Cabbages and Kings – the lighter side of categorizing people
The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings — (Through the Looking Glass; Lewis Carroll)
These lines have lingered with me since the first time I read ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in my childhood. Though the words are simple and comical at first look, I have realised over the years the deep thought behind them once you scratch the superficial layer. As children we enjoy the superficial’, like the rhyme and the absurdity of the poem, but subsequently we find quite a few life’s philosophical gems hidden in it. It also goes to show that human nature has not changed much, though the times apparently have.
Being a HR professional with around two decades of experience, I have seen this never ending segregation of people into Cabbages (average performers) and Kings (top performers) by Managers. Annual Performance appraisals are often used as the formal mechanism to identify and accordingly reward (or not) these two groups. However in recent times we are seeing a lot of noise being created about this way of assessing employees, especially with some well-known organisation replacing annual appraisals with continuous assessment focussed primarily on achievement of goals. Though I feel it is a step in the right direction and can reduce various rating errors, like ‘halo-horn’ effects, ‘contrast,’ ‘primacy/recency’ etc. it might still not take away some of the inherent categorization of people that we typically use to judge their capability.
With lot of serious stuff going round, I have tried to take a slightly unconventional approach at such categorizations of people, mostly in the Indian context. The categorization is done in two main parts of Emperors and Petty Kings, with their own distinguishing sub-categories.
Category A: The Emperors – whose “royalty” cuts across the industry and is not just limited to a particular one,
1) The Blueblood – Whether they come from the premier schools (IIT, IIM etc.) and/or top tier companies, they are often identified as Kings. Management having the “elitist” school of thought believe they are the leaders of the future and invest significant time and effort in their career planning and progress. Needless to say they often get more chances than their non-pedigreed counterparts to demonstrate their skill and performance.
I have seen various job specifications in job boards clearly mention “graduates from premier schools” as a hiring criteria. Often companies use such pedigree-based criteria for hiring people for specific positions, instead of just hiring for competencies against a clearly defined Job Description. The assumption is, if they have the brains to be successful in entering and performing at these top institutes/organisations then they are pre-qualified for the role. The peer network of such people, which often includes the hiring Managers themselves, also ensures that this aura of go-getters and achievers is perfectly maintained.
2) The Strongly Networked – Most plush jobs today get filled internally, either through internal movement of staff or through employee referrals. Anyone who is well networked not only taps into such opportunities more frequently, but also is seemingly hard to dislodge from their position.
Honestly being networked pays dividends! The interviews are less stringent, their assimilation into the organisation is faster and they do not face the same problems that we see with most new hires. How often have we seen the lucky employee being able to save his job during a role redundancy, when his equally competent peer gets laid-off.
3) The Gamer – They are perhaps the smartest of the lot and know the art of “survival of the fittest.” They objectively assess the work environment, culture and their required goals and objectives. Then they actively manipulate it to ensure that they are never found wanting on their deliverables, at least on paper.
They identify the requirements for each level of performance ratings and ensure that they meet the minimum qualifying criteria to be identified amongst the top performer’s consistently. They play smart or dumb, based on the demands of the situation and act accordingly. Anything that makes the achievement of their goals difficult gets cleverly redirected, modified or sometimes strategically delayed – delivery dates gets pushed to right after the appraisal cycle.
4) The Know-it-all’s – They know about national economy, workforce traits, latest gadgets and even extra-terrestrial intelligence but unfortunately mundane stuff like actual work never excites them. Having mastered the art of cracking interviews and wowing people with their theoretical knowledge and trivia, they do make the first impression count. In meetings they can relate each discussion to something they have read about, but the moment they are asked to discuss a solution or give their opinion they remain non-committal.
I often find such people great at delegating work and giving (superficial) advice on how to do it, while taking complete credit for the good work done by their respective teams. However if things do not go well, they often turn vindictive and become nightmare for their own teams. They are very conscious about their externally perceived reputation and ensure that failure never impacts them directly.
Category B: The Petty Kings – whose identity and sphere of influence is limited only to the company they currently work in.
