Business Management ABCs

Game Players and How to Deal With Them on the Job, Part VII – The High Roller

Excitement! That’s what High Rollers are looking for! They are high risk and willing to put everything on the line for the potential of a win. This tolerance for risk can be good in some cases, however, no one wants their entire business put on the line.

On the other hand, a business to stay alive and thriving needs to create excitement around their brand and constantly find ways to get customers coming back or encourage new customers to buy, then these people, in the right places with the right controls can be extremely valuable. If this type of person is also trained in good business practices and be profit oriented, they can make important contributions as an executive and that depends if you can keep them that long.

The best way to handle these people is to give them short-term, long-shot jobs/projects – something that will challenge them and usually a job or project which most people in the company won’t touch.

How will you recognize this person? They are glib – self-confident – and can sell ice cubes to an Eskimo! Their backgrounds contain brilliant beginnings, create novel enterprises, and may have bankruptcies. They will brag about the great deals they pulled off. You will notice that they love “tricks” or shrewd tactics to overcome issues. And, from experience, I can tell you it’s not easy to place any definition or systems around these people; they certainly despise paper and tracking.

One such person I had on my team was an incredible promoter! He always had an angle, a new project, loved to “rev the team up”, excite clients but hated everything to do with paperwork and being tied down to a schedule. What a challenge until I learned how to channel his talent. We needed to get some big projects underway so I put him in the field to generate excitement about the projects. He loved to meet with people, never got flustered because he had an answer for everything and, even though his truth stretching was quite “audible” at times, people loved the energy he generated. I made sure he was teamed with someone he liked and someone who loved to do the paperwork and track the processes as well as create the necessary reports and stats. It worked and we were able to get a lot of people on board for our projects. One of their most important attributes is that they are amiable and happy with lots and lots of energy but they need to temper themselves as they can also burn out.

Well managed, this is a great personality to have on board - you will never be bored, and you will know all the latest and greatest goings on inside and outside of your industry. There will always be a buzz around your business in one way or another.

My experience has been garnered within many types of industries. My forte as a consulting is in designing and implementing organization appropriate systems and procedures to effect positive changes in efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. Along with my consulting practice, I offer personal coaching and workshops.

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