The 5 Archetypes in Business

Cody Austin Davis
12 min readJan 12, 2022

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During business school, 10s of mental models were thrown at me and drilled into my head to help me conceptualize how a well-run business works. SWOT Analysis, Business Model Archetypes, The Adoption Curve, etc; however, no classes in business school focused as much on how, specifically, to build a strong team as either an executive or a manager. Throughout my career, I continue to fall back on a consistent mental model that guides me in creating teams, building businesses, informing competitive strategy, and even helping identify the areas in which I can make the biggest impact within my own teams.

The 5 primary archetypes seen in business are simple, but have been all encompassing and extremely helpful when navigating internal and external organizational dynamics. Before we jump in, it is important to note that individuals and companies can take on these roles, and you can also have all of these types within a specific role. Lastly, people can typically embody a distribution of skills and desires in all roles, but knowing where your spikes are helps you fit together teams and organizational strategy together more effectively.

The 5 Archetypes in Business:

  1. The Visionary — The connector, the enterpriser, the driver of future state, the one who brings new ideas to the world and inspires others to see it with them. The visionary is the master of recombination and persuasion. This type focuses on identifying opportunity and ways in which seemingly separate resources/ideas/people can be leveraged together intelligently to be better off than they were separate.
  2. The Builder — The passionate creator and the player that makes things happen. These types defend their idea viciously, and do not stop until their plan is complete. The builder is the master of learning and tooling to create new things. They are masters of their craft and command a great deal of respect in their domains of expertise not because they want respect, but because they are the few that care enough to dive deep and give an idea legs to run.
  3. The Optimizer — The scaler, the perfectionist, and the type that loves diving into the deepest depths of a problem. This player is usually the only type that will consistently go to the deepest level of detail on a problem and be happy to live there. Organizations need these players to scale properly, anticipate problems, and to set the org up for long term success. The optimizers are ultimately the ones that make a business profitable and sustainable.
  4. The Advocate — The relator, the empathizer, and the enroller. This type is will most commonly be found in outward-facing leadership roles. This player is key for generating buy-in and enrolling new people into an idea. The advocate is a master at discovery, understanding pain, empathizing, and ultimately at understanding the perspective of others and mapping that to their ability to help.
  5. The Speculator — The seeker, the fundamentalist, the altruist, and the one that drives transparency and calls attention to disharmony. Speculators are amazing at spotting trends, issues, and offering a efficient mechanism for course correction to ensure that the vision has not been compromised. Speculators hold everyone accountable and ensure that people receive consequences for the decisions they make (good or bad).

Real-world roles that most often map to these archetypes:

Once again, these are just heuristic examples to communicate how the types fit in society. Real life is not so cut and dry, but this is a great place to start in framing the archetypes.

Visionary: Founders/CEOs (depends on the stage and maturity of the company, late-stage or stagnant companies often hire optimizers as CEOs), writers, film-makers, artists of any sort. Ultimately, they are roles that perform recombination of existing ideas to create new ones, and then inspire others to see how it can change society.

Builder: Engineers, farmers, construction workers, real-estate developers, etc. Builders gets things done and seek to always be creating new things.

Optimizer: Accountants, lawyers, doctors, scientists, human resources, academics, also engineers.

Advocate: Sales execs, teachers, counselors, parents.

Speculator: Analysts, Journalists, scientists, finance professionals (investment bankers, traders, and the like), researchers.

In the real world, most roles offer more of a “profile” of each skill. For example in the Data space, the 3 popular roles of Analyst, Data Engineer, and Data Scientist would something like this:

Data Analyst: 70% Speculator, 20% Advocate, and 10% Builder

Data Engineer: 60% Builder, 30% Optimizer, and 10% Visionary (need to think to the future to build and scale a big system)

Data Scientist: 50% Speculator, 25% Builder, 25% Optimizer

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Archetypes in Detail

VISIONARIES

Visionaries need to make sure they dedicate time to open themselves up to others perspectives. While visionary types have an uncanny ability to see what others cannot, they also have a tendency to put the blinders on and be uncompromising in their vision, which can lead to significant blind spots. It is a vital skill when implementing a new vision to push through the nay-sayers, as creating something new comes with a lot of “no’s” , but they also need to know when to give and when to hold steady.

Balanced visionaries know how to build feedback systems to integrate new perspectives into their visions in a controlled way without letting the comfort of the status quo take their motivation. When a visionary is balanced, they will often have a council of experts around them that offer different perspectives to keep them in-check and connected to reality. They will then use this system consistently to gather honest feedback about the relevancy and feasibility of their vision, and their counsel will force them to defend their new vision vigorously.

