Rochambeau is another word for the game Rock Scissors Paper.
In relationships there is always a power dynamic, and we also each tend to have a particular power we leverage most effectively. We may be a rock, or paper, or scissors, successful with one type of leverage, and vulnerable to another.
Scissors has no fear of paper, but is always defeated by a rock.
In the game of rochambeau, the whole point is to choose the item that will win when it’s posed against the one it beats, or ties its peer. There is an assumption of competition and of conflict, and the rules are clear and consistent.
In working relationships, and maybe in relationships more broadly, we’ve been taught to think in a similar fashion. Some temperaments or approaches to arguing for a path forward consistently defeat one, align with the peer, and disregard the third option that beats our own.
In arguments and conversation, the victory is achieved by how one perspective uses the phrase “so what” to overwhelm another.
I’m going to explain what those temperaments are, how the temperaments credentialize their arguments, and why each wins.
I’m also going to explain how core life wounds tend to map to these temperaments and how those wounds create self-fulfilling prophecies in the lives of people who leverage their perspectives.
I’ll explain how this concept became clear to me, and I’ll offer you a single question parlor trick that I’ve used in hundreds (thousands?) of stakeholder interviews to establish a hunch and baseline about what else the stakeholder could speak to effectively.
Then I’m going to compare traditional rochambeau with how the Trinity and Kingdom rochambeau works, and I’m going to invite you to a better and more rewarding approach to who we focus on and how we approach the people around us.
What you’ll find especially encouraging is who you’re meant to bless, and who you’re meant to receive blessing from.
You’ll also see something about how you relate to the persons of the Trinity, and why you likely have a favorite as well as one person of the Godhead who feels a bit more obscure to you.
Renaming the Rock, the Scissors, and the Paper
Let’s name the leverage the three temperaments bring to their arguments.
The rock brings power. In a police department, imagine the chief of police.
The scissors bring analytics. In a police department, picture the person reading crime statistics and trends.
The paper brings high moral ground. In a police department, picture the consultant or progressive reformer.
This does not mean that the only person with power is the chief, or the only person watching data is the analyst, or the only person with a sense of mission in the reformer.
What differentiates each type is which weapon they choose, and what triggers their use of “so what?”
When confronted with recent crime data by the analyst, and with that confrontation the analyst asserts a need for change or the response to a current situation, the chief has the prerogative to say, “So what? I don’t care what the numbers say, this is how we do things.”
When the high moral ground reformer presents a grand new vision, the analyst has the prerogative or tendency to say, “So what? Your plan isn’t real - it’s just a plan and a dream. I won’t support anything you can’t prove yet.”
And when the high moral ground reformer hears the power-grounded chief’s argument, the reformer can challenge with, “So what? Who cares how you’ve always done things - are you fulfilling the mission you exist to serve?”
Having been defeated by the rock’s power, the analyst scissors will tend to disregard the chief and focus on challenging the reformer. Having been disregarded by the analytical scissors, the reformer will haunt and hound the chief’s power rock stance. And having been accused of falling short or claiming unmerited power by the high moral ground reformer, the power rock chief will disregard the vision argument in favor of flexing on the fretful analyst who struggles to just do what they’re told to do.
Power beats Analytics. Analytics beats High Moral Ground. High Moral Ground beats Power.
And the result is a constantly corrosive, extractive model based in leverage and opposition and self-protection, where security and progress is determined by how effectively you defeat the one you are wired to defeat, and avoid the taxes charged by the one whose paradigm defeats yours.
The Parlor Trick
Over the course of my career, I’ve interviewed at least several hundred corporate stakeholders, business owners, and other managers and executives whose voices have been invited into the brand strategy work I’m hired to do. In the average $100k brand/culture audit and framing engagement, I’ll interview 20-30 people. We book an hour and try to keep the conversation to 30-45 minutes.
One of the most challenging aspects of that phase of a project is quickly understanding the person I’m interviewing so I can jump to the topics where they’ll add value and insight.
Everyone has a sense of right and wrong. Everyone has a sense of how the game of their career and their company is played. Everyone is thinking about the future. Everyone has an opinion about what the company should do next.
I stumbled across a single question that I ask twice, and while I am not asserting this is a scientific reality, I am saying I’m hundreds of test cases into the work, and so far it’s been useful in every instance. You can take this question to your next lunch conversation and test it out. See if it works in your own responses.
I ask, “Are you optimistic about XYZ Corp (or whatever subject we’re there to explore together)? Why or why not?”
The person will answer with an emphasis on either the personal level or the business level. I repeat the question by pointing out which emphasis they went with and asking what about the other. The first response is the more useful one, and the second is the confirmation or the trigger to explore a bit more.
Here’s what I’m listening for. I note the yes or no, and I’ll tell you how I use that answer in a moment. What I’m focused on, though, is how they “credentialize” their optimism.
