Three Types

We like categorizing people. We judge people by their horoscope for fun and sometimes for real when it conforms with our belief. Categorizing helps us navigate this chaotic world and make a quick decision. We categorize from the most abstract thing to the most mundane thing. From religion to laundry. Now, we want to categorize people into three categories. Recognise these categories should helps you treat them and place them to a certain task if you are a decision maker.

As the title stated, we try to categorize whether they are an explorer, an exploiter, or a maintainer. The most common analogy i found for these is a commandos, a soldier, and a police. Does one is better than the other? No. They have their own specific job and trained to do their job well. Let us delve deeper to these categories by examining them one by one

A Commandos or An Explorer

A commandos is a special force among military. They have the most complex and hardest task. The number of people could fit for these job is really small. After all, they need to really fit and stand against the hard and unexpected adversary. Commados missions are rarely the same. They task varies from hostage rescue to espionage. They only deployed in the most critical condition but these critical condition is rarely occured.

Explorer reserved for the new and the unknown. In every growing company, there must be an expansion to area which previously never been settled upon. Here comes the explorers, they use their skill and knowledge to find what are the best move in this unknown area and execute what needs to be done. Their role end where there is a basic knowledge and rules in the area are known. Then come the army

An Army or an Exploiter

An army is a main part of the military. Their tasks aren’t the hardest but not an easy one. Army brings stability to an area so non-military people could start to settle down in the area. Bringing statbility in relative new area is not an easy task. Setting up laws and make sure basic supply need are met is part of army task. Bringing order in previously known land but lost to a certain cause is also army task.

Similarly, exploiter find the best way to make things working out in the new area. They set up the rules and basic need flows so the area could thrive. They also make sure everyting is optimized to generate a great result. Once everything checks out and works well, army start to pull out and comes the police

A Police or an Maintainer

A police force is not a part of military. Their main job is make sure everything works in order and do neccessary things to maintain it. Police alsp helped getting feedback from people about what could be improved. Police also act about what supposed not to happen. Calling army if it is beyond police capability.

Maintainer can be said have the same job as the police. It just maintain features that already rolled. Fixing small thing such as add credential or improve error messages. While maintainer is the least demanding compared to explorer or exploiter, it needs large manpower especially when a company have many features. Once a feature deployed, explorer and expoloiter move on to next area but maintainer stay until the feature life cycle ends.

Connnection between These Three.

Combining these three categories are the key to have a sustainable growth. We need to give them a task that suitable for each categories. Wrong tasks could make operation inefficient or even jeopradize entire operation.

The most common way to utilize these categories is expansion and settle cycle. Let’s take example of groceries store. Let’s say our groceries store want to expand to another area. We only have little information about this area, maybe only basic information such as how large is it, how many population it has and so on. First, we deploy our explorer team – the commandos – to the area. Explorer scouts the area and gather basic information. After all needed information is in hand, begin the expanison. Explorer create an expansion plan such as where we need to put our first store, how many manpower we need, and etc. and execute it

When the first store is complete and operating quite well, the explorer pull out and the exploiter comes in. Exploiter find a way to maximise output from this area. Maybe by create a better logistic network in the area, or importing more experienced store manager from other area. The target of exploiter is fortify establishment that explorer create and set up rules to ensure continuity. Once the rules proven to be good for the area. Exploiter pass the baton to the maintainer.

Maintainer maintain what have been done and make incremental, small changes so the ouput stays within acceptable area. This is entering settle part. We want to settle things so we can’t allocate expansion resource else where.

There is a circumstances where maintainer should fall back and give the baton back to exploiter. Maybe the competitor deploy an cutting edge technology to the are so the area need more radical change instead of small incremental change. Expansion here does not limit to physical senses. Expanison maybe represent expanding to new business line or launching new product/feature.

Based on our explanation, the exploiter is the middle man who have intersersect both with maintainer and explorer. So if there is a person that we don’t know where s/he belongs, just plung s/he to exploiter. If one has tendencies to explore new things and possibilities, maybe s/he belongs to explorer, else if one has tendencies to maintain things and optimise things that exist, maybe s/he belongs as a maintainer. If s/he has swings, maybe just put him/her in exploiter.

Misplace people could cause boredom, burnout and many unpleasant things. Putting people where they belong is one of the way to keep people happy about what they are doing.

Disclaimer

I don’t really understand how police and military relationship looks like. I just borrow what most people see so people could relate more