Unbalanced visionaries tend to be stubborn and out of touch with reality. In leadership roles, this can pop up as managers dictating unrealistic expectations to their team and quickly building resentment. They can be extremely magnetizing and inspiring, but if not balanced can lead to people losing trust in them quickly and not feeling heard or respected by the visionaries. This can also pop up as overlooking key details and mis-representing the problem that their vision solves.

Ultimately this type needs to be honest with their limits, needs to be quick to ask for help, and should organize a counsel of experts around them to hold them accountable to their assumptions and guide them through the details.

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BUILDERS

Builders have the highest ability to connect the abstract to the concrete. They can take a vision and immediately gather and use the tools at their disposal to make that vision a reality. Nothing exists without builders, and they will be the first ones to tell you that. They can build anything, so they need help gauging whether what they are building is worth their time. Builders get very attached to their projects and have a tendency to overlook important aspects of an idea such as product/market fit, usability, cost, etc. Builders can also lash out when you call their baby ugly, and thus can be tricky to work with at times; however, if you meet them in the arena, you will rarely be disappointed. As much respect as builders command for their expertise, they give even more back when others engage in their passion with them.

Unbalanced builders are at highest risk of suffering from the sunk cost fallacy of all the types. Because of their immense passion for a project, they have a hard time knowing when enough is enough and when they need to move onto the next project. In addition, because builders often operate from a place of passion, their productivity can often be dynamic. When builders are not deeply motivated by a mission, they would rather do nothing than build something they don’t feel strongly about, thus can be a challenge when a builder is not on the same page as the rest of the organization.

Balanced builders deeply understand that doing proper due diligence before starting a project can minimize their risk of burnout, wasted energy, and the dreaded sunk cost fallacy. Mature builders will have a system and plan for evaluating their passions, will understand the cost/benefit trade offs of their idea, and ensure that they connect to the need before they dive head first. Balanced builders are just as greedy with their time, but they are intelligently decisive about it.

Overall, builders will thrive when they are given a challenging and difficult vision to materialize. As long as they have a clear line of sight to the need, risks, and other opportunities, they will be unstoppable.

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OPTIMIZERS

We need optimizers to set us up for the long term, to push us to the next level of greatness. Here, the obvious risk for optimizers falls within the Pareto Principle of the 80/20 rule, meaning that 80% of the value comes from 20% of the work. Optimizers know that this is an oversimplification, and that greatness comes from the hard work you put into that 20% that others usually give up on. The best way to ensure optimizers are successful is by making sure the KPIs they optimize for are created intelligently and before they start. Expectation management from the jump is everything for optimizers. Setting clear expectations for success will be key to make sure they feel valued and are effective. Giving an optimizer the task of “making this thing run as fast as possible” is not going to fare as well than if they were given the task to “make this run within X minutes to accomplish Y user o boarding time to ensure optimal usability and cost efficiency”.

Unbalanced optimizers can often suffer from efficiently doing ineffective things. They will obsess and ruminate on an idea to and past its expiration date. Immature optimizers, like builders, do not clearly understand the cost/benefit trade off. They know about it, but they pick the wrong metrics and fail to look for a more holistic definition of cost and value. They can get lost in the weeds and it is extremely difficult to pull them out when they get lost. Optimizers can often have a critical view of most things around them simply because they value quality over all else, and will fail to understand why all things are not perfect.

Balanced optimizers, like builders, know that due diligence and expectation setting up front is key for their success. They will optimize the expectation setting process by gathering requirements, interviewing, prototyping, and researching heavily. Once they feel like they have a holistic perspective and grounded metrics to focus on, they will fly. Balanced optimizers are not as cynical about the things around them because they understand that they are they way they appreciate the nuance and see the other factors influence something other than just raw quality. They understand that you cant reasonably run a business if you spend 100% of your time on optimizing for just perfection. Thus, when they focus on optimizing for scale + quality instead of just quality, this is when they become invaluable to companies.

As long builders give them a solid foundation and the visionaries give them a clear target, they will quickly be known as the go-to expert in a given domain. Their ability to learn quickly and deeply is what differentiates them from the other types, along with their incessant drive to perfection.

Businesses often overlook optimizers in their strategy, instead focusing too much on builders and visionaries; however, because builders are focused on bringing the rough idea to life, they usually neglect to think about how its going to be fed in the years to come. It is often common that companies do not know how use use optimizers effectively for the specific need. For example, if you are a VC firm and you hire an optimizer type CEO for an early stage company, this will be ineffective as they will not see the forest for the trees, leading the CEO to optimize an unproven or malformed idea.

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ADVOCATES

Advocates are only happy when others are having what they are having. Great advocates lead with empathy and deeply care about making others successful. They build the reputation, face, and feel of an organization.

