CareerLearning: Of Doers, Thinkers and Convincers - A Simple Role and Remuneration Theory

I am no HR expert – in fact HR & Administration are the only roles that I have not performed in my many years in the Communication & Technology industry; nor do I pretend to have done a deep academic analysis of data but I do sense a pattern that I wish to share on the kinds of roles we perform in the corporate world and the associated expectations for remuneration. Also, often I have been asked by my mentees on the kinds of jobs & associated pay; I am hoping that this note will be helpful in such conversations.

I have a very simple theory that all kinds of corporate roles can be broadly categorized as those of Doers, Thinkers and Convincers. While some people perform two or sometimes even all the 3 roles, most of their day to day activities fall pre-dominantly in one of the three categories. Based on which category a person belongs to, his/her salary range can fluctuate to a certain level – for Doers, the band is smallest and for Convincers, the range is greatest as shown in the diagram below. Pictorially, I would depict it as the simple view created at the top of this post.

My simple theory is as follows:

• Doer roles in the corporate world typically comprise of:
1. At the lower end of the salary band, operators (run systems, floor shop jobs etc), planners etc
2. At the middle of the salary band are seasoned operators, operation experts and supervisors/managers (who manage the operators and or act as middle men between operators and top management) as well as folks who are called project/program managers and run special assignments
3. At the top end of their band, people who run operations for a geography, division or are Program Executives (due to the large $ in their budget), Chief Operating Officers, Chief Information Officers (in most companies)
• Thinker roles can be stratified as:
1. At the lower end of their salary band are marketing analysts, financial analysts, systems programmers, some entry level consultants, designers, planners, research scientists, process analysts etc
2. At the middle of (the Thinker) salary band are seasoned consultants, solutions architects, building architects, functional experts ….
3. At the top end of (the Thinker) band are world renowned experts at integrating concepts across functions, conceptualizing new business models, developing new paradigms, lead scientists etc
• Convincer roles typically comprise of :
1. At the lower end of the salary band expert telemarketers, successful sales staff, advertising experts, PR gurus, Product Managers and the ilk
2. At the middle of the Convincer band are Partners in consulting firms, Chief Design officers in auto/engineering firms, budding CEOs, senior sales and marketing officers of all kinds, "White Space" sellers, Chief Technology Officers ….
3. At the top end of the Convincer band are the CEOs, Chief Sales & Marketing Officers, Chief Visionary Officer, Chief Evangelist, advertising Gurus
• All role categories of people are essential for a company to do well and none of the categories are inferior in any respect (prestige, level in organization etc) to the other; in fact a lot of thinkers are prone to looking down upon convincers (“those sales guys”) and a lot of doers don’t want to be just thinking or convincing others; it is just that based on these categories, the variability (standard deviation form the average, for the mathematically inclined) in salary differs across these bands
• In fact some doers get paid more than thinkers and convincers and some thinkers more than the other two categories depending on where they are in the band
• Based on their capabilities, with time & experience, expertise demonstrated, connections made in the corporate world people or pure good luck, people move up in their role categories and sometimes even cross these categories; however most people become used to their capabilities and therefore are comfortable staying in one of the 3 role categories once they have found their groove and have made their work-life-decision-responsibility trade-off
• The longer people hang in a specific role category (Doer, Thinker, Convincer), the more difficult is their transition to another category; sometimes a deeper annoyance and mistrust of those in the other categories develops – often leading to decisions where they forego the chance to jump across role categories even when offered and with greater incentives
• In my view, every person should recognize which role category they are happiest playing in at a given stage in life and manage their salary expectations based on the category they want to be in

Caveats in interpreting this simple Role Categories and Compensation theory

• This is not a compensation research but based on general discussions and analysis of what I hear people get for their effort in the corporate world
• All figures for $ mentioned are not absolute but just shown for highlighting the point on variance within each category
• This simple theory is applicable to corporate world and assumes that compensation is not a factor of number of years of service, but the perceived value of the employee to the company
• It applies to non-unionized, free and near-free markets environments
• Various complex factors, scarcity of a category of people, downturn in a specific industry, work and life culture all come into calculation of remuneration in the real world; this simple theory does not purport to capture all those factors
• The salary bands of course don’t apply to the sons, daughters, spouses, mistresses and buddies of top executives – they can pay anybody anything they wish
• Also, this note is not applicable to entrepreneurs and independent consultants, just plain old salary earning corporate employees