The product has begun to sell. It's time to divide up the team now.
Haebom
This is the story of missionaries and mercenaries that John Doerr, now a legendary VC, shared back in 2000.
Key Differences and Strategies for Building 'Missionary' vs. 'Mercenary' Teams Within Your Organization
Typically, once a product starts selling, the makers are also the ones who run it. But this approach has its limits. Those who poured their energy into building the product naturally need some rest and reward, and they can start showing signs of burnout. Plus, since customers always expect even better products, you’re forced into an endlessly competitive market.
At this point, it's important to distinguish between missionaries and mercenaries within the original team. Missionaries are those driven by passion who constantly take on new challenges, while mercenaries are skilled at reliably handling established work. It’s not that missionaries are superior or mercenaries are more valued—they simply serve different roles. In fact, in medieval Europe, missionaries and mercenaries often operated together.
While the idea of a team made up entirely of missionaries may sound ideal, in reality, it's very difficult to achieve. The truth is, people don't have unlimited energy or passion, so mercenaries are just as necessary.
Key Traits of the 'Missionary' and 'Mercenary' Teams
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'Missionary' teams: These teams have a deep understanding of the business and a strong sense of empathy for their customers. They're highly engaged and motivated, reflecting key qualities of leadership, organization, and product excellence.
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'Mercenary' teams: These teams tend to lack connection with real users and customers, focusing solely on problem-solving. They're driven more by rewards than by a sense of authority or responsibility, often simply following directions from above.
Why Organizations Struggle to Build 'Missionary' Teams
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Leadership Issue: Many executives believe they already have all the answers and are reluctant to listen to their teams.
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It’s important to train the leadership team and realign the organization’s direction.
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Talent Issue: Even leaders who value missionary teams often inherit members used to the mercenary model. This is particularly problematic with outsourced designers or engineers.
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You need to raise the bar for product managers, designers, and senior engineers/tech leads. For truly effective product teams, it's crucial to build resilient, cross-functional, co-located teams.
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Process Issue: Some product development processes are built on the mercenary model. For example, models like SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) may not work well for tech-driven companies that depend on continuous innovation.
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You should implement processes that include a strong product vision and measurable key results for every product team.
The distinction between 'missionary' and 'mercenary' teams makes a significant difference to both organizational performance and culture. If your organization is serious about moving toward a 'missionary' team model, you can achieve this by focusing on three main areas: leadership, talent, and processes. For example, even in game development, teams that create new content and teams running live operations usually function separately—this matches the missionary and mercenary distinction as well.
While searching, I found a video shot last year by Kwon Do-gyun, the CEO of one of the top VCs in Korea, for TTimes, so I'm sharing it here as well.
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I post articles related to IT 💻, economy 💰, and humanities 🎭.
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haebom@kakao.com
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I post articles related to IT 💻, economy 💰, and humanities 🎭.
If you are curious about my thoughts, perspectives or interests, please subscribe.
haebom@kakao.com