Position Visions
Did you ever have an employee who was doing their tasks, but you felt something was missing? You may have thought to yourself: “this isn’t the vision that I had for this role”. You know when you don’t see it but haven’t articulated what it is you want and expect in a role. Often, we have an internal vision of how a position should function, but we fail to write it down and communicate it to an employee.
We get so wrapped up in what our teams do each day and the tasks that they need to perform that we mistake the tasks for the roles. To further complicate matters, we use the tasks to create the job description. Job descriptions in the traditional sense often end up being just a list of tasks that need to be performed. A position vision allows us to define a role in a way that creates thinkers in your organization. From there, it can be determined what responsibilities are needed in any particular role that will allow for accomplishment.
It is important that every team member, beyond what their core tasks and responsibilities are, understands (and you understand) what’s needed from the position. Do you know? Do they know?
- What is the purpose and objective of this position?
- Why is this role significant to the organization?
- What results reflect superior performance?
- What behaviors are needed to be successful in this role?
- How will this role report on and be accountable for performance?
- What are the primary tasks and activities that this role will be responsible for?
Knowing the answers to questions like these create a “position vision”, that is, a Role Description, which is much better than a job description. A position vision is the definition of the scope and purpose of the role within the organization.
A position vision creates better conversations about goals and performance. Better conversations shorten the learning curve and help you and the team member understand why they do what you are asking them to, their importance to the organization, and how they add value. The result is “thinking”: in other words, the ability to generate tasks and priorities on their own. Who doesn’t want that?
See you at your Summit – the view is great!!
Chris Adams