Should caring be part of every job description?

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.

Learning to be a hero is more important than you might think.

Article by Brooke Allen, Interview by Adrienne Rodney and Brooke Allen.

Last summer we interviewed Dr. Phillip Zimbardo about his Heroic Imagination Project.

Before we met Dr. Phillip Zimbardo it wasn’t clear what a hero is or how frequently we all are presented with opportunities to be one. Zimbardo defines heroes as people who put themselves at risk for the benefit of others. Altruism is “heroism lite” – helping others without expectation of gain. When most people say someone is a “hero” they really mean “role model.” Sports figures, celebrities, or business leaders may or may not be good role models, but few are well known for heroism.

Phil Zimbardo is perhaps the greatest living psychologist. He has been the president of the American Psychological Association, hosted the 26 episode PBS series titled Discovering Psychology, and authored many books, including a favorite, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. But Phil is most famous for the Stanford Prison Study conducted 40 years ago.

Please, take a few minutes to watch our interview and then answer a few questions.

____

Can you imagine being a hero, or even wanting to be one? 

Before you answer, can you imagine the following conversations?

Conversation #1: Saleswoman, “May I tell you about our product?”

Prospect, “Possibly. But first, would you ever lie to a customer?”

Saleswoman, “Let’s just say that I will never let my children starve.”

Prospect, “Are you married? Does your husband have a job?”

Saleswoman, “Yes and Yes.”

Prospect, “Sometimes it feels like there are more unemployed unwed mothers feeding their children than there are honest salespeople.”

Saleswoman, “Whatever. Now, may I tell you about my product?”

Prospect, “No.”

Conversation #2: Hiring manager, “I have lots of unemployed friends. Would you mind if I introduced one of them to fill the vacancy you’ll leave behind?”

Job Candidate, “I would not recommend anyone do my job because my job requires I do unethical things.”

Hiring manager, “Then I can’t hire you because you are saying you are the most unethical person in the world. You do things so unethical you would not recommend anyone else on the planet do them other than you. You think it is ok to be unethical as long as it isn’t your idea.”

Conversation #3: College Career Officer, “Last year I told our president that for three years every graduate from one of our departments has been unable to get a job in their field, and I feel an obligation to disclose this fact to our students. He ordered me to stop keeping track and never disclose this fact because, as he said, ‘What am I going to do with the department? Don’t be selfish; think of your colleagues.’”

Friend, “What did you do?”

Career Officer, “I did what he said. What else could I do? I’m not selfish.”

Conversation #4. Job Candidate, “After 21 years of competent and loyal service I uncovered some shenanigans in one of our divisions. My boss and his boss didn’t seem to care so, after exhausting all internal options I quit and went to the regulators who nipped it in the bud. Although it cost me and two layers of management our jobs, I saved the shareholders boatloads of money. Now I’d like to do the same thing for your shareholders.”

Hiring Manager, “When can you start?”

____

I (Brooke) can imagine conversations #1 through #3 because I’ve personally participated in similar ones.

I can imagine the fourth only because I have an active imagination.

Phil Zimbardo believes we all need to imagine having conversations like #4 and we should never find ourselves involved with the first three.

He started his Heroic Imagination Project in San Francisco where he is raising money to sponsor heroism research and to educate people on how to be everyday heroes. He told us that, while you might benefit from a heroic act, it cannot be your motivation.

Not only do we need to strive to do the right thing every day, we must “Learn to love the whistle blower.” He should know. He had a whistleblower for his 1971 experiment. A recently minted doctorate in psychology, Christina Maslach was appalled at the change in Phil’s personality and behavior while he was conducting his prison study. She called him on it. They married the following year.

Do you want to be a hero?

Don’t your customers, employees, employers, students, shareholders, loved ones, and future generations need you to at least try?

You can learn more about what it means to be a hero by watching our interview with Dr. Zimbardo and then visiting The Heroic Imagination Project website to learn how to imagine being one and to help the cause.

And, while you’re here, please post a comment.

We are particularly interested in a story about a hero in your life, or a situation where you wish there was one on hand.

Book Reviews by David Anderson and Eric LaRue

Tommy Spaulding has built a successful career by being a leader and teaching others to be leaders. In his book, It’s Not Just Who You Know, Spaulding acknowledges that his success is greatly due to living the credo of Dale Carnegie’s How To Win Friends and Influence People. However, It’s Not Just Who You Know does more than expand or update Carnegie’s classic. Spaulding has re-imagined Carnegie’s ideas and infused them with his own spirit. This is a book about love.

Spaulding starts off with his own story of being a good kid who had trouble succeeding in school because of what would eventually be diagnosed as dyslexia. Yet he was the youngest Eagle Scout in his town, the captain of his high school football team and the president of his senior class.

Young Tommy was also fortunate to have chosen his parents well. Tommy Spaulding, Sr. told him three profound things: First, living with goodness in your heart counts more than good grades. Second, you have an obligation to make a contribution to this country because Democracy isn’t free. Third, the people who are making top grades in your school are going to work for you someday.

Relationships move Upward

Spaulding talks about the different levels of relationships. These start on the first floor where the conversation never gets past news, sports and weather. The top floor is the fifth, or Penthouse, where you don’t just get a Christmas card – you get invited to Christmas dinner.

This book also shows you how to get to the Penthouse and what to do once you arrive. Spaulding advises against being a chirping bird – someone who is also asking for something out of a relationship. He goes further and challenges us to find unique ways to keep in touch and connected with our friends, colleagues, business partners, etc. By making his business life personal, Spaulding is a friend first and always looking for ways to give to others without a thought of what should be given in return.

