A lot of "wrong person in the wrong seat" problems aren't about talent but timing.
Robert X. Cringely's model splits the people who build companies into three types: commandos, infantry, and police, and the trick is knowing which type a given job needs.
The Three Types
Commandos go in first. They move fast, improvise, and establish a beachhead before anyone notices, often with a low level of process, which is fine, because process is expensive and there's no time for it yet. Infantry come next, in numbers, and they need systems and coordination to take and hold ground across a bigger team. Police come last: once the systems are in place, they maintain order, add people, and build the economies of scale, while the commandos and infantry move on to the next front.
You need all three across the life of a company. The danger is using the wrong one at the wrong moment.
Why This Matters for Your Hiring
The most common version of this mistake: a CEO hires a "build it from zero" commando to run a function that now needs steady, repeatable operations, or hires a process-minded operator (police) to launch something brand new that has no playbook yet. Both are good people. Both will struggle because the work doesn't match their type.
A quick gut-check before you hire for a function: is this work mostly invention (no playbook, needs a beachhead), mostly scaling (a working model that needs systems and a bigger team), or mostly maintenance (a stable function that needs steady hands)?
Where Fractional Fits
Fractional leadership works so well in the messy middle.
Early functions often need a commando's judgment for a few months, not a police-type hire you'll outgrow or have to manage around once the build is done. Matching the person's type to the stage of the work, and changing it as the work changes, is the needed decision. A fractional executive lets you bring in exactly the right type for the phase you're in without committing to a full-time seat.
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This model pairs well with thinking about which functions are bottlenecking you right now. For more frameworks like this for scaling CEOs, subscribe to Business Bites, our newsletter.
The model comes from Robert X. Cringely's Accidental Empires, popularized by Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror); Simon Wardley's Pioneers, Settlers, and Town Planners is a related framing.
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