3 Types of People: Players, Passengers, Prisoners
This is the most ruthless framework (and it works). It was an offhand moment in Amsterdam that I’ll never forget. I was midway through a two-week course to become a Neurolinguistic Programming Master Practitioner when I heard it.
My teacher, Nicole, has decades of coaching experience and she was telling a story about a high powered CEO-for-hire in the Netherlands. He’s one of these CEOs that gets brought in to distressed businesses and tries to turn them around. How his does it is remarkable.
“So, one of the most common levers to improve a business’ financials is laying people off in these situations,” Nicole began to ask. “When you have ten or twenty thousand people, how do you decide who stays and who goes?”
He said, “I use a simple framework.”
Here’s how it works. There are three archetypes in every business:
PLAYERS. These people are key contributors who are motivated, execute, and bring value without needing their hand held. In many cases, players contribute as a force multiplier. Their effort is worth the amount of several “regular” people.
PASSENGERS. These people are simply around. They don’t get into formal trouble, but they are mostly marking time. They are passible and are unremarkable contributors.
PRISONERS. These are people who at some point have felt some sort of injustice and/or have become bitter and disillusioned by their role. Their disposition brings some toxicity and is a downward spiral to themselves and others. Some nuance about prisoners is that there are two types:
FORMER PLAYERS.
FORMER PASSENGERS.
The hundred million dollar question is what do you do with this information?
According to our Dutch muse, the actions are simple. You keep all the players. These are the kinds of people that great businesses are built upon. That’s obvious. According to him, the passengers are let go. No team, especially one in distress, can afford people who are hanging out. The culture going forward will need remarkable performers.
You might be surprised about what he said to do with the prisoners.
The prisoners who are former players can be saved by moving them laterally or redesigning their role. If you can get them back to their player mentality, they are worth saving. The prisoners who are former passengers are ruthlessly let go.
Now, this is a framework told by a guy who fires people for a living.
It’s not how I coach people to use it, so hear me out. I’ve shared this framework with hundreds of leaders at this point and it always has a profound introspective effect. So, share it!
There are two main advantages to sharing this with your team:
It gives sense-making language to dynamics that are present in every team, and
When you share this framework with your team, everyone automatically self-diagnoses. We want to know who is who!
This gives everyone a chance to self-correct.
Offer the framework and the request that there’s one type of teammate that will be tolerated. From there you can look for change and you all will have mutual language to describe the landscape with your team as performance reviews, accountability, and management conversations transpire.
AUDIT. Give everyone (including yourself) on your team a type.
PRACTICE. Talk with your team collectively and individually to level-set to if there is agreement. As a manager, typing someone as a passenger who types themselves as a player, for example, makes for important conversation and is feedback in and of itself. Plan a way forward.