1) The Blue-eyed Boy/Girl – S/he can do no wrong and often is identified for fast–track career progression. The individual often gets more recognition than the team, just because their boss have a special interest in them. Even externally they are seen as having the boss’s eyes & ears and often act as the gate-keepers of their respective bosses.
You will find them in most meetings, either inside or outside, where their bosses are present. They often end up sharing their boss’s cabin and can be seen more-often-than-not to answer their boss’s extension. However as their progression and sustenance are so dependent on their boss and his style of doing things that they often are unable to survive in their absence.
2) The Blue-Mooner – They have delivered once in the past and carry this legacy forever. The saying ‘it’s not what you were, but what you are’ is not applicable for them. Because of one stellar performance they are considered as “the untouchables,” even though their performance at most times is at best mediocre.
I have seen people continue to linger in their roles even when their performance are nowhere near the acceptable threshold. The oft given reason is that the person helped in delivering a key project or handled a crisis situation well. This entitles them to a long lease of life as they are expected to be the “knight in shining armour” when such a crisis happens again, which in most cases happen once in a blue moon!
3) The Brown-Nose – Yes you would have seen them linger across the office, identifying the office power centres and being extra gracious with them. They will laugh at the stupidest/vilest jokes and give their agreement to all proposals, as long as it comes out from the “right” mouth.
Right from schools to workplace, you find them everywhere smelling out the key people and unashamedly “licking their boots” to up their chances of promotion and better pay. The good part is they clearly know about their shortcomings and hence find this survivalist route to corporate success. Ironically in most instances even their own bosses know about their shortcomings, but let them linger just to pat their own egos and have an easily accessible support base to influence their own agendas.
4) The Alpha Personality – How often have we heard “This job requires an aggressive go-getter” or “it requires a person who is cool under pressure” etc. Sometimes these personality traits takes precedence over competencies and people are allowed to dominate these positions as it feels right for their personality.
One might have observed the quite prevalent practice of identifying people based on their physical characteristics and put them across as the “face/voice” of the company in front of the customers, instead of the other more competent people who work in the background. Research has also shown the tall and the good-looking people have a better chance at getting promoted compared to their more common counterparts.
5) The Technical Nerd – Are typically the primary bread winners for the organisation, whose skills are milked to get the moolah in. They often lack people skills and oscillate between extremely low to high maintenance. Their primary focus, apart from delivery, is to upgrade their skills in their areas of expertise and have limited knowledge in other business areas.
Once a person is identified as a “geek,” other competencies that are typically required from the role, like decision making ability, courage, integrity etc. are nice to have but not a pre-requisite for them. They are often given a lot of leeway and are allowed to flourish on their terms, even they sometime come across as a complete misfit for the role. They hardly make an attempt to explore areas that do not interest them. However if guided properly, some have the ability to become good all-rounders having technical, functional, business, and people management skills.
6) The Eternal Loyalist – They exist because they are loyal to their bosses/Management come fair or foul weather. At best they are moderately ambitious. As long as they have a steady stream of work and are not asked to step beyond their comfort zone, they remain married to their company and jobs.
These folks neither contribute with new ideas nor willingly take part in new initiatives. They wear their badge of loyalty as the criteria for promotion instead of achieving their required goals and objectives. Long tenured people designated as Managers and Leads, with no anticipated promotions in sight are the “beacons” of this category. However they do have a lot of influence on Management decisions and how they are implemented, just because of their knowledge of the workplace (Corporate Culture) know-how. The major difference between them and the brown-nose’s are that they do not go out of their way to praise their bosses and the organisation, as they know – bosses may come and go, but they will last forever!
As long as there are people there will be politics. And typically in politics usually everything is seen as a zero-sum game. Such categorization of people is often done not to augment the individual or organisational performance but rather to ensure that decisions are controlled by a certain group of people. It happens in all organisations, regardless of their size or stage of growth. However if these categorizations of people into Cabbages and Kings continues as part of objective or subjective assessments, then we will likely find the rest of the characters soon coming to life in these organisations – from the Mad Hatter to the Red Queen. The sub-categories are still evolving!
