How to Eliminate Traditional Job Descriptions
February 26, 2010, I wrote, “Traditional job descriptions are a relic of a past age when jobs didn’t evolve and people were more inclined to do what they were told.”
Yesterday, Stan Endicott, partner at Slingshot Group, got me fired up when he said, “Job descriptions are, most of the time, not a good way to attract great talent.”
Stan said, figure out what you really love to do and go work for an organization that wants you to do that. Write the job description after you’re hired, not before. (paraphrase)
Who before what:
When you’re looking for new team members, ask:
- Who dreams like we dream?
- Who’s angry about things we’re angry about? (Use the term, “frustrated,” if that feels safer than anger.)
- Who do we need, in view of our current and future context?
- Who fits in? (If you want more of the same.)
Hire a “who” not a tool.
Hire great people – that you trust – and throw gas on their fire. They’ll figure out what to do.
- Hire.
- Align.
- Establish high expectations.
- Provide resources.
- Give feedback.
- Affirm.
- Realign as conditions change.
- Repeat #3 through #7.
Job descriptions:
In turbulent times and evolving circumstances, organizations that take months to revise job descriptions grow obsolete.
Traditional job descriptions treat people like tools that complete tasks and fulfill duties. Typically they end with, “Other duties as assigned.” Inspiring?
Let great people write their own job description. But, be careful, they may kill themselves fulfilling it.
Vision descriptions:
Replace job descriptions with vision descriptions.
“Here’s our vision. What’s yours?”
Vision descriptions:
- Infuses meaning.
- Creates targets.
- Clarify focus.
- Fuel motivation.
- Transforms employment into a forward facing, passion-driven activity.
Organizations and individuals reach higher and go further
focusing on vision rather than duties and tasks.
Don’t hire people to do stuff. Hire people to be themselves.
Dear Dan,
I do believe that organizations should avoid and eliminate traditional description and parameter. They look for potential and who are they hiring. There are many things that can be infused through practices and training and hence, organizations need not to much worry about training and skills. What they should worry is attitude- that is hard to infuse.Though organizational practices can influence people attitude but can not change.
I think, organizations should design the process of hiring where they can measure attitude. One way is to create situation and ask person to take decisions. And similarly, many situations and dilemma can test person.
It is easy to align people with right attitude with the visions. So, organization vision should inspire people dream.People should feel making more effort in order to achieve organizational goal. And to achieve this, parameters should be re-looked, modified and created to suit people and organizational needs.
Thanks Ajay. “Hire for attitude” … Bingo!
Great stuff Dan!!!
I can see this guy reads Simons stuff!
I will take it a step further.
3 billion new folks will be on the Internet in the next 5 years.
I believe ANY person starting on the side can learn to monitize their skills and have something of value to offer others.
So I say it is more in people’s self interest to spend their time getting good at those skills.
Or 40 years 40 hours a week 40 grand a year. The plan, right?
How is that working out for the folks? 95% of us end up at 65 dead or dead broke.
If true, if TRUE….Dan who are we serving trying to get folks to figure out this job thingy better?
I believe each person has a unique gift to share with the world!! Find yours and figure out a way to get paid for it.
On the side in your spare time till you start figuring it out.
Or hope somehow u are a 5%er!!!
Cya, good stuff today!!! Think I got the flu so gonna get some antibiotics and rest.
SP
EA
Thanks Scott… Think less about finding a job and more about serving others. 🙂
Get well soon.
Thanks for all your stimulating material! What suggestions do U have for managing highly entitled people in a union environment?
Thanks Paul. I’ve worked with a local companies where the people in the room are both union and non-union. There are sensitive dynamics. Everyone said it was going to be a fiasco. It turned out great.
Avoid adversarial relationships as much as possible. 🙂
Build trust.
There is so much talk about what “can’t” be done. Find something small that “can” be done.
I’ve seen unions work really well and, of course, there are the other situations.
That’s off the top of my head and for what it’s worth. But, in the end, it’s a long process. You have my best.
Having managed both union and non union people, I find that alignment on purpose is the only way to win together. That means acknowledging openly that the company’s goal of maximizing shareholder returns is exactly opposite to the union’s stated goal of giving more money to its members, and the union leaderships’ goal of rising to the top of a money-making organization.
Having defined the differences and acknowledged them, work to find common purpose. The common purpose can include the company’s mission if good for the world, being better than competition to keep jobs and maintain standards of living, providing returns to shareholders (especially if owned by pension funds or other middle class workers), finding common purpose in a charity, etc.
