"J" Is For Job Definition

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As always, I want to offer my sincere apology to Sue Grafton for using (stealing??) her approach for the titles of her many outstanding mystery novels for this series of articles that I hope makes YOU a happier and more effective leader working with a truly empowered team that really enjoys what they do! Oh, and if you have not read any of Ms. Grafton novels I highly recommend that you give her a try.

Job Definition

Recruiting must be the first step in improving the overall performance of you and your team. You can’t improve your quality, productivity, planning or communications without having the best possible talent on your team. But you must understand that recruiting is a process, not an event and the first step in recruiting the best talent possible is to formally define each of the jobs within in your team using two very specific tools:

  • The Job Description – A complete, formal, written and up-to-date definition of what you want each of your Teamers to do and their overall responsibilities.

  • Job Success Talents – You need to identify and define exactly what you want to find, that is, the skills and strengths that you need for each of your Teamers. How can you effectively recruit if you don’t know the talents that you need for each of your Teamers to have?

Now let’s cover each of these tools in more detail in the following sections.

The Job Description

  “If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.”

- Lawrence J. Peter

Simply stated, the Job Description is the “foundation” of all that you do with your team. Most people know what a Job Description is but few know what a Job Description can be. Most Middles see a Job Description as just another piece of paperwork that you need to do to get a hiring approval from your Senior or the Human Resources group. Most employees see it as a waste of time, since it never really relates to what they really do, how they do it and how they can improve their performance.

Think of the Job Description as the following tools to address these critical needs:

  • It’s an agreement between you and each of your Teamers on what you want them to do, what responsibilities they will have, what qualifications and talents they must have or develop and how they are to work with other Teamers and the overall Organization.

  • It’s a tool to help you measure each Teamer’s performance.

  • It provides information for your Salary Administration group to determine the appropriate salary for each position.

  • It provides information for your Human Resources group to use for advertisements and Internet job postings for hiring. Think of it this way, how can you possibly develop a job ad or posting and recruit a person for your team without knowing what you want that person to do?

  • It provides standard expectations to feed your reward, empowerment and performance review processes for your Teamers.

A good Job Description is the “vision” of the person that you want to work with and have as a member of your team.

I know that most Organizations have guidelines on what your Job Descriptions might be like but trust me, YOU are the best person (along with your Teamers) to write them. It is not easy work but most necessary!

Lastly, perhaps you are thinking “I can’t write!” Yes, you can. Everyone can write, just some better than others. Just focus on this simple rule. Write fast and edit slowly. Always ask your Teamers to review your copy and include their suggestions and changes.

A Job Description should contain at least the following items or topics:

  • Position - The actual title for the job.

  • Date - The date of the most recent change to the content of the Job Description.

  • Supervision Received - Who is their boss?

  • Supervision Exercised - Who do they manage or supervise?

  • Position Summary - A high-level description of what you want this person to do within your team. What are they supposed to do each day? Here are a few examples:

1.     Acts as a single point-of-contact for clients using the services of…

2.    Responsible for providing project status information to clients…

3.     Responsible for monitoring the client satisfaction for projects…

4.     Administrator of the project time management system…

  • Responsibilities - Provide a specific list of tasks that the person filling this position must do. Here are some examples:

1.      Work closely and proactively with team, clients, consultants…

2.      Expedites all “crisis” jobs…

3.      Monitor the results of client satisfaction surveys…..

4.      Develop and implement processes to improve productivity…

  • Qualifications - Provide a specific list of skills, talents, strengths, characteristics and educational needs. Here are some examples:

1.      MBA preferred

2.      Must work well under pressure

3.      Must have great organizational skills

4.      Must have excellent attention to detail and ability to meet target dates

Your Job Descriptions must include the Job Success Talents primarily in the Responsibilities and Qualifications sections. We’ll cover those in the next section.

Ask your Teamers for help in writing and updating Job Descriptions on a regular basis, but you are the one to start the process by writing new or updating existing Job Descriptions and having them reviewed by your Teamers. Include their suggested changes. They are the people actually doing this work. They know what it takes to do their job. Trust them and always work to include their changes and comments!

“Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boast the self-esteem of the personnel. If people believe in themselves, it’s amazing what they can accomplish.”

- Sam Walton

Job Success Talents

“In creating, the only hard thing’s to begin; a grass-blade’s no easier to make than an oak.”

- James Russell Lowell

Job Success Talents are the skills and strengths that a person needs to have or develop to do a job well. Perhaps you are wondering “what’s the difference between skills and strengths” but it is really fairly simple. I think that the best description of the real difference between skills and strengths is provided in the book Don’t Retire, REWIRE! written by Jeri Sedlar and Rick Miners on how to find fulfilling work after retirement. They focus on identifying your skills and strengths to help you find the right opportunity that matches them and you. They offer that the difference is this. “The most practical and useful way to look at it is that strengths are innate and skills are learned. Strengths are what you have to work with; skills are what you develop.”

“Innate” means talents that you have from birth or that are native to you. You can’t learn them but you can improve them with training and practice. An example of a strength could be being “self-motivated” while an example of a skill might be “oral or written communication skills.”

Strengths would include:

Ability to Learn, Adaptability, Ambitious, Analytical, Attention to Detail, Caring, Confident, Controlled Demeanor, Creativity, Decisiveness, Determined, Direct, Energy, Ethical, Fair/Open-minded, Flexibility, Friendly, Goal Oriented, Hardworking, Honest, Logical, Initiative, Innovation, Integrity, Leadership, Motivation, Patient, Persistent, Resilience, Results Oriented, Self-Development, Self-Motivation, Self-Organization, Sensitivity, Team Player, Tenacity, Thoughtful and Trustworthy.

Skills would include:

Adapting, Analysis, Consensus Building, Counseling, Critiquing, Decision Making, Delegation, Empowering, Hardware Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Judgement, Leading, Listening, Managing People, Management of Meetings, Mediating, Mentoring, Motivating Others, Negotiation, Oral Communications, Oral Presentation Skills, Persuasiveness, Planning and Organization, Prioritizing, Problem Solving, Project Management, Research, Scheduling, Socializing, Software Skills, Strategizing, Stress Tolerance, Teaching, Team Building, Thinking, Training, Work Standards and Written Communications.

Please note that not all job positions have the same needed Job Success Talents, and not all job positions need the same level of Job Success Talents. For example, everyone needs to be able to write, but a professional writer needs to have a very high level of writing talent, while a graphic designer can function very effectively with a lower level of writing talent. I’ve worked with organizations that use “expectation ratings” for Job Success Talents. For example, “essential or must have,” “nice to have” and “needed but not essential.” Using these ratings can help when comparing candidates. 

Developing the Job Success Talents for all of your Teamers is not easy and it will take some time. But how can you hope to recruit new Teamers without knowing what Job Success Talents each position requires? 

I suggest that you ask your Teamers for help in developing the Job Success Talents for each of the jobs in your team. You should write a “draft” list of Job Success Talents for each job position, and then have your Teamers review them and make suggestions for additions and changes.

Once you and your Teamers have agreed to the Job Success Talents for each job position within your team(s) you are ready to start using them during recruiting, job postings, candidate interviews and Teamer performance reviews.

During your recruiting interviews don’t waste valuable time asking “generic” and really  meaningless questions like “Why are you interested in joining our organization?” or “What do you feel that you can provide to help our organization?” During candidate interviews always ask targeted questions to determine if the candidate really has the Job Success Talents that you need. For example, if you need a person with great “oral presentation skills” ask them “What’s the best (or worst) presentation that they’ve ever done and why?” If you need someone who can handle stress ask them “How do you deal with stress?” If the person you need must be able to solve problems, ask them “What’s the biggest problem that you’ve solved?” Get the idea? A résumé tells you what the candidate wants you to know about them, but you need to ask the right questions during the interview to get a better idea if they really have the necessary Job Success Talents.

These are only sample talents and questions to help you start writing your own interview questions for you and your Teamers to use. As you develop questions you will also need to focus on your business and discipline to create the best Job Success Talents and interview questions for you and your Teamers.

“We can throw stones, complain about them, stumble on them, climb over them, or build with them.”

- William Arthur Ward