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4 Reasons Job Titles And Descriptions Have Become Obsolete

4 Reasons Job Titles And Descriptions Have Become Obsolete
by Glenn Llopis

"Not my job?" Let's put an end to abdication of responsibility and let our people unleash their full potentials.

Do you want your employees to unleash their full potential and that of others? Then why limit or even bury them with job titles and descriptions? Any parent knows that labeling roles and listing responsibilities in a household limits children to that set of expectations. Do you want your people to feel similarly trapped and boxed – to just do the dishes and move on?

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh certainly understands the barriers to advancement that job titles create, so he created something called Holacracy. He said that for the majority of companies, "There’s the org chart on paper, and then the one that is exactly how the company operates for real, and then there’s the org chart that it would like to have in order to operate more efficiently. With Holacracy, the idea is to process tensions so that the three org charts are pretty close together."

As you reflect upon your own workplace, consider these reasons job titles and their descriptions hinder productivity and innovation.

1. They Cause an Execution Mentality
Job descriptions dictate execution-driven activities, and as a result, many employees are more comfortable being told what to do. According an online assessment by my organization, taken by more than 500,000 people since 2009, employees are most proficient at implementing the work that they are assigned to complete. They are weakest when it comes to the required strategic focus and entrepreneurial attitude needed to multiply the opportunities for that work.

Read full article on Entrepreneur.