What Is Your Business Chemistry?

You might find this article at New Equipment Digest interesting. The article takes note of a framework used by Deloitte’s human resource management consulting unit for delineating different styles of “Business Chemistry”. They categorize workers as Pioneers, Guardians, Drivers, and Integrators:

Pioneers, who are risk-takers described as being outgoing, detail-averse, spontaneous, risk-seeking, adaptable and imaginative.

Opposite to Pioneers are Guardians, defined as detail-oriented pragmatists who are considered methodical, reserved, detail-oriented, practical, structured and loyal.

Drivers are experimental competitors who are quantitative, logical, focused, competitive, experimental and deeply curious.

Integrators are Drivers’ opposites, seen as empathic diplomats who exhibit qualities that characterize good team players and who tend to be traditional, relationship-oriented dreamers, intrinsically motivated and non-confrontational.

and there are generational differences in the styles that predominate within different age cohorts:

The research shows that close to 60% of Millennials identify with two of the four primary Business Chemistry types. Guardians, detail-oriented pragmatists, comprise 32%; while Drivers, who focus on outcomes and goals, make up 27%.

Only 23% of the Millennials in the sample are Integrators, the type that values connection and draws teams together, and 18% represent Pioneers, the most blue-sky thinking, spontaneous type.

In contrast, the study reveals that Baby Boomers are represented by Millennials’ opposing Business Chemistry types: the Pioneer and the Integrator. These are the two most nonlinear, ambiguity-tolerant and networked work styles. In addition, 29% of Baby Boomers identify as Pioneer, with an equal number identifying as Integrator, while 22% identify as Driver and only 20% as Guardian.

The article goes on to suggest strategies for managing Millennials.

I found that the article left significant questions unanswered. Is there actual empirical evidence to support these claims? Do the prevailing “chemistries” change over time within an age cohort? How would you go about determining that? What were the most common chemistries among the Baby Boomers when they were the age that the Millennials are now? What were the prevailing chemistries among the “Greatest Generation”? Their parents? Do these distinctions relate to the Four Turnings?

On a side note when I tried digging a little deeper into this subject I stumbled across an article from Deloitte itself that rankled me. Just for future reference there are no Baby Boomers in their 80s. People working into their 80s now are Silent Generation, not Baby Boomers.

Update

You can take Deloitte’s Business Chemistry 20 Questions test here. I’m a Pioneer-Integrator.