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LAST WEEK'S article that called the job description (JD) a 'limiting document' and offered the Desk Performance Instruction (DPI) as an empowering alternative has caused a great many people, who would not normally think about a job description, to think about the nature of the document.
Responses have been very positive and responders had made it clear that they are now thinking differently about the conventional job description. One or two of the responses would suggest that there is a mindset problem to overcome and this follow-up article seeks to provide some further clarity on the issue.
A MINDSET IS A DIFFICULT THING TO CHANGE
One HR professional from one of our larger conglomerates wrote the following to me: "While there are some things that I agree with ... there are few things that are still turning in my mind." The person could not really see the difference between the DPIs and the old job description and suggested that the use of a proper managed job analysis system should produce a good JD. However, the writer quickly goes on to castigate managers for their irresponsi-bility for the way they hurriedly create roles for job descriptions and avoid taking markets into consideration when they create these JDs that tend to fit people (friends?) rather than the functions employees need to perform. The responder also admitted that managers refuse to challenge employees outside of their JDs.
Having said all that, I am not at all surprised that DPI functions as a much better alternative than the conventional job description. I must remind readers that mine is a two-part suggestion. First, there is the job description that reads:
"I, as an employee of the company, will do whatever it takes to make the company successful, within the laws and culture of the country."
Second, is the Desk Performance Instruction which, unlike the JD (which operates like a balance sheet and gives a description of past and present jobs at best) is flexible and dynamic and responds very quickly to the market place.
The job description and DPI are not simply documents. Over time they do influence behaviour and create a mindset. There is no argument about the fact that the conventional job description creates a mindset of "the finite set of activities I must do to accomplish the requirements of my job description." That mindset invariably leads to the general unwillingness to take on activities that are not on the job description - "not my job" supervisors are often told when the holder of a finite job description is asked to do a task that is not on that list.
Compare that with my new empowering "do whatever it takes to make the company successful" job description backed up with a dynamic, ever-changing-to-market requirements DPI. A big plus is that the job owner helps to create the DPI.
The new job description and DPI really empowers the employee and gives both the supervisor and the employee a great deal more latitude to bring success to the company that pays them their salaries and benefits.
THE GENERAL'S "KILL FOUR" QUOTA
The old conventional job description reminds me of the story of a general who called all his men the evening before the battle to give them their pep talk and marching orders. The last thing he said to his soldiers was that he would expect each one to kill four enemy men tomorrow during the fight. Early in the morning a group of soldiers passed near a tree under which a solitary soldier was sitting. They asked him why he was sitting there and he replied that he had already killed his four soldiers and had come back to rest! The solitary soldier had followed his "job description" for the day and the success of the "company" then became irrelevant.
If the general had followed the new job description he would have said to all his soldiers that for the success of the war, tomorrow each one of you has to kill as many of the enemy as you can and continue to do so until we win the war. The solitary soldier may have been a hero at the end of the day.
CHANGING THE MINDSET
The conventional job description has in the past, and still does today, encouraged the "I will do my quota and I am excellent" mindset. This is not an empowering approach to a job, nor does it encourage everyone to do whatever is necessary for the success of the company. The conventional JD stops the employee from stretching to achieve "beyond what he or she could ever have expected of him or herself" by listing a set of activities which in the very listing provides each employee with an initiative limiting set of tasks. However that list is prepared and given, to the normal mind it sets a clear quota on what must be achieved. Anything that is not on that list soon becomes "not my job".
The new and simple job description which puts no limits on what must be done to make the company, institution (or division of a company) successful liberates the employee from that limiting mindset brought on by the conventional job description. The employee's freedom to excel is further enhanced by the DPI which is dynamic and responsive to the market place. The DPI gives the owner of the new open-ended job description that relates to the success of his or her company the "how to" do an excellent job in a changing performance environment. Combined, the new job description -that commits the employee to "do whatever it takes to make the company successful, within the laws and culture of the company" - and the Desk Performance Instruction liberate an empowered employee that, with proper supervision, monitoring, and measuring performs beyond the call of duty, excellently and consistently well.
Source: Jamaica
Gleaner
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