is, and that they probably
will be more of the striver category. Once you understand that, right,
then you recognize, oh my gosh, we built this system
it is for just this one archetype and no wonder
we're alienating or losing all the other five. So I
think that's really worth pointing out it as well, is
that there's some examination about what's happening here. You then

(40:19):
go on to say that is fascinating because you say,
as a global services firm, you learn that the mix
of strivers was almost two point five times the norm
of other organizations forty eight percent compared to twenty one
percent global average. So that's your mix, right, that's what
your organization is about. And knowing what others are maybe
they do really they maybe part of their value system

(40:40):
or your value system literas and viewers, is you really
value work life harmony. You want your people to have big,
full lives which includes something outside of the four corners
of your office. Have you built your talent reward systems
for that?

Speaker 4 (40:54):
Yes, I mean I think that. Well, we don't talk
too much about being but yeah, we are constantly tinkering
or even making big changes in the way we think
about value proposition for our people and the reward systems
for it. But there's no doubt that we, like many
many firms of our age, we're fifty three years old
almost in terms of our age, absolutely in the middle

(41:15):
of the bullseye. Talent systems built by strivers for strivers,
And you know, I don't want to say there's anything
bad about that. We are an extremely lucky firm and
the sensor we are always winning the Glass Store, Best
place to Work, to Work awards and these kinds of things,
So I'm not criticizing it. I am saying, though, that
our firm, like every firm in the world, is experiencing

(41:36):
a dramatic change in the type of talents to acquire
and retain. So everybody's at some level I'm exaggerating, but
always becoming a technology firm. And what I have observed
at my clients and around the world in general is
a lot of the you know DevOps people, the data
architects there, data scientists, product managers. They're not classic strivers

(41:58):
might have far more explore it and far more pioneering them,
far more artisan in some of them. We just want to,
as I said before, we have to learn to write
their code and our systems. They need to catch up
to this diversity, because most people do not flourish in
a striver driven system of talent management. They may suck

(42:20):
it up, they may say, Okay, I get it. It's
not perfect for me, but it's I'll put up with
it because I like working at Google. I like whatever
it might be. But fundamentally it's not really designed for them.
And I'll never forget this moment. In a focus group,
after we do the contitative research activity to focus groups
buying archetype within the phone to get all the drivers together,

(42:40):
I get the example of that. It's one woman who
sat back at the end of the research debrief that
I'd shared with them and said, Okay, I'm a pioneer
living in a driver's world. I just got to get
used to that. Yeah, And it was like, Okay, I
get it. It's not ideal for me because I am

(43:00):
a pioneer, and I'd like to be rewarded by having
a big vision and changing everything. But I recognize that
the system doesn't actually optimize for my satisfaction and productivity.
But these things are very doable, and we now have
a system here which is going to allow you to
do it quite fast.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
I think, like you said before, just knowing, oh, this
is what's happening here, just recognizing this is what the
different the disconnect can come from. It's just so powerful.
So the other thing that's important here is when since
that many organizations probably did create their word systems for
strivers because they were maybe created by strivers or now
then led by strivers, and now that you have a

(43:39):
major disconnect with some of the some of the other groups.
And where I think this gets interesting, James, and you
correct me if I'm wrong about this, I think you
might you as a leader listening to us talk, you
might recognize is if this is you, if this is
your problem, if you find yourself saying things like I
don't know why our people don't want to work. I
don't know why they don't want to work hard? I

(44:01):
did I do?

Speaker 4 (44:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Fair?

Speaker 4 (44:04):
Yeah, absolutely fair, And it's particularly true about the poor
benighted gen Z. Right, how many times I get this
question what am I going to do about gen Z?
And I just try and stop the conversation straight away
and say that you're framing the question incorrectly. It will
be like me saying what am I going to do
about all women? What am I going to do about
all Chinese people? Or LGBTQ plus works as if we

(44:28):
could take a giant cohort like gen Z or women
and just say they're all the same, so let's just
everyone's standard solution for them. It's absurd, So let's stop
asking the question what we can do about gen Z.
Some gen Z you want to change the world. Some
gen Z you want to have milestones hit them, get rewarded.
Some want to be artisans. And do you know it's
that's I got the data to prove that, and the
mix of the mix of archetypes amongst gen Z is

(44:49):
not that different from the mix of archetypes. And honestly,
but you're absolutely right. I think that question comes up
a lot the frustration it causes people in the forties, fifties,
sixties about what's to and about people around them. This
can again, if you haven't you're brave enough to say
this is who I am, and then brave enough to
ask your people around you, could you do you take
this test and then we can have a discussion. You

(45:11):
can make a lot of break through there. M H.