Some union leaders and some managers are really despicable people. Don’t be one. Call out bad behavior, but not motives. Honor behaviors that build trust even if they strengthen a “union position”. Don’t lie, and don’t tolerate lies.
Thanks Marc… “call out bad behaviors, nut not motives.” That’s gold.
Hello Dan, I’ve been following your blog for the past three days. Appreciate you for pouring out your wisdom in the area of leadership.
I like what you said in this post about eliminating job descriptions and bringing in “vision descriptions”. Wonderful! It is a timely advice!
Thanks Joe.
Dan:
Eliminating job descriptions doesn’t negate the need for everyone to be fully occupied doing things that move the organization forwards, stretching and developing themselves, and helping others. Without a job description, the neurosurgeon would be helping prepare bad food in the kitchen and the cook would be killing people in the operating room.
Job descriptions would ideally be overlapping Venn diagrams. If the neurosurgeon likes to cook, he/she might go down to the kitchen and offer to help after doing his own work. If the cook wants to learn about surgery, he/she might learn how to scrub up and go witness an operation.
I realize this illustration depicts far wider span of occupation than is the case, for example, in an engineering services firm or a school. I wrote it to make a point.
Job descriptions are indeed useful, but only to describe generally the competencies required for the position and the central focus of the position, and accountability for work done. Overlaps and cross-training should be broad.
Thanks Marc. I like Stan’s suggestion. Let people write their own. As long as the issues you raise are addressed.
I think the idea of job descriptions that address competencies fits nicely with the idea of hiring a person not a tool. “Who before what”… perhaps “Who aligned with What,” captures the idea better.
Much appreciated.
Good Morning Dan:
I have not commented previously – i will today.
An inherent assumption in today’s text is, the work world is full of A-players readily available (compentent at the A-player level now), watching every job announcement, and/or a cadre of job applicants is full of A-players… This has not been my experience in over 40 years within the public sector…
Thanks Veteran…now you’re hitting on the talent-war issue. Like Jack Welch says, “The team with the best players wins.”
I suppose learning how to play together is essential, but he makes a great point.
Love the quote “Hire a who, not a tool.” I think a job description has value if it is general enough to give people a basic understanding of the space they would be playing in. Most importantly is hiring the talent for what they can do, not to fit in a box. How do you put intellectual curiosity and drive and engagement into a meaningful job description? You can’t, those are the things that you look for in a candidate. I believe in hiring a candidate who possesses those inate skills that you can’t teach. When you find those rare individuals, hire them and your whole world will be a better place.
Thanks Carrie. Great add. I wonder if the vision description would satisfy the basics of what we call a job description… along with a good assessment of the strengths of the person being interviewed?
Carrie;
I ‘really’ like to read what you write. I appreciate your comeents.
Steven
I do a lot of work in the Finance area of my company. They don’t respond well to changing any practice that has remained the same since the late Middle Ages. I think of how they would respond to being asked to hire for vision, and it makes me smile with a slightly evil chuckle.
Thanks Dunk… writing this post made me think about all the times I held back my ideas because I was afraid of what the establishment might think of them.
But in the end, the conversation is worth it… ideas can always be perfected if we don’t just toss them out off-handedly. 🙂
For the past few weeks, one of the blogs I follow has been publishing a series on job interview questions. Time and again I have come back to my belief in hiring people, not specific skill sets. Intelligent, open minded people who are not afraid to fail can learn most skills rapidly. So I agree. Job descriptions are a form of constraint. Thanks, Dan.
Thanks Steven. If nothing else comes from this post… focusing on “WHO” will help most of us. Cheers.
Love this. Love this. Love this
I’m interested in the union conversation above as well. For the entry level that I get immersed in, the vision description is both a magnet and a confusion. In the same way that letting people be themselves is only as good as their behavior style. Is everyone aware of how their unique ability fits the tasks at hand? It takes some awareness and process to pull this off well. Please don’t misunderstand. It is well worth it. It just takes a lot of clarity.
Thanks Ruth. You’re thoughtful response indicates you’re thinking about how to gradually implement these ideas. That’s enough for me. It’s silly to think organizations can flip a switch and do away with long held beliefs and practices.
Can’t agree more with you on this one Dan!
To your question “How could organizations move toward vision descriptions?”, I think that the fundamental shift (as you describe it) is to increase the awareness of the “who” both on the person side (the candidate) and on the organization side (vision and al).
