Who are the 3 Types of Employees You’ll Manage?

Labels sort out employees, not box them in

Lifters

Lifters are those special people who spare no mental expense to get a project to its maximal value. They may volunteer to take on extra work in a pinch or they may offer that special nugget of inspiration that encourages their coworkers to aim higher. They are the people that you never have to light a fire under and they are undoubtedly my favorite kind of team player.

Shifters

Despite the high praise I’ve thrown to Lifters, do not assume that Shifters are without distinction. Shifters are the facilitators on the team that put the pieces together and form the base for your Lifters to enhance. Ideally, this will be the bulk of a team.

Drifters

Drifters are the last 20% of a team and hopefully make up even less than that. Drifters are going to be those folks who check-in every day and promptly check-out of their responsibilities. I could write a book on ways employees may fall into the Drifter category, but I’ll leave it at the plain fact that you will sometimes have to manage people who do not meet minimum expectations and begin to weigh everyone down.

Don’t Be Rigid

Ron and I would be flattered if you adopt the Lifter, Shifter, Drifter mentality, but we understand if you are set in your own methods of categorizing your team’s players. I’m sure there are similarities even if the labels are named differently. No matter the method, I highly advise not thinking too rigidly about them.

--

--

Chairman and CEO, Webber Investments. Partner at Idea Booth/BGO.

Get the Medium app

A button that says 'Download on the App Store', and if clicked it will lead you to the iOS App store
A button that says 'Get it on, Google Play', and if clicked it will lead you to the Google Play store
Aaron Webber

Chairman and CEO, Webber Investments. Partner at Idea Booth/BGO.