by: Brooke Allen
About a decade ago someone in accounting, or personnel, or wherever, asked me for job titles.
I said, “We don’t have job titles in our group.”
She went away.
Soon she was back saying that a new policy required that we have job titles, and that I had to give them some.
I said, “I can’t think of any.”
She said, “Make something up.”
I said, “OK, we’re all Senior Executive Vice Presidents.”
She went away.
She was back the following day saying, “Those titles won’t do. Nobody in your group is a vice president, senior, executive, or otherwise. Besides, we need functional titles.”
“As opposed to bullshit ones?” I asked.
She didn’t laugh but waited around until I came up with some stuff… Group Head (me), Analyst, Programmer, Trader … make that Senior Trader (never mind that we don’t have any junior ones)… I don’t remember and don’t care, although I can now find out if need be by asking everyone in my group for their new business cards.
Since our first day in the mid-1990′s, we have had a daily checklist, similar to what pilots find in airplane cockpits and janitors find on bathroom walls: do this by 8:15, start that computer before this one, run that program, file this report by 5:00, etc. The checklist gets updated as needed and has gone from perhaps 15 items to over 50 in 16 years.
A while ago our organization was restructured to come under a German parent, which meant that now we became subject to new regulators and rules. Auditors from Frankfurt arrived and were very impressed at the length and detail of our check-list, and apparently it got a glowing stamp of approval.
But they were back, and with a frown, said, “We can’t find your job descriptions.”
I said, “That’s because we don’t have any.”
“That won’t do; how can you run a business like that?”
I pointed out that we’d been doing fine for over a decade, but they would have none of it, and demanded something pronto.
I said, “We all do what needs to be done.”
They were not amused. They gave me a sample of what they wanted that looked like a checklist for somebody else. I complained to someone in compliance, and she explained that we must now comply with new German risk rules that require detailed job descriptions, among other things.
So we complied and divided up the checklist, assigning things by who does what. They were satisfied and went away.
However, the German regulators, (who are “principles based,” rather than “rules based” as are the regulators in the USA), our management, and everyone in our group all know that compliance with rules isn’t enough, and faithfully following a task list alone isn’t really doing your job.
We have a mission statement specific to our group which states, “Our goal as a group is to act such that every person associated with our endeavor will feel that at the end of the day they were better for it.”
We have a detailed document itemizing who exactly those people are, and we update it when stakeholders change. We document our principles and values, and update them too, although infrequently, since they seldom change. We have procedure manuals that remind us of how to do things, policy manuals that tell us what and why, and checklists that help us remember when to do things, and document when we forget.
But a job description is not doing its job if it only lists tasks better itemized in a checklist.
In essence, we all have only one job description, and that is “to care.”
All jobs and their descriptions must begin with an understanding of what it means to care, about what, and for whom.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
6 Responses to Should Caring Be Part of Every Job description?
Leave a Reply
WATCH THIS VIDEO to hear Daniel Pink describe what motivates people to work. This is what No Shortage of Work is all about.
If you are unemployed, you are autonomous. We help with purpose and mastery. If you are employed, find purpose in helping those who are not. NSoW is not a commercial venture; it is created by people who believe that creating something of intrinsic value is compensation enough. (Note: We are not affiliated with the producers of this video or Daniel Pink.)
[...] an essay for my management once about job descriptions, and it all boils down to one words: ” Care.” Everything else are just tasks, but no matter how good you are technically, you cannot do a [...]
Brooke -
I understood the theatric license used to feign surprise at some of the requests issued by HR folks; I’ve found that this kind of presentation is lost on them just about always. I also understand the need for job descriptions, and I have promoted them from time to time. What I do not often understand is this penchant for titles, except that it gives some a feeling of belonging and authority.
I suppose that if there were a titling schema that was commonly adopted among large organizations, it would have for meaning (so a “Senior Business Analyst” at P&G is really the same as a job of similar title at Bank of America), but it seems titles are cultural entities; they are both symptoms and tools used by the local culture to tune one’s status in the organization, and they are less costly than real changes in job description. authority or status.
You’re old enough to know this (we are of similar vintage, and we’ve met on numerous occasions). I am detailing this for background and clarity, and also because this is a public thread and I want to make my reasoning clear and explicit.
I do agree that is you’re going to have job descriptions, making more rather than less explicit is a good thing, so somehow putting “caring” into that is worth doing. I think the current code word for this in the job searching world is “passionate”; we are instructed to be “passionate” about optimizing SQL indices and views, or a job prospect is required to be “passionate” about video controllers, and so on. Frankly, I like the term “caring” more than “passionate”, but I believe each term has a lot of equivalence in the marketplace right now.
