Artist, Operator, Entrepreneur
The three personalities every growing leadership team needs in the cockpit.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Once a business passes roughly $4-5M, Miller says the cockpit needs three distinct personalities. The artist obsesses about products, making, marketing, improving, and talking about them. The operator doesn't build products at all but manages the team, priorities, and people. The entrepreneur looks at what the artist built and the team can do and asks only one question: how can this machine make more money. It doesn't matter which personality is CEO, Tim Cook is an operator, Steve Jobs an artist, and both succeeded, but a leadership team needs all three to reach full potential.
Origin
Miller identifies these three archetypes from observing successful small-business leadership teams and public companies, noting that great CEOs of any type surround themselves with the other two personalities.
Core principles
- 01Past roughly $4-5M, a business needs three distinct personalities on its leadership team.
- 02The artist obsesses about the products, making, improving, and talking about them.
- 03The operator manages the team, priorities, and people so work gets done.
- 04The entrepreneur asks how the machine can make more money.
- 05It doesn't matter which of the three is CEO, as long as all three are present.
How to run it
- 1
Seat the artist
Put someone who obsesses about the products, making, marketing, supporting, and improving them, on the leadership team.
Watch out The artist usually doesn't like managing people, so don't force operations onto them.
- 2
Seat the operator
Add someone who manages the team, priorities, and people and makes sure everyone works hard; they won't help make products.
- 3
Seat the entrepreneur
Add someone who looks at the product and team and constantly asks how the machine can make more money, through funnels, webinars, segmentation, and new offers.
Pro tip It doesn't matter which of the three is CEO; what matters is that all three seats are filled.
In the wild
Miller points to Steve Jobs as an artist and Tim Cook as an operator, noting Apple thrived under both because each was surrounded by strong versions of the other personalities.
→ The company reached its potential because all three personalities were present in leadership regardless of who was CEO.
Common mistakes
Building a leadership team of clones
Founders tend to hire people like themselves, so an artist-founder ends up with no operator or entrepreneur and the business stalls.
Is it for you?
Best for
Businesses past roughly $4-5M that need a balanced leadership team to scale.
Not ideal for
Very early businesses that don't yet warrant three separate executives.
From the transcript
“One is the artist... somebody who obsesses about products.”
“The entrepreneur... looks at what the artist did and looks at what the team is capable of doing and says, how can this machine make…”
“If you have an artist, an operator, and an entrepreneur on your leadership team, you are going to win.”
From the episode
Donald Miller: How To Make Your First Million, 6 Steps To Grow Your Small Business in 2023
Donald Miller