If their optimism is past-oriented (eg tradition, proven track record, etc), I drop them into the power bucket, the rock, and I label them a builder.
If their optimism is present-oriented (eg current pipeline, stability, recent data, etc), I drop them into the analytics bucket, the scissors, and I label them an operator.
If their optimism is future-oriented (eg we’re going to change the world, things are going to pay off big, etc), I drop them into the high moral ground bucket, the paper, and I label them an architect.
I am a dye-in-the wool architect, and I’ve spent my career challenging and selling to CEOs, who tend to be builders. I sell meaning and purpose beyond the company, and for years I succeeded at this by manipulating and being paper to the CEOs’ rock. It was extractive and predatory and while I delivered value, I didn’t do it in alignment with how God sees things. More on that in a bit.
The match from credential to temperament is easy when the person says that yes, they are optimistic. Having someone say they are not optimistic is less common, and the “no” moves the match by one space.
An architect who is not optimistic will answer from present-orientation. So if you hear not optimistic, present rationale, you’re looking at a high moral ground architect who’s feeling defeated or depleted.
If you hear not optimistic, past rationale, you’re looking at an analyst operator who feels burned out or like they’re not safe.
If you hear not optimistic, future rationale, you’re looking at a power builder who more often than not is feeling the burden of carrying all the responsibility and is feeling like the trade is not working and not amounting to anything in their life.
In my interviews, I have some questions I want to ask everyone, but I ask the builders what needs to be built, and I ask the operators about life in the organization, and I ask the architects why the work matters. (More on this in the Five Cs framework.)
The Core Wounds
If you want to learn more about the core wounds I’m going to describe here, I recommend Dr David Allen’s work. I once spent a week in his office, multiple sessions per day, getting my false self judo-flipped all over the place until I could see the truth. That was 2013, just before my daughter was born and I subsequently made the choice to leave the agency I was at so I could focus on who I would be to my family. It’s a rare day that I don’t have some thought related to that experience and what I was shown and continue to see.
According to Dr Allen, each of us has one of three core wounds. Picture a small child in a crib, crying, and nobody is coming (at least not in time to prevent these perceptions from taking root). And of course the point isn’t the age or the circumstance, but the filters through which we perceive the world and our place in it. There are three basic conclusions for the child to make.
- I’m crying and nobody is coming. I know they hear me, but they don’t care how I cry and make my needs and desires know. I am rejected.
- I’m crying and nobody is coming. I know they hear me, so the problem must be me. I must be wrong about my needs. I am humiliated.
- I’m crying and nobody is coming. I’m not sure they’re there. I’m alone and everything is up to me. I am abandoned.
Rejection goes with the architect. The big idea romantic jouster of windmills and what could be. And since the architect assumes what they offer will be rejected or unwanted anyway, there is not only familiarity in throwing big ideas into the world, there is comfort in the self-fulfilling prophecy of saying too much, aiming too high, or being too dense or obtuse for others to bother following. Might as well challenge the chief of police and tell him his career isn’t meeting the mission.
Humiliation goes with the operator. This is most people, in my experience. The operator wants stability, wants to know what to do to maintain stability, has a longing to pursue adventure but tends to be so committed to doing the “right” thing that they struggle to risk or make even temporary lateral moves. “I want to write a book, but what if it’s no good?” “I want to be a preacher or pastor, but women aren’t allowed to do that.” No way the operator is going to encourage the architect for being a risk-friendly dreamer when the operator is stuck in an environment where they could be overworked and don’t “get” to pursue their dreams.
Abandonment goes with the builder. The person with clarity about what needs to be done and the willingness to risk getting it done. But all the while, there is an assurance that they will end up alone. The owner is the only one who can’t quit the business, right? Why entertain the haunting of the architect, and why not power up on the analyst who the CEO has to take care of and manage anyway?
A friend of mine is a builder. A very successful enterprise sales leader. He called me the day the penny dropped for him about his abandonment wound. He was on the way home from the grocery store. His wife, a successful executive operator with plenty of significant responsibilities, had blown it. All he’d asked her to do was stop and get ketchup for the cookout on her way home from work, and the task was so small it slipped her mind.
“It was as delicious as if she’d told me she’d been cheating on me. And I don’t mean good delicious; I mean like proof that everything is up to me. I see it now. I ask way too much or I ask in small or awkward ways, and then when people fail me I get the proof that it’s all on my shoulders. I hate it, but it feels normal and safe and like proof that I should build with my ego, and if I can make everyone else the threat waiting to fail me, I can protect myself.”
Rochambeau Summary
I know this is a lot to accept at a glance. It’s taken me well over a decade to notice and process what I’ve been observing. And for years I kept that parlor trick question and my interview sorting a secret, probably because it’s natural to me as an architect, but I wouldn’t want to argue the validity of this framework with an operator, or the value of vulnerability to a builder. I share it now because I think the Kingdom version of this same model is worth choosing instead.