The current state of the affair is a strong focus on the “what” on both sides.
Self confidence, self awareness, personal branding (when done as part of a “who” and not a “what” exercise), passion introspection, self-honesty and a dose of fun may allow individuals to find the courage to anchor themselves in their unique energy space. But like anything new, there is a strong fear of being rejected, especially as one may be looking for a job.
On the organization side, I think the problem is the same. So many organizations do not have a culture of “deep” branding and vision. Most of the time organizations deal with “vision” as being a check box on the list of “what” needs to be done, leading to a major internal gap. Most organization leaders are focused on the “what”, because of fear of loosing business ground. That in turn creates a culture of “what”. Core organization identity and purpose need to be intentional and owned by a person core to the organization (not marketing, but HR or CEO for example).
I believe that organizations eliminating traditional job descriptions will get faster traction than candidates eliminating traditional resumes.
Thanks Phillippe. I deeply appreciate your insights here, and concur. The growing focus on the “human” in human resources takes organizations further than treating people like cogs in a machine.
Thanks Philippe;
Any real effective change, or sustained performance can only be obtained, or maintained, if there is (Top-down TOTAL commitment).. Great insights Ph!
Steven
God does not create people to fit job descriptions. Effective hiring and management can be practiced only after we understand that irrefutable fact. Every person has talent, strengths and interests. Effective executives learn to discover those qualities and help put them into practice. There are no secrets; it’s just common sense management. Eliminate job descriptions and let people make decisions! Jimmy Collins
Thank you Jimmy. When a man of your experience gives a heartfelt affirmation it means more than you know.
Your thoughts on leadership and followership continue to challenge and expand my thinking.
Dan, I appreciate people like you who write something worth reading! Jimmny
I think a main danger in both personal and professional life is to either change everything or…nothing. The basic job overview, for example.
A management position in one organization may not necessarily be the same in another. The variables that makes this so can be the size of the organization, its philosophy, or culture, etc. So a job description gives both prospective employees and organization a screening mechanism to find the right candidate.
Moreover, a job overview need not be “structure”–as in “form follows function,” the old architecture rule of thumb. As avant garde as Frank Lloyd Wright was in designing homes ahead of his time
and steeped in his tradition, he was noted to always ask wives about not only their needs but their wishes in a home. But, he didn’t do away with his form. He integrated “form” with “function.”
I wholehearted agree with staff members writing their own vision description…once they understand the organizational goal and how they can contribute.
Nicely said Rick! 🙂 Love that open line in particular.
Rick Martinez makes an excellent point. It’s good to have both the vision and functional aspects working in tandem.
I created a simple tool to help identify both the cultural and functional requirements of a job. It goes a step further to separate the absolute must-haves from the like-to haves.
http://www.toistersolutions.com/competency/
Well, Dan, like everything in life.. it has a place. Tossing out conventional job descriptions to encourage the use of personal traits and thinking outside the box by establishing “vision descriptions”, in fact, does have its place.. but it’s not for every business or industry. I am sure what has spawned new thinking into the need for performance reviews and job descriptions has been from the high tech arena. I am personally awed at the innovation of the high tech businesses in treating their employees in unconventional ways to inspire personal motivation and create “gardens of seed thought processes” rather than the traditional “lemmings to the sea” environments. But.. having said that… I am also getting a bit annoyed at the trend to presume that the high tech business model of companies like Google, Zappos, etc. that turn the workplace into rah-rah, casual-dressed, feel-good environments, is something any company should exhibit in order to succeed. The fact is that the huge profits and rates of earnings of the high tech firms do allow for some investment in all those feel-good freebies in the workplace and so-called “empowerment management” programs in order to retain talent as much as creating.. creative thought environments. Most businesses/industries don’t have the luxury of those high profits to make the workplace playgrounds of innovated thought. Yes… innovation feeds a company’s ability to compete and is the bulwark of success but not every company has the financial ability to “massage” the individual employee’s psyche into some form of creative submission. “I don’t have to worry about finding a safe and close day care center for my child because my company provides all that. Now I can totally focus on creative thought in my job knowing I can stop off and see my child only two floors down on my break time.” Well, that’s all nice and fuzzy if a company can afford all that but it seems I am wondering about an employee’s personal sense of responsibility in the workplace; that inspiration and innovation comes from a natural desire to want to achieve… and less about making me feel good with perks and “buying” my creativity. “Look at all the benefits and freebies at this company! I’m sure going to want to achieve now!” I dunno about all that. Tossing out performance reviews and conventional job descriptions (hey.. how about linking the two?) seems to be another high tech idea to exchange someone’s personal stress level for creativity. I am NOT old fashioned in my business views but I do think we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bath water either. Something HAS worked in this country for the last 250 years since business has made us the most successful and powerful nation in history. To be sure, conventional business models have huge drawbacks, among them has been a history of “using” employees rather than developing them; that employees are not a herd to be managed but rather individuals to be focused as a team to encourage innovation. The job description (if written properly) establishes a work discipline… the rules of the road, so to speak. It’s what the employee does with it that establishes achievement… not changing it into feel-good verbiage and giving it a trendy new title.
