Job descriptions

We are wrapping up an interesting exercise at the office where we have each rewritten our job description. The process included input from peers, bosses, and direct reports. We identified tasks currently charged to us that we believe belong elsewhere in the organization as well as overlaps and gaps, issues that will generate thoughtful negotiations. It will be someone’s job (possibly mine) to recreate this exercise periodically to ensure that work flows and changes in the marketplace and the organization are incorporated so that all job descriptions remain relevant and current.

Wouldn’t it be helpful if all the roles in our lives came with job descriptions? And if we had to occasionally review them? For parents, partners, colleagues, friends, lovers to intentionally discuss who does what, plus the why and how? As children grow, as parents age, as circumstances change, to revisit expectations? As relationships deepen and broaden, such reviews may happen organically. But, it sure is easy to get in a rut and not allow dynamics to shift, or the people involved to evolve, or to get hung up on semantics, for I recall times in my career when title and positions on org charts mattered.

Perhaps more important, particularly after the headlines this week, would be for us to examine our collective job description as decent human beings. To have those hard discussions about how we deal with the marginalized. About the language we use to address one another. About the issue of power. And for each of us to prioritize how we utilize resources to reflect that job description, for this is the job for which we will be held most accountable. If we want our legacy to be a job well done, the process starts with a detailed job description focused on equity and equality.

Marilyn