People seem to like organizing and categorizing things, including themselves. Hippocrates wrote of the Four Temperaments, Myers and Briggs published MBTI in the 1940s, and a modern version of the Enneagram of Personality has become popular in recent years. (One of my favourite books on personality types is The Treasure Tree.)

I have my own theory when it comes to the workplace; that most people's motivations can fit them into one of two categories: True Believers and Mercenaries. Understanding your coworker’s, supervisor’s, and staff’s motivations can help you understand and predict their actions, and hopefully ease frustrations when they do things opposite of what you would choose.

True Believers are primarily motivated by their belief in a cause or purpose. This is easiest to see in non-profits or volunteer groups, where righteous cause (i.e. feeding the hungry or sheltering the unhoused) is the openly shared impetus emblazoned across the front of the building. But True Believers don’t require shared motivations and aren’t relegated to philanthropic workplaces. A True Believer might believe in the product or service being sold. Or more abstractly, they might value their relationships with their coworkers who create and provide those things. If you ask them about their work, you might hear them say something like, “My friends Tina and Dave help make people’s dream weddings come true, and I make sure payroll here is done perfectly so they can keep doing that!”

Mercenaries, as the name suggests, are motivated by tangible payment. “I’m here for the paycheque” or “I really like the matched retirement savings here” are things you might hear them say. Compared to True Believers, Mercenaries’ motivations are simpler to understand and typically much more direct.

As an employer, hiring manager, or supervisor, True Believers may seem like the easy preference between the two. Their dedication to the cause will keep them with you and working through tumultuous times, and they’re less likely to regularly ask for raises or chase promotions. They’ll most likely pick a spot and churn out the same, reliable work for decades. For some positions in some organizations, this is indeed a good fit. But it’s not universal. If the focuses of their loyalty change on them or if you need to make sudden or large adjustments in your organization, they’ll be the first pump the brakes in the name of their cause.

Enter the Mercenaries. As long as they’re paid, they’re happy. So if you need something changed, or a new project tackled, or a less-pleasant situation resolved decisively and rapidly, you’ll be glad you have them on your team. They may not always seem like they’re happy about their work (“ugh, I can’t believe I got stuck with re-entering all this data from scratch after Bill got fired”), but if they’re being paid well for it the job will get done (“yah, it sucks, but that’s why you’re getting double-overtime to work the weekend, and there’s a bonus if it’s done early”).

None of this is meant to pit the two against each other, express a preference, or to say that everyone fits squarely into either category. In fact, people regularly change between them. For example, Mercenary behavior becomes much more common when economies are low or in minimum-wage environments. (Though this is not always the case; see the character of Ed in “Good Burger”.) And the most Mercenary of contractors can become a True Believer if they find a cause that truly speaks to them.

Somewhat ironically, people are more likely to act as True Believers if they don’t have pressing financial needs. It’s easier to focus on one’s causes if you’re not worried about how you’re going to make next month’s mortgage payment. So it’s in your best interest to make sure both your Mercenaries and True Believers are well-paid.

Lastly, a word of caution about getting it wrong. True Believers and Mercenaries generally don’t like being treated like the other. If a True Believer is working on an un-fun project and you comment, “oh that’s why you’re being paid the big bucks!” instead of “thanks for doing this, I know Steve is a friend and he’ll really appreciate your helping him out”; or a Mercenary is doing the same and you say “I knew you wouldn’t mind helping since we’re all like family here” instead of “three cheers for overtime pay!”; you can imagine how well either of those situations would play out.