Last month I was fortunate enough to spend some time behind-the-scenes in a well-known Boston-area robotics company. This is a workplace that requires a signed NDA before entry, but one thing I can talk about that came up during the conversations about their engineers is relevant to workplaces the world over – the idea that some people are “furniture makers” and some are simply “makers,” and that knowing which you are – and which the people on your team are – can bring clarity to how you work together.
In the robotics context, the “furniture makers” are the engineers whose passion is building (or coding) robots. This is what they want to do, and they do it well. The “makers” are the engineers whose passion is to build (or code), and they’re currently doing it with robots, but they have previously done similar work on other products (cars, machines, bicycles… you name it), and they may well move out of robotics again in future, back to their previous fields or to something new. Their skills may not be as deeply nuanced, but they transfer across fields.
To look at it in another context, we all know people who discovered their passion at some point, and pursued that doggedly. But that can take different forms. I’ve known many people who are passionate about working in a certain field, with particular desired outcomes, and who pursue this in a variety of ways over the course of their life. In the terms we’re using above, these would be the “furniture makers” – people who know what they want to work on, work on it well, and take pride in the finished result. I’ve also known a large number of entrepreneurs over the years: people who start a business, grow it successfully, and then start another one, and follow the same process. Sometimes, the second or third business will have nothing to do with the first – the product or service may be entirely unrelated to the first in a way that could be confusing to an outsider. Here, the product or service aren’t necessarily the driving force for the entrepreneur (or they may be for a period of a few years, but not lifelong) – but the process of building the business might be. These entrepreneurs are the “makers” – the process light them up more than the result.
Of course, this example has its flaws. Some entrepreneurs might view themselves as “furniture makers” of businesses. Some real-life furniture makers could (fairly) see this comparison as reductive; being proud of the end result doesn’t mean you don’t love the process, and wouldn’t enjoy applying that same process to an entirely different (non-furniture) project. But in the terms we started out with, that would make those furniture makers simply “makers.”
Both “furniture maker” and “maker” are equally valid, and of course (like so many apparent either/or scenarios) in reality this is not a binary distinction; we all fall somewhere on a spectrum. But each of us may lean more towards being either result-driven or process-driven. Knowing that about yourself can help you to identify your goals and notice your pitfalls. Knowing it about the people on your team will help you to understand their motivations, and manage them more successfully.
This Week’s Tips:
- Consider where you fall on the “Furniture Maker” / “Maker” spectrum. Are you more results driven or process driven? Do you find this varies depending on the project? If so, which projects are which? Map out the various projects you have underway now, and note where you find your motivation in each.
- If you manage a team, share your reflections with them, and ask them (in your one-on-ones or your full team meetings) to consider doing the same mapping activity, and to share their reflections with you. You may also want to share your reflections with your own manager; this may help them to be a more effective manager for you.
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
You can subscribe to our feed here, or sign up for our weekly newsletter to get these articles directly in your inbox.
Building Bridges Leadership 