In conversation, Advocates lead people into vulnerability instead of just following the thread of the surface-level small talk. They are masters at integrating and utilizing outside perspectives and at sustaining relationships. In this skill, advocates can understand, hold, and communicate many contexts. These skills make them extremely powerful in gathering competitive intelligence, building a strategy, and sparking new relationships.

Unbalanced Advocates can quickly get out of hand in prioritization. Because they feel so much empathy, they have a tendency to make everyone #1 priority in the short term, and can set themselves up for missing expectations and frustrating others around them in the long term. Advocates need to pay special attention to understanding that they only have so much time in the day, and that the long term way to show that someone is important to them is to clearly communicate their abilities and limits upfront. Stakeholders usually mind less if you can’t get to their thing by right now, as long as you are honest about when you can accomplish something. Advocates also have the tendency to over-promise out of sheer excitement that they understand the other player and feel they can help.

Balanced Advocates know how to dive deep into the needs, fears, and passions of others without coming on too strong. They lead others into vulnerability by intelligently showing vulnerability themselves in a measured way. They are the ultimate strategists because they live for the feeling that they have helped others, and viciously defend their mission in helping. In addition, balanced advocates have clear systems and rules around expectation setting, prioritization, and having their ducks in a row before they make a promise.

Ultimately, advocates are successful when they balance expectations of the future with reality and the current resources they have. Give them a person and they will learn everything there is to know about the motivations, strengths, weaknesses, and potential of that person. Advocates are true champion builders and partnership creators.

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SPECULATORS

Speculators are the philosophers and truth seekers. This type wants to understand the world and they are amazing at holding people accountable to their stated perspectives. Speculators are the roles that guide the visionaries and keep everyone on the same page. Analysts are some of the best examples of Speculators, as they exist to understand the nuance of what is happening as it happens, and make sense of it all for a more effective decision. They steer the ship and make sure we all get to where we originally intended. These types are the ones that see the causes and effects of complex system dynamics, assess, and distill that complex model into a series of clear insights and decisions.

Unbalanced speculators can become quickly irritating to others, as they have a tendency to offer unsolicited advice. They can easily ignore social rules and insert themselves into areas that have not yet been invited. Since their intellect is generally extremely high, they are always looking for new puzzles to chew on and new insights to reach.

Balanced speculators ask before going deep and offering insight. They are perceptive to what is needed around them and are skilled at quickly gathering feedback when given to them. Balanced speculators make great managers because they can understand, manage, and track extremely complex systems of people and technology. They will be the ones that anticipate the issues before they arise, and will also be able to tell you how others are already handling this. They are the true thought leaders that will ensure the Visionary has an intelligent feedback loop rooted in reality.

Without Speculators, markets would be much less efficient, companies would fail 5 times more often, and visionaries would not be able to sustainably execute. The famous speculator role are investors (hedge funds, VC funds, etc.) because they can find and understand the potential and value of an idea before anyone else can.

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You may have noticed a common theme in all of these archetypes; that one cannot exist without the rest and that all types need to be able to listen to others, exercise empathy, and integrate other perspectives in their worldview. Without these fundamental skills, you will be unbalanced, ineffective, and unhappy no matter which type you are.

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Higher Level Applications

The Archetypes concepts apply to not only individual people, but also how organizations as a whole relate to and interact with one another. This is usually the entry point to which I begin assessing any market and its competitive landscape when either selling to a customer or when building a competitive strategy plan. The 3 layers in which I most commonly apply these principles are:

  1. Intra-personal — Everyone has a little bit of each archetype inside of them, but they also feel more productive and comfortable in different areas. When assessing your own value and role in your career, it is helpful to use these ideas to assess what you have a strong grasp in, what you are weaker in, and compare that to ultimately what makes you feel most satisfied in your career. Are you happiest building things? Or are you happiest when you are able to connect the need to the solution by identifying people’s pain and empathizing with their goals. Anyone can work on these skills, but only you can decide where you feel most satisfied spending your time.
  2. Inter-personal — How to relate to others within a team, company, or even social circle.
  3. Inter-organization — How an entire company can take on an archetype and how the market is shaped around these roles.

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Next in the Series:

  1. Current: Overview of the 5 Archetypes in Business
  2. How each archetype can effectively work with the others
  3. How to hire — how to find the types you need — the balanced archetype scorecard
  4. How to develop each archetype in others and yourself
  5. Using the 5 Business Archetypes to assess external competitive strategy

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Cody Austin Davis
Cody Austin Davis

Written by Cody Austin Davis

Self proclaimed philosopher that likes to write about business, tech, philosophy, comedy, and art. I don't take life too seriously.