Here's the problem with job titles
For the last couple of weeks I have been talking about organisational structures and how they affect the culture of an organisation. I have shared how I feel organisations should put in place “continuous fluid structures" to achieve faster speed to market and agility to keep up with the pace of change in today's environment.
However, this is prevented by the constraints that happen at both an organisational level (last week's newsletter) and individual level. Today, I will share my thoughts on the invididual level, where the main blocker to achieving continuous fluid structures is the sense of identity we give ourselves through our job titles.
This week I hosted a Neu21 event with my colleague Kaya Noble where we talked about this. I used Katya’s personal example to illustrate the point. Katya has had two employers in her life: Qantas (for 25 years) and Neu21(for the last 5). You probably can’t find two more different employers for one person. One a huge and hierarchical corporate organisation, and the other a progressive, small, nimble and agile organisation. When Katya joined Neu21, she struggled with some of the ways we do things: the lack of fixed structure and role titles was one of them. There was something very refreshing for her in the way we did things; but there was some legacy thinking ingrained in her as well.
After a couple of years of being in the business, we had a conversation and Katya mentioned that she still struggled with the fact that most of her previous colleagues had updated their job tiles in LinkedIn and she had not been able to do that because well…we don’t have job titles!
Do you know that feeling when you change your job title and you publish it on LinkedIn and you get 75 likes over the following two or three days?
We talked about what was really important; that short term dopamine hit or a long-term sense of safety, contentment, engagement and fulfilment. I think you can guess the answer. Someone asked Katya during the event this week how she was supported through this transition; and she mentioned it was about supporting her with her self-belief and the deliberate approach and process we have around that at Neu21.
Being able to change our titles on LinkedIn is just one example of this sense of identity we give ourselves at work. But so is the amount of people and teams we manage / lead or the fact that usually our salaries only go up if our job titles change. Therefore, we associate our job titles with higher status and bigger income.
I understand changing something like this at scale is hard and not a simple task. It is almost a complete societal revolution. But I do believe it is possible.
How do you bring this to life?
1. Put the work at the centre
Let the work dictate who works on what, and when. Even who needs to lead a project at a given time. And do that on a regular cadence – I recommend every 90 days.
2. Separate job titles from pay rises.
At Neu21 we have a salary review process where we look at all of our salaries every year – like most organisations. In our case, we first look at how the business is doing and then we look at the value and impact we all bring. That value can be many things: value with our clients in terms of experience and delivery, could be value internally through projects run or even how we impact our culture. So, all our people have been getting pay rises over the years without the need to change titles. This give you the freedom to pivot and change any work or direction at any point without being constrained by an organisational structure or some job titles.
3. Simplify job descriptions
If you can’t remove job titles; make job descriptions as simple as possible. I usually talk about this concept of “claiming” a role rather than being given a set of tasks and responsibilities. If the work is continuously interrogated and prioritised, new opportunities of doing more and different things will constantly emerge. So go and “claim” those opportunities even if they are not in your job description.
If you are serious about driving real agility in your organisation, then seriously consider the role of job titles. Don't know where to start? As I always say, start anywhere.