The time has come, the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —
Of cabbages — and kings — (Through the Looking Glass; Lewis Carroll)
These lines have lingered with me since the first time I read ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in my childhood. Though the words are simple and comical at first look, I have realised over the years the deep thought behind them once you scratch the superficial layer. As children we enjoy the superficial’, like the rhyme and the absurdity of the poem, but subsequently we find quite a few life’s philosophical gems hidden in it. It also goes to show that human nature has not changed much, though the times apparently have.
Being a HR professional with around two decades of experience, I have seen this never ending segregation of people into Cabbages (average performers) and Kings (top performers) by Managers. Annual Performance appraisals are often used as the formal mechanism to identify and accordingly reward (or not) these two groups. However in recent times we are seeing a lot of noise being created about this way of assessing employees, especially with some well-known organisation replacing annual appraisals with continuous assessment focussed primarily on achievement of goals. Though I feel it is a step in the right direction and can reduce various rating errors, like ‘halo-horn’ effects, ‘contrast,’ ‘primacy/recency’ etc. it might still not take away some of the inherent categorization of people that we typically use to judge their capability.
With lot of serious stuff going round, I have tried to take a slightly unconventional approach at such categorizations of people, mostly in the Indian context. The categorization is done in two main parts of Emperors and Petty Kings, with their own distinguishing sub-categories.
Category A: The Emperors – whose “royalty” cuts across the industry and is not just limited to a particular one,
1) The Blueblood – Whether they come from the premier schools (IIT, IIM etc.) and/or top tier companies, they are often identified as Kings. Management having the “elitist” school of thought believe they are the leaders of the future and invest significant time and effort in their career planning and progress. Needless to say they often get more chances than their non-pedigreed counterparts to demonstrate their skill and performance.
I have seen various job specifications in job boards clearly mention “graduates from premier schools” as a hiring criteria. Often companies use such pedigree-based criteria for hiring people for specific positions, instead of just hiring for competencies against a clearly defined Job Description. The assumption is, if they have the brains to be successful in entering and performing at these top institutes/organisations then they are pre-qualified for the role. The peer network of such people, which often includes the hiring Managers themselves, also ensures that this aura of go-getters and achievers is perfectly maintained.
2) The Strongly Networked – Most plush jobs today get filled internally, either through internal movement of staff or through employee referrals. Anyone who is well networked not only taps into such opportunities more frequently, but also is seemingly hard to dislodge from their position.
Honestly being networked pays dividends! The interviews are less stringent, their assimilation into the organisation is faster and they do not face the same problems that we see with most new hires. How often have we seen the lucky employee being able to save his job during a role redundancy, when his equally competent peer gets laid-off.
3) The Gamer – They are perhaps the smartest of the lot and know the art of “survival of the fittest.” They objectively assess the work environment, culture and their required goals and objectives. Then they actively manipulate it to ensure that they are never found wanting on their deliverables, at least on paper.
They identify the requirements for each level of performance ratings and ensure that they meet the minimum qualifying criteria to be identified amongst the top performer’s consistently. They play smart or dumb, based on the demands of the situation and act accordingly. Anything that makes the achievement of their goals difficult gets cleverly redirected, modified or sometimes strategically delayed – delivery dates gets pushed to right after the appraisal cycle.
4) The Know-it-all’s – They know about national economy, workforce traits, latest gadgets and even extra-terrestrial intelligence but unfortunately mundane stuff like actual work never excites them. Having mastered the art of cracking interviews and wowing people with their theoretical knowledge and trivia, they do make the first impression count. In meetings they can relate each discussion to something they have read about, but the moment they are asked to discuss a solution or give their opinion they remain non-committal.
I often find such people great at delegating work and giving (superficial) advice on how to do it, while taking complete credit for the good work done by their respective teams. However if things do not go well, they often turn vindictive and become nightmare for their own teams. They are very conscious about their externally perceived reputation and ensure that failure never impacts them directly.
Category B: The Petty Kings – whose identity and sphere of influence is limited only to the company they currently work in.