Spaulding calls this way of thinking a Return on Relationship (ROR), a twist on the financial Return on Investment (ROI). He isn’t some guy who charmed his way into the corner office; he firmly believes that his ROR delivers a better ROI.

When I signed on to read and review this book I did it with an eye toward how it might help me, but I want to conclude with an attempt to help you.

Over the past few months I have been using these methods. I have hand-written a number of notes in situations where previously I would have called or sent a quick email. The response has been remarkable and universally positive. I even wrote a letter to the IRS, because I owed more than I could pay this year, and soon after I got a phone call from a charming woman who works for them. She is by far the nicest person I have ever spoken to at any government agency. We worked out a deal in a friendly manner and now I have a friend at the IRS.

It’s Not Just Who You Know has got the goods. Read it, and if you are bold enough, live it. I have begun that journey and my Return on Relationship has been incredible.

———–

Review by: Eric LaRue

Most people will come to read It’s Not Just Who You Know in the same way they read How to Win Friends and Influence People. However, through personal experience and illustration, Tommy Spaulding manages to show why the book which so influenced him (How to Win Friends) in his youth, while revolutionary when first written in 1937, is no longer adequate in the 21st century.

Told largely through narrative from the author’s own life, Spaulding begins the second section with an analysis of the “Five Floors of Relationships,” with the most casual interactions taking place on the first floor, such as the interactions most of us have with the grocery store clerk, then moving up through our regular business transactions and finally up to the fifth floor relationships with our family and closest friends. This section will do wonders for readers at their next networking event. If Dale Carnegie teaches the importance of focusing on the interests of one’s negotiating partner, Spaulding teaches in these chapters how to demonstrate it.

However, the real value of the book comes in Sections 3 and 4, where Spaulding teaches how to move a business relationship into an intimate one, and how to leverage that relationship for everyone’s benefit. Section 3 teaches the reader how to build a relationship of trust to the point where you want that person to succeed, moving beyond the simple quid pro quo relationship. He shares examples of his most trusted friendships that’s he developed, from a bartender to old clients. Section 4 talks about building a simple business practice and moving into something “bigger than you” – a powerful force for good in the world, aligning those fifth floor relationships into a vision that results in a powerful movement.

It’s Not Just Who You Know is the perfect book for those who want to increase their business. It’s the perfect book for those who want to have more fulfilling relationships with the people they work with. It’s the perfect book for those who want to grow something bigger than themselves. And it’s the perfect book for the No Shortage of Work community.

a book review by Paul Share

In The Whuffie Factor, author Tara Hunt tells the fascinating story of how, in recent years, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes have used social networking to succeed in business. Hunt notes that traditional advertising is experiencing diminishing returns, as people learn to block out messages from a bombardment of media. Which brings us to the concept and use of “whuffie”.

Whuffie is a term coined by Cory Doctorow, a popular blogger, in a science fiction novel. He uses the term to describe social capital (or good will) in a future time when money is replaced as a medium of exchange by whuffie.   Hunt tells the story of businesses that have used social networking tools and Web 2.0 approaches to build a community of users, nurture whuffie with this community, and use this whuffie to thrive. She uses the telling of their stories to illustrate the various principles and “how-to’s”  that a person or business should follow in order to build social communities, interact with these social communities in a manner that builds whuffie, and ultimately benefit from the relationships and good-will generated.

But Hunt’s book is more than an engaging account of how businesses have successfully used these tools, and it is more than a how-to guide.  The Whuffie Factor also addresses a number of philosophical threads that are drifting through the cybersphere. Hunt writes that in order to be successful in building up Whuffie with a community, a member has to adopt a certain mindset. You can’t go into the community thinking of how you are going to benefit. Rather, you have to go in thinking of how you can benefit the community.

The success stories that Ms. Hunt recounts often demonstrate the “what goes around, comes around” school of karmic sociology. Many of these success stories are companies whose very mission statement involves doing good. Two examples are Stonyfield Farm, whose basic mission statement is to create environmentally friendly products, and Craigslist, which started as a free service and which to this day chooses not to charge for most types of listings. But even with businesses where a higher purpose is not built into the mission statement, Ms. Hunt shows how a key element in their success is a commitment to building and listening to a customer community, and using what they learn to improve their customers’ experience with their products and services. By serving their customers, companies create whuffie which, which as Ms. Hunt details, these businesses have used to improve customer loyalty and their sales.

I had the opportunity to speak with Hunt and asked her whether individuals looking for work can learn from the story told in her book.

She replied:

“Absolutely. When it comes to social capital, individuals are the key element, whether acting for a company or for themselves. It is always individuals who have the passions and human interests and emotions that can turn a series of digital connections into a community.”

“The world is changing before our eyes. Of the 500 companies included in the original Fortune 500 list published in 1955, only 71 (less than 15%) remained on this list on the 50^th anniversary in 2005.We work at a job and get comfortable and proficient at it, but then the job changes or goes away.  Jobs that we trained for 5, 10 and 15 years ago are disappearing or changing dramatically. Journalism is an example. People want news but more and more they are getting it digitally. People will pay for a pound of newspaper but resist paying when the news is in digital form.  So more and more journalists are losing their jobs with hard-copy publications and are scrambling to make a living in this new age.”

“For an individual to become adaptable in order to, survive and even benefit from this tidal wave of change it necessary to put yourself out there.  Word of mouth, has always been the most powerful form of marketing, for individuals as well as companies. In this age of digital communities, its reach is growing and it is getting even more powerful. Only by reaching out and engaging with many communities, can you keep on top of what is happening and build personal Whuffie that will help you find new work in this new age.”

As explained in Ms. Hunt’s book, by participating in groups like No-Shortage of Work, with a “pay it forward” mindset, one engages in communities in a manner that is personally rewarding and tends to be rewarding in terms of one’s career.