Finders, Minders, and Grinders

I read this tweet:

“Finders, minders, and grinders” Partners, VPs, and analysts

And it was a new perspective on how organizations are structured. I googled it and found this article which goes further into how professional (in this case legal) firms identify, and develop different kinds of people even though they all start the same way.

The expression “Finders, Minders and Grinders” is attributed to David Meister in his book Managing the Professional Service Firm.

Finders are the rainmakers. Minders are the ones that manage the teams and deliverables. Grinders are the ones that do the work. This blog introduces the idea of Binders - people that network, nurture relationships.

Looking from a technology worker perspective, most of the people fall into the “Grinder” set. This seems almost insulting to technical people, but it is not difficult to see why many “professionals” outside the tech bubble see all tech people as grinders, even if the t-shirt wearing, unkempt “techy” might be worth many times the well dressed striver in a “professional” organization.

The lesson for those in the technology world is understand — there IS a difference between the archetypes, with the Partners being the real movers, and shakers. A lot of the ambitious tech people aspire toe be Minders (managers, VPs, etc).

If you can teach yourself to look at the big picture, you might want to be a rainmaker.

You need to be original, and you cannot borrow someone else’s brain to get there.