Hire the archetype, not the role
And how to hire (or become) a Level 5 Simplifier
“If there was one hire that could really move the needle for us, what would it be?”
My CEO asked me that question a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t think of a good answer until it hit me while driving to the gym this past week.
At first, I did what anyone would do - I ran through our org chart + looked at the gaps. A potential director here. A potential analyst there.
Each role made sense + would help shore up those gaps. But then the drive to the gym occurred + the “aha” moment smacked me in the face as I was thinking about our current team and what made our top performers the top performers.
It wasn’t their job title. It wasn’t their skills or experience.
It was their archetype.
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Defining the archetype
Until that drive, I realized my CEO’s question had me thinking about the wrong variable. The answer wasn’t “what role.” It was “what person.”
A few weeks ago, David Senra had Brad Jacobs, CEO of 8 billion-dollar companies, on his podcast and they were talking about the difference between A, B, and C players within a company. Here’s how Brad explained it:
“I do a mental exercise where I picture the person coming into my office and saying, ‘Brad, I quit.’ And then I try to feel and visualize what would be my reaction if that person came in to me and quit.
If my reaction to that is, ‘Yes! I don’t want to smile, so I don’t want to act like I’m happy about this. Nobody likes firing people. No problem at all, we’ll replace them’—that’s a C player. That’s someone you should get the courage to get off the team right away.
On the second category, if my reaction to it is, ‘You know, it kind of sucks. I would’ve preferred that person stayed, but it’s not the end of the world. We’ll hire a headhunter. We’ll get someone as good, maybe someone even better, and things will work out’—that’s a B player.
But if when I visualize that person quitting, my reaction to that is pure terror and absolute panic, and like somebody took a baseball bat and just whacked me in the stomach and then punched me in the face. I’m going, ‘Oh my God! Like I’m never going to find someone as good as her. No way. I’m never going to have someone as talented as that person. I’m never going to have someone who brings to the table their particular superpower.’ And I can’t even hear what they’re saying anymore because I’m just having this internal panic dialogue going on—that’s what you call an A player.
So I want all A players around me. I want people whose relationship with me I value so much that if it was terminated, I would be lost.”
And that helps illustrate the “aha” moment I had to this question that I couldn’t answer. While there were any number of roles I could add, to answer my CEO’s specific question of if there was one HIRE that could move the needle for us, it wasn’t about the role, it was about the person. The A player that, if they left, I would go into a panic.
So this then leads to two options for answering my CEO’s question:
Do I focus on the gap we have and try to find the perfect person on paper to fill that?
Do I focus on finding an A player, regardless of their unique skillset in marketing, and pursue them knowing they’ll level us up by at least 10x, even if it’s not in our “weakest” area as a team?
But to do that, I need to define what that latter individual/archetype looks like. So I thought about various A players that we have here at Loxo + what the make up of that archetype is:
They’re simplifiers
There’s a principle I keep coming back to ever since my friend Paul Stansik wrote about it last year: some people are simplifiers, and some people are complicators. Simplifiers take complexity and turn it into clarity. They create momentum instead of friction. Or as Paul explained on a podcast episode we recorded:
“I can usually tell who’s a simplifier vs. a complicator by how they answer [how the business is doing]. If I get a straight answer with a period at the end of it, there’s a pretty good chance that person’s a simplifier. And if I get an answer that is usually accompanied by hand-waving choreography that takes longer than 30 seconds and never really delivers on what I was really trying to get to? That’s maybe the mark of a complicator.”
There are a few people I can go to in my role where I know that if I ask a tough question, I’ll get a clear + straight answer back. Not a long, drawn out response. Not a list of excuses of why it wasn’t done/isn’t possible. Just a straight answer back that I can easily understand.
Years ago, I took the Insights Discovery psychometric assessment along with the larger marketing department to better understand my work style. In their own words, “Insights Discovery helps people understand themselves and their colleagues so that they can have more respectful, productive and positive working relationships, even across virtual boundaries.”
The output of this is a simplified, four color model that buckets what makes us unique, scoring how much of a “trait” we possess. The trait I had at the top was “Fiery Red,” which is best summarized as “Be brief, be brilliant, be gone.”
The primary thing I want to know when interfacing with others is if what we’re doing was driving results. Simple as that. Is what you’re doing working? Yes? No? Now get on with it + tell me what we’re doing as a result.
So back to the power of a simplifier. One simplifier doesn’t just do their own job better. They make everyone else’s job better and easier as a result of working with them.
They’re level 5 operators
Our CEO regularly shares the “5 levels of employee agency” with our management team. Here’s what it looks like:
Level 1: “There is a problem.”
Level 2: “There is a problem, and I’ve found some causes.”
Level 3: “Here’s the problem, here are some possible causes, and here are some possible solutions.”
Level 4: “Here’s the problem, here’s what I think caused it, here are some possible solutions, and here’s the one I think we should pick.”