The fellow who worked at the UN poses an interesting situation, part of a spectrum of relationships one may have with an organization, function, and skills. For example, I have turned down jobs because I felt that the outcome of my work was not something I could feel good about for ethical or moral reasons. I have also been very proud to work for organizations whose overall mission met some greater good or higher standard than providing profits to shareholders. Moreover, I would tend to think that the UN would be one such organization, even if one disagreed with one particular policy decision or another.
There is the notion that one is a craftsman at some level, so one can write code, review project plans or perform accounting functions without regard to the overall mission of the organization. The general ledger is what it is, whether you’re the UN, Exxon, the Air Force, or for that matter a drug smuggling network (I am not attempting to state moral equivalence for these organizations). That said, I suppose it is possible to simply “do your job”, and ignore the overall purpose of the organization, and that may work for some people, but it probably doesn’t work for others, including me.
There are probably a great number of jobs from which one can be terminated if management can show a sustained pattern that amounts to “not caring”. The pattern is probably indicated in terms that are easier to quantify (like sloppy and late work, or results that are unusable, etc), and that may be due to legal requirements, but it boils down to not caring about the work at hand and performing it so as to deliver something of value. I’ve been involved in dismissing such people on two occasions.
Finally, it is easy to understand why the UN is interested in motivations, most probably for those who may have to go in harms way to perform work that comprises UN directives and fulfilling its mission. If I’m going to write code for the UN in headquarters, it’s one thing, but quite another if I have to perform the same function near the Khyber Pass. Certainly I would want to see that someone sent “over there” highly values the things the UN stands for, and believes in the mission.
I always want to know what someone cares about, and why. Check lists, titles and job descriptions can be changed on demand, but what a person truly cares about (if anything) is going to be more constant.
Robert,
I am not surprised that functionaries ask for titles and job descriptions. I’m old enough to have been around the block.
But, sometimes, it pays to act surprised when you are trying to make a point.
I’m all for job descriptions, but too many organizations only audit task lists and whether people stick to task and don’t audit results.
And it is sad that “caring” isn’t in every job description. When people say “that’s implicit” I say that I’ve discovered over the years it is always a good idea to make things explicit. For many jobs, not caring should be sufficient reason for termination.
You seem to be surprised at the response of people who have come to you with these questions about job descriptions and so forth. It is the nature of organizations beyond some level of complexity thats require this kind of information about each of its parts.
None of these items (for example, a job description) is bad ir bureaucratic in of themselves, and there are times they can be useful. Rather it is the functionaries rather stilted view of them and how they can be used that makes it something of an nuisance. I’ve noticed that HR folk are actually very serious about all of this stuff, I simply don’t know why.
In large organizations, there is a streak of conformity and control through bureaucracy that make it kind of surreal and absurd.
There appears to be a great need to completely define and quantify our roles, goals, methods, tools, and means. At the same time, there is a great need to have oversight about what we did, and how we did it, and often why we did it, all in the most precise terms possible. This leaves little room for subjective qualities like “caring”. The focus is often on meeting the [minimum] requirements, while lip service is paid to maximal excellence.
Those who are adept at filing good project plans and forecasts, as well as those who are equally good or better at submitting reports which affirm the validity of plans by reporting completion and execution, are highly valued. Those who actually perform the work or invest capital like “caring” are rarely recognized.
I think Ken and Fred Brooks had a story about personnel folk who came through Yorktown Heights in the mid 60′s. They pretty much never came back after that.
While reading your article, I thought of the Albert Einstein quote “If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn’t call it ‘research’”. I wonder what the HR folks do at the Institute for Advanced Study? I guess they just write down something like “A. Einstein – Researcher”.
They will prevail by defining boxes for us all.
I just had an extensive conversation with a man who spent his entire career at the United Nations. He told about how he tried to do a good job, but didn’t care about the UN and thought the people working there were hypocrites. The UN once had a training session on hiring where they said you should probe deeply into a person’s motivation for working there. This man objected, saying it is nobody’s business why you want a job as long as you do it well.
While I admire him as a person, as an employer I can’t see how someone who doesn’t care about their work can do nearly as well as someone who does.
What do you think? Can you do as good a job if you don’t care? Is life long enough for you to spend it doing things you don’t care about?