The Builder - Rock - Past-credentialization - Abandonment Wound
- Values clarity, action, and accomplishment.
- Excels at creating purposeful structures.
- Good at risk and consistency. Struggles with submission.
- Confuses “correct” with “right.”
- Great fear = people and God will refuse the temple he builds.
The Operator - Scissors - Present-credentialization - Humiliation Wound
- Values data, stability, appropriateness, what is real.
- Excels at processes, tasks, and maintaining excellence.
- Good at consistency and submission. Struggles to risk.
- Fears burnout and mistreatment.
- Great fear = never being rewarded and liberated for their work.
The Architect - Paper - Future-credentialization - Rejection Wound
- Values vision, systems, ideals, and mystery.
- Excels at creating meaning and articulating vision.
- Good at risk and submission. Struggles with consistency.
- Confuses blueprints with buildings.
- Great fear = vision will fail and adventure will turn to ruin.
Because the rochambeau system is about leverage and winning, about vulnerability and extraction, we learn how to navigate in more than our core role. We learn how to parrot the language of other types and we learn to defend ourselves from the natural threats we see in others. But the system is exhausting and depleting for us. We long to be heard and respected by the temperament we attack. We seek to be supported by the temperament that attacks us. We develop coping techniques to minimize our vulnerabilities, and we develop false selves for the same reason. And we get used to the reality of dogs eating dogs everywhere.
Kingdom Rochambeau
Same diagram, but instead of leverage driving from builder against operator against architect against builder, blessing flows in the opposite direction.
The Kingdom role of the architect is to encourage the operator. To say “I’m future-oriented, and I can see how your work will pay off. Let me cheer you as you choose to feed the right dog in your fight.” This is the life-giving alternative to rejection: to give freely and cheer whatever portion the operator adopts.
The Kingdom role of the operator is to honor the builder. To say “I’m present-oriented, and I’m so grateful for the thing you’ve built that gives me stability and a sense of place.” This is the life-giving alternative to humiliation: to embrace the generosity of gratitude rather than the fear of contingency or underappreciation.
The Kingdom role of the builder is to contribute to the architect. To say “I’m past-oriented and I can see the value in what you’re seeking. I would love to help you without having to own it for you.” This is the life-giving alternative to abandonment: to apply the tools of building without being nailed to the thing.
Kings, Priests, and People
Here’s where I lose operators who are locked into the world’s rochambeau.
One way the Bible sorts society is like this. There is a king, there are priests, and then there are the people.
A king dies and he gets a one-line final report card. It’s either “he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord,” or “he did what was wicked in the sight of the Lord.” The body hits the ground and it’s next king up. There are perks to being the king, but the burdens are great because his whole role is spent in a place of huge tensions as the powers of this world contend for the people. His whole life is summed up by one thing: how did he care for the people, who are always the apple of God’s eye, and did the king align with the mission of Heaven, which is always the reconciliation of the Father with His children?
Priests have no inheritance. They have no power other than to play an intercessory role between God, kings, and the people, and this is done with a great many boundaries and instructions, also ultimately measured by how well they align their efforts with that same Heavenly agenda of reconciliation. It’s worth repeating real quick: the priests do not have power, and when they seek it bad things happen and their mission fails. Sometime maybe you and I can discuss whether this is true of pastors and denominations as well.
And then there are the people. They are vulnerable. They can be taxed, sent to war, captured in war, can grumble or praise, and feel the tensions of contingency and the influences of good and bad kings. But they are the point. They are where God’s gaze and system is focused. Will they receive encouragement and feed the right dog? Will they submit and express honor to the king who bears responsibility for them? Can they even admit there is a covering and responsibility someone else carries for them, especially in today’s America?
Builders are kings. Architects are priests. Operators are the people, and the culture of the people is where the Body testifies. The voice of the people is the voice of their relationship with their God.
Kingdom rochambeau makes this possible, where traditional rochambeau is diametrically opposed to both the process and possibilities of the Kingdom model.
The Trinity
Things get interesting here, and my mapping may surprise you. Father, Son, and Spirit: which maps to Builder? To Operator? To Architect?
Does future, present, past tell us anything? Give it a minute and ponder.
Here’s what I think is cool. God’s approach is based in a covenant, a promise, that He makes and fulfills. The comes first, this eternal, abiding, promise that He brings to fruition. We do not follow because of what already exists; we follow what He promises is coming.
I put the Father with the architect. The Father is the most mysterious and least specific in His expression. Think Romans 1:20 and the idea of general revelation. Think about every sunset spread across the sky with no signature. Think the rain falling on the just and the unjust alike. It is the Father’s eternal purpose, and if your theology will allow it, longing, that we encounter in “for God so loved the world that He sent His only Son.” And Jesus so loves the Father that He came, and He died for the joy set before Him, which has to at least include the look on His Father’s face when you finally fall into the Father’s arms, to the great joy of Jesus.