Level 5: “I identified a problem, figured out what I think caused it, researched how to fix it, and I fixed it. Just wanted to keep you in the loop.”
Most individuals live in Levels 2–3. They surface problems. They describe the symptoms. They sometimes offer ideas. But in the end they need direction on what to do next.
A level 5 operator is different. They’re on an entirely different plane from the others.
They’re the person who doesn’t consume a manager’s bandwidth - they free it. They don’t come to you with problem after problem, their work halted until you can give them a solution + instruction on how to carry it out. They say, “Hey boss, there’s a problem I’ve noticed. Here’s what’s going on, what I think we should do about it, and what it’ll look like after executing. You good with me to pursue this path?”
If you’ve ever managed people, you immediately know what kind of relief it is when you have a team member who operates like this. Before the problem has reared its head in full and we’re feeling the impact, they’re already on it and have course-corrected us.
They’re force multipliers
I talk about force multipliers as part of GTM ecosystems regularly. How each channel/tactic interplays with others and the end result isn’t additive, but exponential.
The same thing applies to this type of hire/team member and what makes their archetype so rare - they don’t just produce individual output that’s nominally better than someone else doing the same thing. They increase entire organizational output.
One Level 5 Simplifier is an organizational force multiplier.
Give me just one Level 5 Simplifier + I’ll put them up against 5 of the smartest “complicators” out there or 10 of the best level 2 operators any day, 100% confident the Level 5 Simplifier will run circles around them.
That’s the power of hiring this archetype. That’s why we’re so obsessed with solving this problem for recruiters here at Loxo.
The reframe
This is the realization that changed how I think about hiring.
Most hiring conversations start with roles and jobs to be done: “We need a Director of X. A Manager of Y. An analyst to do Z.”
Meanwhile, there’s a better question underneath: “What do we actually need?” If it’s a point-and-shoot role that has a clear playbook + is simply a matter of having a butt in a seat, you don’t need this type of hire. A level 2 operator will do just fine for you.
But when posed with a question like I was - “If there was one hire that could really move the needle for us, what would it be?” that’s not a point-and-shoot person. That’s a Level 5 Simplifier. No matter where they’re inserted into the team, they will make a 10x difference.
Because the thing is, every org does have structural gaps. Whether it’s better customer marketing, cleaner data infrastructure, better email marketing, etc. There will always be gaps + areas for improvement.
But here’s what I’ve learned - a Level 5 Simplifier doesn’t just fill their specific role. They see the whole system they’re a part of. They step into ambiguous, cross-functional problems with ease. They think like a strategist AND an operator AND a systems builder AND a storyteller AND an owner all at once.
When you hire for the archetype, they don’t just solve for their area of expertise. They raise the altitude of how the entire team operates.
Skills still matter
Here’s the big question that most of us get stuck on: Do I hire for the skills/role, or do I just look for Level 5 Simplifiers?
The underlying skills are table stakes. If you need a data person, they need to actually know data. If you need someone to own customer adoption, they need to understand the customer journey. I’m not saying you can hire a Level 5 Simplifier to do something they know nothing about.
But competence is the baseline. It’s not the differentiator.
The differentiator is their thinking pattern.
Their ability to simplify things instead of adding complexity.
Their ability to proactively solve problems instead of escalating them.
When hiring, most hiring manager scorecards are simply listing out the skills they’re looking for and rating strictly by those. This is why most hires are level 2-3 operators.
They’re good at what they do, they get the job done, but they usually need direction. They aren’t proactively finding ways to level up the entire team. They do what they were hired to do, no more, no less.
So what’s the answer?
Prioritize the archetype first, constrain to the gap area second.
If you wait for a Level 5 Simplifier to show up in your exact gap area, you might wait forever. But if you find a Level 5 Simplifier who has competence in an adjacent or related area, HIRE THEM. They’ll see the system you’re missing. They’ll solve problems you didn’t know you had. They’ll raise the altitude of how the team operates, regardless of the title.
So back to my CEO’s question: “If there was one hire that could really move the needle for us, what would it be?”
It’s not a job title. It’s an archetype. It’s a Level 5 Simplifier.
They could be a Demand Generation Manager. They could be a Director of Product Marketing. They could be a Data Analyst. The title is almost secondary.
What matters is:
Can this person see how they play a part in the larger system?
Can they reduce complexity?
Can they solve problems proactively?
Can they build frameworks + processes that outlast them?
Will they become a force multiplier for the team?
And even more importantly, if they walked into your office and quit tomorrow, would that be the Brad Jacobs “baseball bat to the stomach” moment? Would you panic? Would you realize you’d never find someone quite like them?
That’s the person who “moves the needle.” That’s the hire I want to find.
Book quote of the week
“A plane ticket or a pill or some plant medicine is a treadmill, not a shortcut. What you seek will come only if you sit and do the work”
- Stillness is the Key, Ryan Holiday
See you next Saturday,
Sam