Continuing from … previously
Stories from one individual in an organisation about their work might not raise any concern, or even interest, in another individual in the same organisation; similarly, stories from one type of role / industry may also not raise any concern / interest in another type of role / industry.
- For example, a driver’s role is to drive, uphold customer service, and safety of himself, their passenger and command of their vehicle. Any issues or complaints raised by this driver are not likely to be considered by another driver as something very shocking – for example, procedure to change a rear wheel on a busy road. Some drivers might spend all their “working time” driving or at least in or near their vehicle. But others might have slightly different contracts and they might drive for say 80%, and 20% of the time, for example, they might carry out safety inpsection visit as part of a wider team.
Take another example, a primary teacher’s role is to teach primary school-age children, let’s say in this case aged 7 to 12. To be exact, 50% of their time is in the classrom interacting with the children in learning activities, carrying out pastoral and supportive activities for the children. 20% of their time might be interacting with the parents of the children. 30% of their time is, less say, is on preparation, assessment, meeting, training etc. Dealing with a child being very anxious not being able to find his blue crayon is something that another teacher will not consider as groundbreakingly big problem.
In many parts o the world, this kind of role is more a “caring” or “nurturing” than “demand-and-supply” nature. In a limited sense, how high the value they achieve in that job is dependent on how much success or how satisfied the children get. This, obviously, will be largely the input of their parents. Reality will be much more complex, of course. For example, the school senior management team will have a level of influence on the nature and level of teaching and support for the children, and the group of teachers in the same organisation could also join force to promote certain cause.
Why am I saying the above?
Let’s go a step further: the teacher has now changed job to become a truck driver. Let’s also assume that this teacher has all the necessary experience, qualifications, safety certificates, references and various other things that clear the way for them to be appointed as a truck driver.
Think for a moment: what sort of “change” would this person experience to do well in the new job as a truck driver? Spend 2-3 minutes on this, and return here to read on.
Here might be some “changes” this person would have experienced about their job (think stakeholders):
- For whom (customer)
- Handling queries
- Sickness reporting and recording
- Accountable to whom
- Managing “groups” of customers
- Language
- Communication channels
- Complaint processes
- Health and safety provision
The point is that the changes can be subtle and stepwise, or seismic and sudden; in fact, each change could well be on its own “change experience spectrum”, and the person experiencing all these change experiences all at once. For example, they might change their use of language immediately on the first day in the new job as a truck driver, changing it from how they used langauge as a primary school teacher. That will be seismic and sudden. “Handling queries” might be a change that comes very gradually, so subtle that the person would have picked up what they need to know, so that when they provide an answer to a query, they did it so naturally as if it was in a conversation, rather than “handling a query”. That’s a “sublte and stepwise“.
Again, what’s the point of this?
Of the likely “changes” listed above, they can be liberating or disabling. By “liberating“, this means we feel the change brings out success of the piece of work, and we feel satisfaction too. By “disabling“, this means we feel the time, energy and effort put in for this piece of work led little to success, it was too much work for too little gain. 
- For example, in some types of roles or in some indsutry, solving problems and restoring and delivering efficient solutions is a major priority.
- But let’s say our role changed, for whatever reason: this could be that we got a new role in the organisation, or our job specification changed, or we took on a project that required that kind of change.
- Imagine that the change means our job is about resourcce allocation, design and planning, where the “front of house” element of the previous role is completely gone. To undertake the new role using the mindset of the old role is unlikely to work long. Work in “design and planning” takes time, that involves a lot of processes. Its goal might not be about a “solution“, perhaps it’s more an idea, a proposal, a framework (skeleton), or simply to define and decide the boundary of a piece of work.
To take another example, some of us who work in call centres know what it means to be “on top” of available information for customers on the phone line or web chat. Along with this is being able to convey confidence in the process of solving problem or finding information, and communicating ownership of the case such that the customer feels that weight of the issue is now with us, rather than remaining on them. For a long period of time, one of my managers had encouraged me to adopt an approach in my work as if I was in front-of-house, a bit like in a call centre. The reason was that he was convinced that if senior management team were to review human resources, those who did not work in such a way were likely the first to be scrutinised. My role was not front-of-house; it could not be front-of-house, and my customers required solutions that required time and resources, rather than something that ought to be solved or provided within 24 hours. The wider group is front-of-house; but that should not warp my role to be front-of-house. My role specification did not require that. The issue here is about my manager i) perceiving my role to meet a different set of objectives incompatible with the nature of the work, and ii) considering and assuming that our senior management team evaluates my role that way (despite my role specification does not convey or require that).
Let’s continue.
