ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS WILL JACOBS & FRED LENNOX
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CHAPTER ONE /
The ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS FRAMEWORK
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Rock, Paper, Scissors is a practical tool for leading and managing people in a quick and
effective way. It’s been developed over many years by business leaders who want to improve their outcomes at work, and even in their personal lives. When you understand
what it is and how to use it, you’ll be able to instantly identify what kind of people
you’re dealing with and - just as importantly - how you can adapt yourself to work with them in order to create a win-win situation. What’s more, if things aren’t working well
between you and your teams, it will also help you understand why this is and what you can do about it. There is some science behind the technique, so you can be assured it’s
credible and research-based. But for now we’re simply going to take you through why you need it, what it is, and how it works.
I first came across Rock, Paper, Scissors early in my career as a young manager at Unilever. While on a business trip to the UK, and feeling a little out of my depth in the meetings I was taking part in, I got chatting to a friendly English man and we fell to talking about different people and their personalities. ‘You know that game Rock, Paper, Scissors?’ he said. ‘It’s a great way of categorising
people. When I first meet someone I put them into one of three groups. The first is Rocks - they’re stubborn and never change their minds. The second is Papers - they’re the salesy types who never stop talking. And the third is Scissors - they’re the nit-pickers who find fault in everything. Once I’ve worked out what type people are, it’s a lot easier to handle them.’
I’d never played this game myself but I could see the potential in it. At that time
I was balancing the demands of managing factory workers on the one hand,
and reporting to middle and senior management on the other; this involved making snap decisions about all sorts of issues and knowing how to commu-
nicate them effectively. I needed to find a way of being accepted and respected by both, and was struggling to find a way of doing it. Over time I thought more about what the man had said, and gradually changed his way of explaining
Rock, Paper, Scissors into a more positive one. Instead of seeing only stubborn-
ness in Rocks I started to see consistency. Instead of only shallowness in Paper I
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