1) The Blue-eyed Boy/Girl – S/he can do no wrong and often is identified for fast–track career progression. The individual often gets more recognition than the team, just because their boss have a special interest in them. Even externally they are seen as having the boss’s eyes & ears and often act as the gate-keepers of their respective bosses.
You will find them in most meetings, either inside or outside, where their bosses are present. They often end up sharing their boss’s cabin and can be seen more-often-than-not to answer their boss’s extension. However as their progression and sustenance are so dependent on their boss and his style of doing things that they often are unable to survive in their absence.
2) The Blue-Mooner – They have delivered once in the past and carry this legacy forever. The saying ‘it’s not what you were, but what you are’ is not applicable for them. Because of one stellar performance they are considered as “the untouchables,” even though their performance at most times is at best mediocre.
I have seen people continue to linger in their roles even when their performance are nowhere near the acceptable threshold. The oft given reason is that the person helped in delivering a key project or handled a crisis situation well. This entitles them to a long lease of life as they are expected to be the “knight in shining armour” when such a crisis happens again, which in most cases happen once in a blue moon!
3) The Brown-Nose – Yes you would have seen them linger across the office, identifying the office power centres and being extra gracious with them. They will laugh at the stupidest/vilest jokes and give their agreement to all proposals, as long as it comes out from the “right” mouth.
Right from schools to workplace, you find them everywhere smelling out the key people and unashamedly “licking their boots” to up their chances of promotion and better pay. The good part is they clearly know about their shortcomings and hence find this survivalist route to corporate success. Ironically in most instances even their own bosses know about their shortcomings, but let them linger just to pat their own egos and have an easily accessible support base to influence their own agendas.
4) The Alpha Personality – How often have we heard “This job requires an aggressive go-getter” or “it requires a person who is cool under pressure” etc. Sometimes these personality traits takes precedence over competencies and people are allowed to dominate these positions as it feels right for their personality.
One might have observed the quite prevalent practice of identifying people based on their physical characteristics and put them across as the “face/voice” of the company in front of the customers, instead of the other more competent people who work in the background. Research has also shown the tall and the good-looking people have a better chance at getting promoted compared to their more common counterparts.
5) The Technical Nerd – Are typically the primary bread winners for the organisation, whose skills are milked to get the moolah in. They often lack people skills and oscillate between extremely low to high maintenance. Their primary focus, apart from delivery, is to upgrade their skills in their areas of expertise and have limited knowledge in other business areas.
Once a person is identified as a “geek,” other competencies that are typically required from the role, like decision making ability, courage, integrity etc. are nice to have but not a pre-requisite for them. They are often given a lot of leeway and are allowed to flourish on their terms, even they sometime come across as a complete misfit for the role. They hardly make an attempt to explore areas that do not interest them. However if guided properly, some have the ability to become good all-rounders having technical, functional, business, and people management skills.
6) The Eternal Loyalist – They exist because they are loyal to their bosses/Management come fair or foul weather. At best they are moderately ambitious. As long as they have a steady stream of work and are not asked to step beyond their comfort zone, they remain married to their company and jobs.
These folks neither contribute with new ideas nor willingly take part in new initiatives. They wear their badge of loyalty as the criteria for promotion instead of achieving their required goals and objectives. Long tenured people designated as Managers and Leads, with no anticipated promotions in sight are the “beacons” of this category. However they do have a lot of influence on Management decisions and how they are implemented, just because of their knowledge of the workplace (Corporate Culture) know-how. The major difference between them and the brown-nose’s are that they do not go out of their way to praise their bosses and the organisation, as they know – bosses may come and go, but they will last forever!
As long as there are people there will be politics. And typically in politics usually everything is seen as a zero-sum game. Such categorization of people is often done not to augment the individual or organisational performance but rather to ensure that decisions are controlled by a certain group of people. It happens in all organisations, regardless of their size or stage of growth. However if these categorizations of people into Cabbages and Kings continues as part of objective or subjective assessments, then we will likely find the rest of the characters soon coming to life in these organisations – from the Mad Hatter to the Red Queen. The sub-categories are still evolving!
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