Operator
Operators are people you can count on. Patient and conscientious, they're usually among the most cooperative people on any team. Operators will remain stable, thorough, and relaxed in most circumstances.
Highlights: Cooperative Pragmatic Stable Thorough
Maximize your business potential by tapping into people’s natural strengths.
The Operator Reference Profile—like all Reference Profiles—has many unique strengths and characteristics. Understanding the differences in your people can help you build a company that achieves the results you’re after. The same way you’d build a world-class sports team, knowing how your people think and work helps you optimize for success.
Characteristics of the Operator
Operators are naturally patient and conscientious; they’re eager to do what’s expected. They seek to build consensus, and they delegate details and authority easily. For a more detailed and accurate reading of your behavioral pattern and how it pertains to your unique business situation, schedule a consultation.
Natural Strengths
Cooperative
Pragmatic
Stable
Thorough
Common Drivers
Reassurance
Opportunities to work with facts
Understanding of rules and structure
Freedom from unchanging priorities
Blind Spots
Can be highly task-focused
Often overly cautious
Uncomfortable with ambiguity
Needs a plan to follow
The Operator on a team
Operators are cooperative team players. They’re known to be relaxed, informal, and responsive. They thrive in and help contribute to a culture of stability. Teams are often designed by default rather than intention. A strategic, data-driven approach to building teams is what helps organizations win.
Business strategy and the Operator
Before you know whether someone is the right person for the job, you need total clarity and alignment on the results you’re after. What’s the goal or desired outcome? When we ask questions like this, we get a better understanding of the need to align people strategically for specific results.
When you put people in the right roles, you avoid turnover, toxicity, disengagement, and lost productivity. In the case of the Operator, while they can do a variety of things well, they naturally gravitate toward strategic activities that seek to create predictability and stability.
Managing the Operator
Often managers try to manage everyone the same way—and that’s usually the way they like to be managed. But this approach can backfire. People like to be managed differently—and it may not always be in a way that comes naturally to you. Even beyond the individual needs, teams require different leadership styles. You wouldn’t manage a sales team the same way you’d manage a team of developers.
When working with Operators, remember that they’re affable, approachable, accommodating, and detail-oriented. They have a high tolerance for systematic or repetitive work and are more comfortable with familiar people. Operators are also respectful and accepting of others’ decisions. When managing this profile, consider some of the following suggestions:
Ensure freedom from individual competition.
Provide a plan for them to follow and clear direction.
Allow them to do systematic work.
Help them learn through repetition.
Provide consistent and dependable support.
Build a stable environment.
Explore talent optimization.
Companies that struggle to build high-performing teams are often missing critical people data. With our tools, expertise, experiance, and talent optimization, you can stop guessing at how to get the most from your people— and better align your people to deliver on the results you’re after.