Jesus maps to the operator. His is God in our form. He is familiar with our sorrows and our contingency. He was tempted to take the reins Himself, and He poured Himself out and was utterly dependent in His obedience. Note how in John 17:4 as Jesus asks to be glorified He says He has accomplished the work the Father sent Him to do … before the Crucifixion. From the transfiguration on, Jesus is a dutiful passenger (again, if your theology will allow the word). He does rise from the grave, He is raised from it (1 Cor 15:4, Romans 4:25, Acts 13:30 as starters). Jesus, as the people, is the Father’s beloved. It is the lived history of the people, who are defined by the Testimony (see Testimony article for a deeper treatment), that forms the people of God into the people of God and gives us a past we can believe in, not because of precedence on its own, but because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, and the living promise from the Father who is one with the Son and the Spirit.
So how does the builder, who tends to credentialize optimism in the past, and who so often bears paternal burdens, end up with the Holy Spirit instead of the Father? Because the Spirit is the most immediate and clear and decisive. The Spirit is how a king can be expected to know and do what is right in the sight of the Lord, and be accountable in a keen way for doing what is wicked.
If my world is a forest, not only does it include trees and plants and mushrooms and creatures and all sorts of life and resources, it looks way more like the bright colored forest in the movie Avatar. All I see are possibilities and abundance. I love it, and there is so much in my forest that every snail is as fascinating as every giant tree. I struggle to know where to start (unless I’m looking for a resource to bless a specific operator, in which case the choice to encourage makes my familiarity with the forest really easy to know what to grab). But I have builder friends who can walk into my forest and they see the whole place in terms of board feet of lumber. They know exactly where to start, how to evaluate options, and what to do next. And the forest regrows so quickly and the life there delights in being accessed for the care and blessing of others (I’ll write about dominion soon).
The Holy Spirit is not the hoogity-boogity member of the Trinity. The Spirit is the most immediate and least abstracted, and certainly the least willing to play along with religious types who think they can manage a God zoo. Ask Ananias and Sapphira.
What is the Spirit dedicated to? What is the decisiveness about? It’s about the reconciliation of the Father with His children, as promised and demonstrated throughout history, and pursued in specific, explicit, tactical, incarnate collaborative ways today. The builder can be optimistic because the promise that has always been the basis for the agenda of Heaven is still in effect right now.
So What?
Why does this framework matter? Why should you care and what should you do with it?
We were created to dwell in communion with God. He has preferences and He has an agenda. He created the world to align in a certain way, and in that alignment we find our greatest peace and purpose and joy.
Kierkegaard talked about the self “resting transparently in the power that established it.”
You saw the world in a certain way in your crib, and your experiences there and along the way built a pattern of perspective that fuels your gerbil wheel striving. The wounds are valid in the sense they are true, but they’re meant for something else. An exchange and an orientation and direction you can see when you can see two points and two options on a line.
Are you an architect who’s been rejected, who lives in a magical forest but weaponizes your daddy wounds in ways that cost you far more than wisdom would ask? What if you can turn away from the builder you’ve been challenging, and leave the door open for that person to come be your supporter as you encourage the operators who’ve refused to bet on your ideas on credit? You may find that the quieter, richer version of your visionary self looks more like the assistant coach kids remember forever.
Are you an operator who feels like you’re never going to get your shot, never be invited forward, who longs for adventure but is so overworked and so bound to the work of everyday that you feel your life passing by and you sometimes wonder if anyone will be able to say they knew and miss the real you when you’re gone? What if you could shift your focus from the people who get what they want without earning it, allow them to celebrate you, and you focus your gratitude and honor on the people who have built the things that make your world stable and safe enough to enjoy the luxury of being able to lament the “more” you have just enough to not risk to pursue. What if those are the people whose lives are being spent in a way that shows you how much the Lord loves you?
Are you a builder with the weight of the world on your shoulders, making all of the choices, picking up the tabs, absorbing the barbs of daddy issues projected on you, the more and less overt ingratitude of the people you lead never feeling like they appreciate the deal you’re offering or the burden you carry to fulfill your end of the bargain? What if you could turn to expressions of beauty and possibility, to the dares you’re invited to support without having to own yourself? What if your alignment with the Holy Spirit could happen with exponential impact and freedom if it could happen beyond your command? What if it could all be fun again (or for the first time)?
We’re dying in our world of leverage and defensive risk management. There’s a better option, and the flow is the flow of the life of your Maker.
Ask someone at lunch if and why they’re optimistic about their thing. See how they answer. Ask God what they need. Risk offering the blessing.
If you want to explore this with me further, you’re invited to get in touch. It’s what I’m here for.