Speaker 3 (45:13):
And I think it's worth noting too. There's so much
bigger color in your book here chains, but you do
talk about that there's a there are far more operators
than there are of course, and then then exist in
the in the leadership camps, they're they're so strong, So
you think about you need operators, you need them on
your on your team, and and and if you're alienating
them because you, as a leader, are more of a

(45:34):
this striver camp, pioneer camp. Yes, pioneer camp.

Speaker 4 (45:38):
Yeah, absolutely true. This is a tremendous concern that I
get a chance to talk about with the leadership teams
I spend time with. You know, if I take a
tip tip of our research where we call them executives,
it's not quite the same as C suite. It's got
to have a bigger group. It's only yes of the
population that we serve it. But even there this is
kew towards pioneers. It's quite dramatic. Yeah, more more than

(46:01):
two times. The number of pioneers that exist in the
working force population overall are in leadership executive role, so
twenty two percent roughly in various county country. So there's one,
there's one dramatic difference. So there's pioneers love risk, change
the world, move fast, break things, meantime operators who they
manage going no, no, no, we're fine. Down here, Everything's okay,

(46:23):
great things. I've got my process down here. It's working
when you go up to the c suite. And this
is now only qualitative because I can't do the research
on it, but just the people I spend time with
a typical group of twelve fifty people around the leadership table,
it is very common to have zero artisans and zero operators.

(46:44):
So where is the voice of those two archetypes going
to be heard? How is it going to be represented
on the c suite of many many organizations. That's a
question I don't have an answer to, but I know
it's a question.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
With bliogris so important. I just want to briefly touch
on this last point here, James. You talk about the
role of optimism in organizations and how leaders can steward
it for their organizations, and I think today especially can
we situate optimism here? Can you briefly touch on that?

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Yes, I like you. I'm sure. I studied the Gallup
data annually when it comes out, some colding organization that
has become famous for asking this question about the work
that's around the world. And it's miserable reading every year
about how many people are disengaged and how many people
are so unhappy and ossimistic about their work. And so
I you know, we did a lot of research about

(47:33):
stress and energy and wellness of work that's in the book.
And there I was pouring over the data about stress
and getting stressed about it myself. What was going on?
And it's something popped out. We did ask a question
of a lot of all the people in our sample
about their optimism levels, and it was extraordinarily high, even

(47:55):
for the younger the gen zs you asked in the
question it was famed as five to ten years now,
are you optimist the life will be better? We have
I mean high seventies, mid eighties some countries, high nineties
of the workforce, And yeah, I'm optimistic, and I feel
like the unlock that we have to get to as
leaders and managers of people is to turn that optimism

(48:18):
into engagement, which is the Gallup measure, the opposite of
disengagement and pescifism, and huge numbers of people will find
their work experience very different if you could do now.

Speaker 3 (48:29):
Amazing. Now we've come pretty close to the end of
the show here, and I do want to give you
the chance to be able to leave our listeners and
yours what you like. Very briefly, what would you like
to leave them with today.

Speaker 4 (48:39):
Well, just that here's a language you can try to
understand more about why you like your job or why
you don't like your job, and which parts of it
you like and don't like. There's a language for you
to understand that very simply. It's not a complicated sixteen
box riddle nobody understands anyway. That's the first thing. So
there is a little bit of a game. I would
never say I'm a self help expert. I'm not, but

(49:02):
it turned out that this is a bit of self
help in this book. The second thing is be I
said this before, I said again, be brave enough to ask,
you know, to identify your own archetype and then ask
maybe your HR team or your colleagues, your peers, your
people on your working team to do the to do
the quiz, and then spend time talking to each other
as a group. Have the courage to take your your

(49:25):
story about your career through the lens of the Archetypes
to your HR leader or your your line leader and say, look,
this is something that's going on with me. How can
we design the next year or two in my job
here with this in mind. Obviously, skills are the most
important thing. Nothing in what I'm saying. So skills are
not absolutely fundamental, but skills plus motivations makes for a

(49:46):
better career path than skills are learn That's my.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
View, James. It's still spectacular to know you, to learn
from you, to be inspired by you. Thank you so
much for coming on, working in purpose and sharing so
beautiful your work. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I know
our listens can be did too.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
Thank you, Absolute pleasure, lovely to meet you.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Listeners and viewers. You're gonna want to learn more about
James Ruth the work that he does at being consulting
in his book The Archetype Effects. So visit Bain. It's
just www dot baine dot com. That's b eighti dot com.
Last week. If you missed the live show, you can
always catch it via recorded podcast. We'll see you next
week for another nourishing and inspiring episode on Working on
Purpose Together. Let's lean in and learn together how to

(50:26):
make workplaces and work for everyone and find ways to
do business that betters the world. Let's work on Purpose.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to
tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes,
each week on W four C. Why Together, We'll create
a world where business operates conscientiously. Leadership inspires and passion
performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the
meaning and purpose They crave. See you there, Let's work

(50:55):
on Purpose.