Job Descriptions Are Useless
I’m pretty sure you won’t hear that from anyone else.
Why would I say that, you ask?
Let’s look at the history of the job description. Job descriptions can be traced back over 100 years to the late 19th and early 20th century. Their purpose was to bring order and rigor to organizational structures. As you likely already know, a job description is a written narrative that describes the tasks and responsibilities of a role.
The job description has its roots in “Scientific Management,” also known as Taylorism, which came from the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor.
Taylor, along with Lillian Moller Gilbreth, is considered a founder of industrial organizational psychology. Taylor established standard times for specific jobs and tasks through time studies. Gilbreth identified techniques and technical definitions for describing mechanical and physical elements of a job through motion studies. Time and motion studies became integrated, with the purpose of improving and upgrading work systems.
Yes, job descriptions have evolved, a little, where job analyses were done with the intention of identifying the activities the job involved as well as the attributes or requirements necessary to perform those activities. Now job descriptions consider the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform the job. But in my view they are still useless.
While scientific management as a theory has been in decline for many decades, the job description has been indelibly rooted into our way of operating in organizations with little evolution.
I believe it needs to change.
Buckminster Fuller, an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist is quoted as saying:
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."
So, here’s my new model for job descriptions.
I liken traditional job descriptions to honey-do-lists. If you are not familiar with honey-do-lists, they are a collection of household maintenance requests, usually written by a spouse for their partner or “honey” to complete.
In today’s world, jobs should not be about the work to be done, but rather what you are accountable for, which is another way of saying, what can we count on you for?
The philosophy I’m sharing I did not invent, it was relayed to me in a story by a client and I was immediately struck by its brilliance. Here’s the story.
My client, a Costa Rican, bought a house with a small farm which had one farm hand. He spoke to the farm hand and told him all the things he wanted him to do–think honey-do-list. Two weeks later he went to check on the work and none of it was done.
Dejected, my client shared what happened with his mentor/grandfather. His grandfather said, "Come with me" and took him out to the barn. Then he said, "Write on the side of the barn three bullet points of four words or less that you want him to be accountable for." My client did.
Two weeks later, everything was done.
As a behavioral analyst who assists in recruiting, the one competency that I look for from every candidate is Personal Accountability. The higher one scores on this metric, the greater level of ownership and accountability they will operate with. It doesn’t matter if you are a senior executive or a farm hand, Personal Accountability matters.
What the story above points to is human beings' ability to be accountable without being told what to do.
What are the benefits of defining a job in simple terms, ie. three bullet points of four words or less? Ambiguity is removed while making it both simple and clear what the expected outcomes or deliverables are for the employee. With this clarity, employees have the freedom to bring the best version of themselves, their past experiences, unique perspective, creativity and energy to what they are accountable for in order to deliver desired outcomes.
When a job is defined in simple terms, it’s easier for the employee to deliver. It is also easier for the manager to coach and hold the employee accountable for delivering desired results. The simplicity and clarity of this approach also removes potential tension that could arise between an employee and their manager due to lack of clarity, which is typically a recipe for an upset or disappointment by one or both parties.
With this approach, everyone wins.
The irony of job descriptions is that at the end of the year when we review employees, we rarely look at their job descriptions. We look at the work they did and its quality.
I call my replacement for job descriptions 3x4’s, or Key Accountabilities. The goal is to write three (or four if needed for a senior executive) bullet points of four words or less that describe what the person in the job is accountable for.
Once you have your 3x4, specify a percentage of time the individual should be expected to allocate to each part of the job. When doing this, your bullet points can only total up to 80%. The reason for this is that every job has things that need to get done that are not core or central to the 3x4’s; the 20% left out accounts for those actions.
Don’t be deceived, creating 3x4’s is more difficult than it appears.
A reporter once asked FDR, "How much time does it take you to prepare for a 10-minute speech?" "Two weeks," FDR responded. Startled, the reporter then asked, "Well how much time does it take to prepare for a one-hour speech?" "One week," he replied. "Then how much time does it take to prepare for a two-hour speech?" "I’m ready now," FDR responded. "How’s that possible?" the reporter asked. FDR explained that the shorter the speech, the more important each word is.
What's the lesson? Creating brevity and clarity is difficult because each word matters. Putting a lot of words on a document like a job description is easy. Being thoughtful about what is truly important in a role and having only 12 words to do so is difficult.
I believe 3x4’s, a.k.a. Key Accountabilities, make managing the work to be done much easier. Simultaneously, it makes the manager’s job easier while creating less ambiguity and potential for conflict in the relationship with employees.
A word of caution if you are a senior executive. Don’t try to simplify your 3x4’s by saying, "I’m an executive so of course I should have a 4x4." Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, has defined his job in 3x1’s.
Tim Cook’s Key Accountabilities
· People
· Strategy
· Execution
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo da Vinci
Take the time to create 3x4’s and allocate 80% of time to be spent on the three bullet points and manage your team to them. You and they will thank me.