Today’s episode shares the key ingredients in an exceptional job description.

Podcast Transcript:

Joshua MacLeod:

Entrepreneurs have a superpower in “just figure it out and get stuff done” that the majority of team members do not have.

Bernie Anderson:

So true.

Joshua MacLeod:

If your team members don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to do, and I mean exactly what they’re supposed to do, they are never going to achieve the highest potential that they have at your organization and they’re never going to help your organization achieve full potential.

Podcast Announcer:

Welcome to the growability podcast, your home for leadership, management, and marketing education, where we teach business and nonprofit leaders how to flourish in life and work. Today’s episode continues with the fourth step of the growability model by sharing how to create an exceptional job description. Here are your hosts, Joshua MacLeod and Bernie Anderson.

Bernie Anderson:

We could talk about team building for a very long time, because there’s a lot here. I used to work for a big international nonprofit organization. I was a fundraiser. Here was my issue. I went for five years almost and never got a raise. Never knew if I was doing a good job or not. How does an organization let the team know how they’re doing?

Joshua MacLeod:

Yeah. The first thing that comes to my mind is that is terrible management.

Bernie Anderson:

It was horrible management. I agree.

Joshua MacLeod:

My first transition into leadership and management, my father-in-law taught me something that has stuck with me, and I’ve taught it now to hundreds of entrepreneurs and leaders. Every single person in every company in every position has three big questions in the back of their mind. The first question is, “What is in this for me?” The second question is, “What is expected of me?” The third question is, “Where do I stand?”

Joshua MacLeod:

The first question is really about incentive. What is in this for me? So what was the incentive? I just want to ask, what was the incentive for you working at this job? Why’d you stay there even though it just wasn’t just getting better?

Bernie Anderson:

Right. Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it was two things, Joshua. I think I stayed there, one, because of security, because it felt secure. So I had benefits. But then there was also a fair amount of freedom. I worked from home. There was travel involved. So I think stability benefits and freedom were probably the things that kept me being like, “Ah, I’d like to make a little more money, but I kind of like these other things, and let’s not rock the boat.”

Joshua MacLeod:

So that’s why people stay at work. There are three primary elements to incentive when you are at a job. The way that I like to categorize those three elements is use three Bs. So the first B is your base salary. What is the amount of money that you’re going to make? It’s your base. The second is the benefits. There could be medical benefits. There could be freedom benefits, time benefits. Then the third is the bonuses.

Joshua MacLeod:

So if you go to that same company today and you’re interviewing for the job, there’s three things you should ask as a potential employee of this company. The first is, “Okay. What’s the base pay?” Then the second is, “What are the benefits?” Then the third is, “Are there any bonuses? What’s the bonus structure?”

Bernie Anderson:

I think that’s good to understand, the base pay benefits, bonuses. Having that clear on the front end is just critical.

Joshua MacLeod:

The second thing that is critical for a job description is the expectations. If your team members don’t know exactly what they’re supposed to do, and I mean exactly what they’re supposed to do, they are never going to achieve the highest potential that they have at your organization and they’re never going to help your organization achieve full potential. Entrepreneurs have a superpower in “just figure it out and get stuff done” that the majority of team members do not have.

Bernie Anderson:

So true.

Joshua MacLeod:

I mean, 85% of team members do not have. So a lot of times, you have an entrepreneurial boss who’s part of this 15% of the population that just figures that stuff out. They don’t need a job description to know exactly what to do. They’re just going to figure it out. Then they hire some managers who are part of this 15% of the population that don’t need a job description that can just figure it out to make stuff done. Then they all get frustrated when the 85% of the population says, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

“I can’t do what I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, and I’m kind of standing here, feeling stupid, because I just don’t know what to do.”

Bernie Anderson:

What you just said is what I have in the back of my head every time I hear an employer, and I hear this a lot. You probably do, too. “Oh, you just can’t find good help. You just can’t find people that’ll come and work for you.” It’s like, “Oh, yeah, you can.”

Joshua MacLeod:

Yes.

Bernie Anderson:

“There’s lots of people. It’s on you to make sure they know what it is that you want them to do.”

Joshua MacLeod:

It is fundamentally the employer’s job to, A, give every single employee a good base, a good benefit, a good bonus, but now the second thing that is fundamentally critical for every employer is to provide very clear expectations. For expectations, you have three Ts. The first is the tasks. What are the tasks? Exactly what are the tasks that you are supposed to be able to do? The second is the time. How much time are you expected to put into accomplishing tasks? Then the third thing is the target outputs. What will be the fruit of this employee working on tasks and spending time to do that? Let’s break those down. Tasks are things that you can do in one sitting. A task is not build a website.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

Build a website is a project.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

The entrepreneur wants to hire the employee with projects in mind. “I need somebody that can build websites.” Employees get in, and they are lost because they don’t have it broken down into tasks that they can do. It’s not just, “Are you good at social media?” This is something that so many business owners do.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

They see a 16-year-old kid-

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

… that’s on their phone, and they’re like, “Oh, they must be good at social media. I’m going to hire them to do my social media.” What are you basing that they’re good on social media as, that they’re addicted to their phone?

Bernie Anderson:

They can scroll.

Joshua MacLeod:

They can scroll. Yeah. “Your scrolling is fantastic.” So now you’re going to let them run your social media?

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

Using social media does not make you good at social media.

Bernie Anderson:

No, no.

Joshua MacLeod:

So I’ve got to look at, “Okay, what is the education? What’s the experience? What are the technical requirements? What does a person need to do to do the tasks?” The second thing is the time. Some employers are totally fine if you’re five minutes late. Some employers are going to have a heart attack if you’re five minutes late.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

So what are the time requirements? You’ve got the task requirements. Then you’ve got the time requirements. Finally, you have your target outputs. How many boxes should you be getting out in a week, or how many boxes should you be getting out in a day? If I don’t as the employer have defined for my team member what the expectation is for their job, often what will happen is they become indifferent or they go look to somewhere that actually can set some clear expectations. What are the task requirements, what are the time requirements, and then what are the target outputs?

