Position Guides Make for Agile Organizations
Any leader who has started and or taken the reins of an emerging business knows that there is never enough time in the day to complete all the tasks that should, or could, be done. One commonly overlooked area is human resources, and in particular, the allocation of sufficient time and effort to work with employees on their roles and responsibilities. If disregarded, this can lead to duplicative efforts, missed targets and low morale. However, a bit of time and attention to this key area and founders can a make significant, positive impact that aligns teams around core objectives that drive productivity.
A business manages only three resources: time, people, and money. The decision to invest in people is one of the most important responsibilities of leadership, and one that comes with the highest risk of negative outcomes. It’s all about your people, how you manage them, and how you can foster collaboration and innovation, and balance independence and accountability. Through experience, I find the lesson of “hire slow, and fire fast” rings more true, having learned the hard way. As a result, I now focus on using a multi-dimensional approach to baseline human resource activities of actively implementing positions guides followed by consistent performance reviews. It’s tricky to balance the responsibilities of a founder and manage an organization and the people involved. However, setting expectations early, for yourself and others, is the key to navigating these waters.
Our approach is to develop “position guides” versus job descriptions. This allows for more collaboration with your employees throughout the on-boarding and continuous improvement process, and can produce massive dividends by ensuring alignment across your organization. Along with this post you will find an infographic providing more context to elements of a position guide and a template you can adapt to your approach and organizational needs.
One exercise before we begin. If you feel you are managing the responsibilities of others, please ask yourself, “Am I empowering or am I overpowering?” It is common for founders to quite literally wear every hat when launching a business, and that control is hard to relinquish. If you trust someone enough to hire them, then you must trust them enough to do their job. By being transparent about position responsibilities and goals, organizational culture and mission, you are establishing a foundation upon which positive, collaborative partnerships can thrive. Now, let’s explore some of the key concepts to get you started:
1. It’s not just semantics – job descriptions can be one dimensional, a “Position Guide,” however, implies an interactive process between management and team members. I like to think of job descriptions as what you post when advertising a job opening, and a Position Guide as what brings that description to life. You can think of a Position Guide as a mini business plan for the individual that contemplates the interconnectivity between other team members, the organization and the influence that individuals can have on the outcomes you and the team are working towards. The Position Guide should be fluid and flexible to adjust to the organization’s needs. A key point to remember here, your Position Guides should be written to the organization’s specific needs, not to the current job holder’s specific talents. If you’re truly collaborating with your team, their talents will shine.
2. Buy in through collaboration – speaking from experience, it is very common for CEOs to adopt a mindset of “I say what I want accomplished and it magically happens because it is a directive.” However, if leadership and their direct reports are not having a two way conversation about what the objectives are, how they can be accomplished, and how success will be measured? Leadership can miss a critical opportunity to hear directly from all levels of their organization. Your team will tell you what is working and what isn’t, if you listen and foster a culture of open feedback and teamwork. A Position Guide, based on the company’s vision, should serve as a framework for a collaborative working meeting between managers and their direct reports. Clearly outline reporting structures and who the collaborative teams are, e.g. organizational leaders, departmental colleagues, external partners and stakeholders. Remember, you need to educate staff before implementation and allow for risk taking failure and coach for success. This is where a successful company is built allowing the freedom for innovative and new ideas which will enhance customer satisfaction – the acid test of success of the business.
3. Integrate metrics – if seeking success, and we all are, there must be clearly defined, measurable outcomes included in the Position Guide. Open communication and being on the same page in regards to metrics ensures your plan is executable. This provides a means to track against the overall annual goals and objectives of the organization and track the individual’s contributions towards them. I like to create two categories of metrics, qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative category includes merits that are sometimes hard to quantify, but essential nonetheless, and include professional development, approachableness, empathy, inclusiveness, solution-driven approach, team player, courteous, non-confrontational, etc. Like the category suggests, it’s the quality of how the individual performs within their role. Quantitative metrics are exactly that, measurable. This is where goals are set and achievable metrics are established, e.g. sales goal targets, initiative launches, version improvements, outreach and marketing metrics, etc. If you can put a value on an outcome, odds are that it is quantitative. You will find in the template that we use Objectives and Key Results (“OKRs”) as our method of measuring outcomes.
4. Meet routinely – you have set quarterly objectives and those should be reviewed on a quarterly basis. However, managers should aim to meet with their direct reports on a regular cadence to monitor their efforts, provide adequate resources and support to ensure those quarterly targets are within range. This frequency ensures the organization is agile, positioned to pivot as needed, and sets a rhythm of measuring the things that matter most, as outlined through the Position Guide. And when the time comes for an annual review, if you conduct annual reviews, then nothing should come as a surprise to anyone.
5. Make the document dynamic – I like to use a Position Guide in the way you would any business plan, including elements that are interactive and adaptable over time. It’s a great way to populate information, memorialize it in the Guide, and revisit the same document on a routine basis, editing and updating as necessary. Remember that your leadership requires flexibility and agility, your formal processes should be reflective of that.
It’s all about people and the culture you create with your team. If you foster collaborative relationships with and among your team members, clearly identify what they are accountable and responsible for, the expectations you have, then you are way ahead of the curve. Taking the time to create and routinely review Position Guides will drive a high-functioning team working towards the same organizational goals. The hardest part is starting from scratch to build this process which is often and easily overlooked in early stage companies operating with small teams. You will find, though, that using Position Guides can play a key role in effectively managing your primary resources, people, time and money.