Understanding the Difference Between Strategic Thinkers, Managers, and Doers

There are three different tiers of how people work: strategic thinkers, managers, and doers. There’s nothing bad about any of them, they’re all just different. But I think before I thought things were bad because I thought one way and if someone else thought a different way I was like, they’re bad and they’re not doing a good job. But that’s not the case, there is just a different skill set.

The first tier is people who strategically figure stuff out. They sit down and figure out the strategy of how it works and they can see this vision of how these things work and how they connect. They see the patterns and the strategy behind how something works. So that’s the first type of person.

The second tier is someone who’s a manager. They are able to take this strategic vision and they can plug people in and they can manage those people to go and do the actual thing. They’re really good at the management of the process, the management of the people and the kind of plugging in the systems and doing that kind of stuff.

The third tier is the people who actually do the work. The doers who actually go out there and they go and implement the thing. And again, I think for a long time in my life I was like, oh well strategic thinkers are the most important part. Or, the managers are the most. Or maybe the doers. Or whatever, it’s like all of them are so vitally important. And if you’re struggling right now in your business, my guess is that you’re probably missing one of those individuals.

You may be a great strategic person and you have this vision of where you want to go, but you suck at managing people and you’re not a doer, so you’re floundering. Or you’re a doer and you’re like, if someone gives me a task, I will do it. I will crush any task. But sometimes it’s just me doing it, and it’s not a whole bunch of people because I’m not good at managing, and I don’t really know what to do unless someone tells me what to do, and visa versa.

For a team to be effective you have to have all of those people..

We spent a lot of time this year working on organizational charts at ClickFunnels. And it was interesting, as we built org charts, there’s this flow. It looks like a big pyramid scheme. Here’s CEO and then it moves down to this level and this level. I used to always kind of hate it because what’s the guy on the bottom going to think? They’re clear down here, on this branch of this tree. And it’s like, oh no. It doesn’t matter what part of the tree you are, the whole org chart is essential for the success of the company.

There are people at the top of this thing who are strategic thinkers and a lot of times they make more money. Not all the time, but there’s a lot of value in strategic thinking. Then underneath the strategic thinkers, you have this layer of managers that are managing people, and then down below there are these doers that are doing the actual work.

What is interesting, I see a lot of times, where we would have someone in our team who is a really good doer, they’re an amazing programmer, or amazing whatever. And we’re like, “Oh man, this guy is so amazing let’s move them up the org chart. Let’s make them a manager.” We put this person who’s like a rock star doer and we make them a manager and it’s like, they were so successful as a doer, but they suck as a manager, they don’t have management skills. Or we bring them up and say, “Hey, what do you think about this, strategically thinking?” And they’re like, “I don’t know.” And all the sudden they fail because we put them in a role where they’re supposed to be strategically thinking.

And it’s like, no, you’re not supposed to be strategically thinking. You’re a doer and you’re supposed to go out there and actually do the thing. And I look at our org chart now and there are people who are doers who make more than the people who are managing them. And that’s okay because sometimes there’s a doer who’s insanely good at this thing and they should make more than their manager.

I think in my head I always had this org chart whereas you go down everyone gets paid less and less, and it’s not necessarily that way. It’s understanding the value of the role, what they’re doing is what they should be paid, but a doer can get paid more than a strategic thinker, it’s just a different level. I think for me, really understanding that it’s like okay, there’s strategic people and there are management people and there are doer people. Understanding those three different personality types and skill sets are essential to you being successful.

If you enjoyed reading this article, you can listen to the full podcast episode here!! What tier of worker are you? Let me know in the comments!! :)