Bernie Anderson:

Having clear task time and targets, it’s critical, and if you don’t, you’re going to have a lot of people not performing. Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

Yeah. Okay. So the third thing then is accountability. Accountability, I like to use three Cs, communication, collaboration, and candor. Let’s start with candor. My boss isn’t giving me feedback about the performance that I’m giving at my job. If I don’t get any feedback, my assumption is if I’m 99% of the population, I’m doing okay, but there’s something wrong.

Bernie Anderson:

That is 100% true.

Joshua MacLeod:

If I feel about myself that I’m doing okay, then the energy that I spend every day is enough to do okay. If I feel like I’m doing great, then the energy that I spend every day is to do great. Feedback is fundamental towards health and growth and maturity and helping people grow in their organization. This is a huge, huge problem. You went four years without a review. That means basically that either they were the happiest people in the world and just immature or there was something that they could have told you about and addressed that you would’ve fixed.

Bernie Anderson:

Right, right.

Joshua MacLeod:

Instead you gave four okay years.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

That’s terrible. I mean, that’s just-

Bernie Anderson:

Yeah, no, 100%. Well, and what you just said is 100% true, because there was always this sense. I remember feeling this, and you described it perfectly, of, “I’m doing okay, but probably doing some things wrong.” The space that puts you in, it feels like you’re walking on eggshells. It feels like, “I’m probably on not super thin ice, but maybe a little bit of thin ice. I might break through it. I’ve just got to be careful how I navigate it.” It feels very political, and it’s just not a healthy way for a team member to function. It’s just not.

Joshua MacLeod:

It’s not at all. So the antidote, the thing to do as a boss is to be very candid, which is to say exactly the truth, but not in a way that is just harsh or mean and not in a way that is fake, but in a way that is actually just true. “I’m a little disappointed that you only got out eight boxes this past week. I feel like you have the potential to get out 20 boxes. I’m not sure what’s going on here.” So there you go. Now, that feedback is so much better than you walk in, you’re talking to the person, and they’re just kind of like … don’t say anything, but I get the little shifty look like, “Hmm.”

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

If you’re given the shifty look because that you think they should get 20 boxes out and they only get eight, tell them, “You should have got 20 boxes out, and you only got eight.”

Bernie Anderson:

Yeah. That’s right. Yeah.

Joshua MacLeod:

So candor is really, really critical. The next is communication. Don’t expect your team member to know what’s going on in the whole business if you’re not communicating what’s going on in the whole business.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

We institute almost always at Growability, if we can convince our clients to do this, you’ve got to have a weekly meeting where everybody’s in the same room for an hour. Communication is just critical. Are you communicating with your team members every day? Do you have daily meetings? Do you have weekly meetings? Do you have meeting templates? I’ve become convinced that you should never have a meeting without a meeting template, because otherwise it’s going to be whoever’s the talker in the room’s going to talk all the time.

Bernie Anderson:

That’s right. Yep.

Joshua MacLeod:

Whoever’s the smartest person that doesn’t say anything is just going to sit there, and then at the end of the thing, the sole result of the meeting will be that you schedule another meeting. When you have a meeting template, every meeting has a, “Here’s where we’re trying to get. This is our timeframe. This is how long we get here.” So never have a meeting without a meeting template, but does your organization have good meetings? Are there regular meetings?

Joshua MacLeod:

So you have communication, and then finally there’s collaboration. Collaboration is where everybody understands that part of their job is working well with others. It’s basically kindergarten again. “Hey.”

Bernie Anderson:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.

Joshua MacLeod:

“Bob, this is Sue. Sue, this is Bob. You guys have to work together.” If Sue doesn’t put away the blocks, then Bob has to put away all the blocks, and then Bob gets sad.

Bernie Anderson:

That’s right. Don’t make Bob sad.

Joshua MacLeod:

Don’t make Bob sad. So when I’m interviewing someone, I’m thinking about this person, but the biggest question in the back of my mind is, “How well is this person going to interact with all of the other people that are in this organization?” So in summary of all of these three things, if you were going to create a job description for a team member, you have to cover incentive, expectations, and accountability.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

With incentives, you have your base pay, your benefits, and your bonuses. With expectations, you have your tasks, your time, and your targets. With accountability, you have communication, collaboration, and candor.

Bernie Anderson:

Right.

Joshua MacLeod:

If you cover those areas, then you have created an exceptional job description. If you’re going to get consultation for something really important in your business or anything in your business, get consultation for your job descriptions, because you have to answer a whole lot of questions to make really impactful and important job descriptions.

Bernie Anderson:

Yep, yep. I am prepping today for a consultation this evening on this very subject. So this is great. This is part of my prep time. So yeah.

Joshua MacLeod:

We do want to remind everyone that you are doing better than you think and that you have more potential than you know, and we are thankful and appreciate you growing with Growability. Have a great week. We’ll see you next week.

Podcast Announcer:

Thank you for listening to the Growability podcast. The mission of Growability is to equip leaders to flourish in their life and work by developing vision, rhythm, and community. To discover more ways to flourish in your life and work, visit growability.com and speak with a certified Growability coach. Bernie and Joshua are also available for speaking engagements, workshops, and conferences. Subscribing to this podcast helps Growability equip leaders throughout the world, and we appreciate your support. Please consider sponsoring an episode or sharing with a friend.

The post EP35 – How to Create an Exceptional Job Description appeared first on Growability.