This article is part of the series The Entrepreneur, the Executive and the Status Quoist, which, based on the movie The Maze Runner, analyzes three types of archetypal mindsets that you will see in the professional world and in life in general.
The first article in the series deals with the beginning of the movie and the role of the Executive. You can read it here.
Thomas: the Entrepreneur
One day Thomas arrives in the forest glade of The Maze Runner. The newcomer, the last to arrive and, therefore, in a structure based on order and security and not on meritocracy, he is taken as the rookie with few rights and little to say.
Thomas will have to do his work in the structure for years to earn the right to participate more and have more say. This is how a well organized pyramidal structure works. We are not here for the newcomer to come in and question everything or to contribute with his genius. We have been thinking about this and executing it for a long time.
This is all well and good, but there's just one problem: Thomas is an entrepreneur and he's not going to give a sh*t.
At first Thomas keeps quiet and learns, he accepts the rules because he is understanding and evaluating them. He doesn't yet know how it all works or what sense it makes what they are doing there, so he accepts a passive situation and keeps analyzing.
It is made very clear to him what he cannot do because he is assigned a role in the group, which is not that of a runner, so he can forget about asking (let alone exploring) what is behind the walls, what is in the maze.
He has not been designated by the leader to do that, so he won't do it. This is an organization, there is a Status Quo and there is an Executive who maintains it, who executes it every day.
End of story.
End of story until it’s not: Thomas is learning how everything they have set up there works, all the rules and all the liturgies created. He realizes certain shortcomings, especially that only a few can enter into the maze, that the same thing is repeated over and over again and that asking questions and suggesting options is not seen in a good light. He also realizes that they have been doing this for three years without improving their chances of getting out of there.
There is a kind of acceptance that the Status Quo is a gift rather than stagnant water.
What is interesting is that the archetype of Thomas' character is not that of another Executive questioning the current Executive and wanting his job, presenting his alternative option to others, winning supporters, confronting the current leader and challenging him.
No.
Thomas is an entrepreneur and what he wants is "to be able to do what he belives is best", not to be controlled and told what he can and cannot do, while at the same time he is willing to take much more risk to try to unblock the situation. To try to change things.
Much more risk: this is the key concept that radically separates the character of Thomas from the character of Alby. Thomas is not at all interested in leading the group or running an established machinery, even if it is the one he creates with changes from the previous one.
Thomas first analyzes and learns about the Status Quo, the established norms and rules, maps them against the situation they all have in front of them and comes to the conclusion that they are not going to get out of it in this way. Then he does what innovators and entrepreneurs do (two characteristics that are often inseparable), which is to challenge the Status Quo and, without permission, does something different: he enters into the maze going against the rules.
He doesn't want to compete against the Executive, he wants to create and test his own new solution and personally assume the much greater risk involved. So he violates the rules and enters into the maze to explore it.
You can't tie a natural born entrepreneur down any longer than he will let you tie him down.
Fortunately for everyone, starting with Thomas, who manages to get out alive from his first venture as an entrepreneur who fabricates his freedom to put his creativity into action by taking a much greater risk directly, the entrepreneur's plan works out well and then everyone visualizes that there is another alternative possibility to the Status Quo. As is typical, in order to do this, Thomas had to brake the rules and go against the authority of the Executive in order to carry out his venture.
As I often say in my talks and in the classes I teach: society not only doesn't help innovators and entrepreneurs (those who challenge the Status Quo), but tries to destroy them as agents that disrupt the order. Then, if they succeed, society praises them.
Once Thomas breaks the rules and proves that one can survive a night in the maze, there is no turning back in the community. Thomas has also showed compassion and humanity for Alby, the Executive, whose life he saves, showing that Alby is not his rival, and that Thomas simply seeks to be allowed to do what he wants, to be allowed to undertake his project and assume responsibility for it personally if it goes wrong, but also to reap the rewards if it goes right.
Everyone has seen that Thomas has not only done what he has done, but that he has accepted personally the risk involved in his choice and that he is now coming back to share the possible benefits with others.
Thomas doesn't compete against the Executive.
Thomas creates.
Thomas is the Entrepreneur.
With Alby's moral authority somewhat undermined (though still with the majority of supporters), Early Adopters are beginning to see Thomas not as an agent of chaos, but as a creative and driven option that could be a game changer.
Thomas doesn't particularly campaign to be followed (what he wants is to be allowed to create, he's an entrepreneur), but some follow him because he has ignited the hope of a new opportunity that laid where no one was looking, and the most innovative and risk-taking people tend to react positively to that.
Even if they were not the ones who ignited the timber, they know how to recognize a torch and the one who can carry it through muddy terrain with the possibility of coming out of it alive.
From here, Thomas is able to carry out his venture by going further and taking more risks than ever before, thus creating new possibilities for the whole group. Also exposing himself to the risk of dying, but precisely, he says something like "I'd rather die, than be here another three years with nothing happening."
This, again, is surprisingly similar to the entrepreneur who puts his money (or should put it), time and all his energy into something that may not generate anything (which he accepts) but that can also generate it (which he chases and pushes for).
Thomas is joined by Early Adopters and a new, much more aggressive stage of maze exploration begins, creating options that, after several iterations, eventually allow all survivors to exit the maze. The Early Adopters have already been joined by the Early Majority, the Late Majority and even the Laggards, so there is a huge group that follows Thomas and takes the risk, but also believes that there are possibilities and that Thomas is the one who can make it happen. And that is worth it compared to the previous Status Quo.
It could have gone wrong and Thomas could have died in the maze. Thomas and those who followed him could also have died. This means: the entrepreneur and the investor (both united by the ability to take the risk) can lose everything they have put in. The group that follows the entrepreneur also is willing to lose more than in another situation with less risk (although they do not lose everything, like the entrepreneur, but sometimes they win and even win more, especially if things go wrong, they usually win more).
However, sometimes it goes well and then the risk-reward pair shows its best results: the higher the risk, the higher the possible reward. In this case they got out of the maze, something that in three years the Executive not only did not achieve, but was not going to achieve, he knew it and prevented it from being achieved by not being honest with the situation and allowing alternatives to his plan.
But not everything was going to be so easy, there were more hurdles than challenging a Status Quo and getting the freedom of action that a leading Executive did not allow.
There was an even bigger hurdle...