People v Roles

Once upon a time I worked for a major UK charity. I was a cog in the machine and was really happy being that cog. The machine wasn't doing what was needed, in fact it was spending a lot more than it was earning and our patron, none other than the Duke of Edinburgh, called in one of his people to help us out. In came Major General Sir..... He was great, he focused on what we were trying to achieve, he made sure roles were well defined, then he went out amongst us troops and just listened. Once I was running a session and he came along, saw I was busy, asked if I wanted a cup of tea, and once he had made it asked if there was anything he could do to help. Lets be clear about what he did, he asked me what he could do, tie a rope, carry a barrel (we were building a raft)... he treated me like his boss. I aspire to be that good.

Here is my take on it. So often people think they are the role, that the role is them. So for example, if I am the Managing Director I only do management, I only tell people what to do. So what was Sir Michael doing. Well I reckon that he was bigger than his role, so he did his bit and then he went to see what else he could do, and he found me running a rafting session and in need of a cup of tea and a spare pair of hands, so he took on the role of raft session assistant. Now he has two role, ok, so one of them is very temporary, but when he is in the that second role he recognised that he did what I needed doing.

So what - well I find in some teams that people only do the role and it stops there. If they go and help someone then they are the boss so they take over the role. Result, a demotivated member of staff.

Or you may look at an organisational chart that instead of showing the roles, shows the people and no one ever appears in two places. That might not be quite right, better to show the roles and then put names against them, then people could be in two places. I run my own business so I know all about roles, I think I have got about a hundred of them going on right now and the accounts is about the least popular one of all.

People and roles are different things!