In the very large category of “songs whose choruses I have sung hundreds or thousands of times yet I never thought of the meaning of what I’m actually singing until that song happened to randomly come onto a playlist recently” we have a new addition that is worth diving in to.

Let’s review the chorus without even saying the name of the song because, if you are of my generation plus or minus something like ten years, you will immediately know it and hum it in your head:

One man come in the name of love
One man, he come and go
One man comes he to justify
One man to overthrow

Yes, of course of course it is “Pride, in the name of love” from the very very green days of U2, long before Bono discovered those glasses, and back when they were known more for a weird tree than anything else.

But what struck me now is that these four types of men who lists very neatly differentiate between the four types of people you’ll work with in your office, or your clients’ or vendors’ offices. And as such, understanding each of their profiles might help you understand whom you’re dealing with at work.

Let’s look at each one, and for funsies we’ll go in reverse order:

“One man to overthrow.”

Your power-hungry colleague who is there to overthrow the current crazy way your company works, comes in two flavors, good and bad. The good version is that new manager with lots of energy who wants to shake things up to improve the situation. The guy with a million ideas who pushes them all. When competent, he can be a revolutionary leader, and when less competent, a time-waster.

But there’s a negative version of the new colleague who is there to overthrow: the !@#*$& who wants to grab power for himself and takes no prisoners on the way. Very typical of employees at P/E firms. The one who brown-noses those higher up on the hierarchy, stomps on everyone below, and plays politics to see who to bet on for everyone at his same level.

“One man comes he to justify”

This man is–by far–the most common type of colleague or coworker you will experience: the “CYA” type whose one-and-only concern making sure nothing could ever be blamed on him because that would create risk for him and, as a result, he says “no” to anything and when not saying “no” he’s doing little else other than appearing busy by doing Very Important Things like “Having Meetings.” The most common (non-vulgar) word for this type of colleague is a “bureaucrat,” although that word sounds increasingly vulgar to the euphemism-accustomed modern ear. While an overwhelming majority of employees fall into this category–on average at least, which does not mean it’s the average in your company, and the larger the entity you work for, the greater the proportion of employees will fit into this category–it is certainly true that you are not one of them.

“One man, he come and go”

This is the colleague who is around for a bit until he finds a better job. He works a bit harder than “One man comes he to justify” but not all that much. And his tenure is shorter by the day. There are a few variations of this category, such as the “resume padder” and its cousin, the “I talk a good game but I actually don’t work, so I’m fired very quickly from every job I charm my way into getting.” And the most challenging part of this type: even when he’s there, even when he “come”–his eyes are already looking for the next, hoping and praying he can get that 1% raise at a new job, so he’s never really there. The modern hippies teach us to be “present” in th moment, and this is the target that most urgently needs to internalize that message.

“One man come in the name of love”

Now we have saved the best for last: this is your dream colleague, and what I personally aspire towards: the one who “come in the name of love.” Saving the best for last, that’s what we’re doing here! This is the person who feels a calling to their work and puts all their heart and love into it. And it shows. When you read writing you know if it was done by a bot or a person that is (Insert Something Inappropriate Here)–or if it was done by someone truly passionate about the issue. When you see art, you can tell if the artist was loving creating their creation, or was just trying to get it off their plate as quickly as possible.

Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that “love” makes all the difference. It’s palpable. They say love is intangible but its results can be as tangible as it gets.

Of course, the “much easier said than done” advice is, to try to work with as many “come in the name of love” colleagues as possible and, if I ran an HR department, I’d make this official guidance.

To celebrate understanding these four types of colleagues, now is the time to listen to the song and ponder: how will you fill your work with more love than you currently do. That, too, is even easier said than done and perhaps, the most capitalist question ever asked–but don’t hate the player, hate the game: