As a business coach, one of the things that we work on with our clients is not only helping them find and retain top talent, but also help them coach their team to help increase productivity and growth within the business.

And one of the ways that we do that is we help them learn how to distinguish their employees into two different categories of workers.

And while neither one is good or bad, it does affect the way that you interact with, train and retain those team members. So today I wanted to talk a little bit more about role players vs growth players and how you can use that knowledge on your own team.

Role Player

So how do you spot a role player? The way that you're going to spot a role player is through their behavior.

A role player's behavior is going to be one that when you give them new, ambiguous situations to try something to expand, they're clearly uncomfortable with it and they don't like it. They're resistant to it.

You ask a role player to take on a brand new function and they might say, oh, really? Sure? You can just see they don't want to. Oftentimes they'll say, "if you need me to, I'll do it, but I'd rather not."

You can also spot a role player by how they respond to feedback. A role player avoids it, is uncomfortable with it, might get defensive about it and pushes it away. They do not want the feedback or struggle with the concept.

Growth Player

Growth players however like to take on new and ambiguous situations, and they're very comfortable with being uncomfortable.

They want to stretch themselves and expand. Or even if they don't like the feeling of discomfort that comes from growing, they value it. They want the challenge.

When it comes to feedback, they are hungry for it. They search it out. They're omnivorous about it. They just want to use it to get better. They embrace it. They lean into it. They take it to heart and use it to improve and grow. They take ownership of it.

When you give a growth person feedback like:

"When you did the Sandhurst project, you really did not lay out the expectations in the proper way and as a result, they expected that we were going to be able to get them that proposal within 48 hours when you and I both know that it takes generally somewhere between 5 and 7 business days to do a really good proposal. So in the future, please make sure you set really good expectations with them." 

A growth player will say "You know what your are right. I'll do better in the future. Thank you for the input."

A role player says, "Yeah, but this – you didn't understand this and that" and they start defending against it, as opposed to taking ownership, embracing, leaning into it and using it to improve and get better.

Embracing the Differences

Now, does that mean that you should only seek out and hire growth players? Absolutely not, there are plenty of positions within your business that need the dependability and structure that a role player provides.

While some other positions require growth players. So once you are able to distinguish between the two and you understand the role at hand, you can plan accordingly.

Inc