Thanks Doug. I’m so glad you added your insights to this conversation!
Doug, you are coming just from the same place I am. (See my comment later in this column.) No two businesses are alike and to attempt to manage all businesses the same way (using the techniques described in today’s blog ONLY) will create as many failures as successes. There has to be some practicality along with the wonderful theory…
I used to know someone with your name from Chicago many years ago.. would that be you?
I like the idea of “Vision Descriptions” and I also like the idea you may not want to bring in someone exactly like the rest of your team so that there can be some fresh ideas. I don’t want a team made up of people just like me.
Thanks!
Thanks Patrick. The trouble with people who aren’t like me is they can be irritating… 🙂 … I guess thats the point.
Love this!
and all the people said AMEN!!
Diana
Thanks Diana.
A scenario. I want to hire an accountant. I interview without a job description and find an absolutely perfect artist from the standpoint of being the right emotional balance, right personality, right everything as far as being a good person. An artist, not an accountant. I put this person into the job with the best trainers and my best “people” surround them with support.
Where do you suppose this will go? Either this person will be moved to another place in the company or they will fail, it seems to me.
There is purpose in job descriptions. They provide direction and avoid poor use of time by many others within the company.
I do support going after the job you love but you need to have some idea of what you are wading into otherwise many people, including the one searching for the perfect job, will be faced with something less than desireable.
The veteran CEO has a strong point.
Thanks Dennis. Glad you added your perspective. Don’t hire a dentist to fix cars.
This is something I wish all managers could read. I think we get lost in skills and experience that we miss out on great opportunities with real people.
Thanks Miss Dani. I wish all managers would read this too… my views would be off the hook.. 🙂
Dan- LOVE this post. It is so real and speaks so strongly to what I feel my generation (gen-y) is looking for… to have a vision, something meaningful, something life changing. Not just tasks.
Also- love the new look!! Thanks,
—
Danielle Elizabeth Aaronson
@deaaronson
Thanks Danielle. I’ve read and seen that the younger generation is more interested in doing things with meaning. That means they must find connections between who they are and what they do.
Start with the people. 🙂
I guess I’m in the “other duties assigned” as I haven’t had an accurate job description in years (not by design). I feel this hasn’t negatively impacted my performance and while I don’t get to choose everything I want or don’t want to do, I’m also not tied down to only tasks.
Thanks Alex. As long as your job description doesn’t limit you, seems like it’s not doing any damage. “Not doing damage” is a pretty good goal for some of the activities of management and leadership.
I agree. Job Descriptions are archaic. I use them as a guide. Then, I file them and forget about them. The danger when, in the hands of small minded leaders and managers, is that they are used to constrain. Employees down the rank, when they see senior managers flouting common norms of behavior, often use the job description as a form of subversive retaliation. They refuse to do more than required by the JD
Thanks Rajiv. Job descriptions as constraints. That’s worthy of more thought. 🙂
Hi Dan:
Nice piece of thinking here. I did a piece in my Forbes column about a year ago related to this:
The Most Common Leadership Model and Why It’s Broken
Thanks Mike. Love the expression, “reward aggregate contribution,” in your article. As well as the rest, of course.
I’ve always told my clients that a job description should tell people what you want them to ACCOMPLISH, not what you want them to DO. Someone who understands that their job is to help their company grow will usually answer the phone quite differently than someone whose job is to answer within four rings.
Thanks William. What a great distinction… accomplish vs. do. “Accomplish” is liberating. “Do” feels like obligation.
Does any one have or know where I can find a side-by-side comparison of a traditional job description & vision description for the same job?
Thanks for this material. I am serving in an NGO promoting Christian family life and building Christian communities. It affirms and articulated our unexpressed approach of looking for leaders who dream what we dream about… unsatisfied with what we are unsatisfied about… shares our vision.