Ian Burbidge

It is one thing when you can clearly specify in detail the requirements you have for a new employee, generally captured in a Job Description. It’s quite another challenge to do so when you are not 100% sure of the tasks that are necessary to get you where you want to go, nor whether a market exists for such a person. 

The underlying assumption in drawing up a JD is that you can package up a set of business requirements into a single role and that the resulting role will match a recognisable and discrete group of people in the market. This works where the work is predictable and/or the market is clear; we have a clear market for professions such as accountants and lawyers, teachers and town planners. 

Beyond the degree of market clarity offered by professional bodies we also see a proliferation of membership organisations to convey legitimacy on people gaining particular qualifications or who have been trained in a specific methodology. Of course, this offers some quality assurances for those buying in consultants or employees with those qualifications (as well as ensuring the financial benefits of protecting the IP of the method accrue only to its developer). We might think of organisational development, Agile, different change management or coaching methodologies and so on. 

The codification of a set of ideas, tools and methods into a product that becomes the de facto standard makes it easier for the recruiter and those who are qualified to use the product to match with each other. Change management? Must be Prosci ADKAR certified or a certified Agile scrum master. You can include the qualification and experience in a JD and you know there is a pool of people out there who you can hook on your bait. 

This doesn’t work so well when the work is hard to predict, the necessary skills hard to define and the potential market hard to identify. In local government I recruited someone to lead work to analyse and map socio-economic data and therefore generate insights on local challenges. They needed mapping/GIS and analytical skills and an inquiring mind. I called the role a Data Analyst and it was only when I received – literally – hundreds of applications from across the world that I realised ‘Data Analyst’ means something quite specific to IT professionals. They weren’t going to meet my need for someone to translate massive data sets into actionable insights and present them using GIS and other visual media.  

Yet we persist putting together job descriptions, the people equivalent of a tender specification for works (procuring goods and services), a budget (making financial predictions about the future) or a project plan (making operational predictions about the future). All are based on the paradigm that we start with a defined solution and then seek people to implement it: buying in a consultancy firm, setting a budget, delivering a project. 

On the supply side, what do you do if you don’t fit this model, if you don’t see JDs or roles that fit your unique blend of skills and experience, where there is no professional body to lend you their legitimacy? JDs remain a blunt stick, reducing as it does a multi-faceted role to a few clauses in the expectation that somewhere in the world there exists a human being who not only is an exact match for the role, whose outline slots perfectly into the job-sized hole in your organisation, but who also is excited and motivated to work for you. Of course, should they be identified in the recruitment process and proceed to interview they will then have to play the game of convincing you that they are indeed a perfect match, together with appropriate excitement for the role. As though, for any of us, our latest appointment in a role is the manifestation of our childhood career ambitions.

On the demand side, what do we do if we are humble enough to realise that we are in a situation where we can’t with any accuracy specify a solution? If we assume that these same processes – procurement, recruitment, planning – can work in this more ambiguous context, we are likely to run into problems. When there is no clear solution – or where we have defined a solution based on unclear or inaccurate information, or based simply on our own preferences – we need alternative approaches. This becomes particularly acute in complex settings. In complexity we first need to recognise that a solution can’t exist, and as a result we need people with a different mindset, skillset and experience to assist us in our inquiries. Only then might we make progress towards our more challenging and complex issues. 

What might alternatives to this age-old model look like? Well, the underlying theme of this blog site is that of the curious generalist. Those who add value through the breadth of their knowledge, not so much through their specialist expertise. As we’ve seen, expertise is easy to package up and sell to organisations requiring it; generalist knowledge less so. But it is the generalist’s input to a team that can unlock new ideas, new solutions and new approaches. What does a JD look like for a generalist? I haven’t seen one. And so we surf the world of work trying to find those niches where we can bring our value and can thrive. 

Perhaps ironically, it is the specialists route to the top of our hierarchy that is more clearly defined. Top teachers become head teachers and run multi-million pound businesses; top nurses end up overseeing others doing the work they are great at. Yet when they reach these positions it is the generalist’s skillset that will serve them best. Here you need to know a lot about a lot, rather then everything about your subject matter. It’s like asking a top 5 ranked tennis player to instead run the body that oversees the game globally. Just because you’re great at tennis it doesn’t follow you’ll be great at running the sport. 

Perhaps, for the generalist, this idea of tacking with the wind is the only way to progress. Collecting ideas and insights, gaining experience, developing networks. Not worrying about the job ads or JDs out in the world, but finding those niches where they can thrive. Perhaps one day we will get beyond invitations to tender and job descriptions in complexity, based as they are on the solution we seek. Perhaps one day someone will be bold enough to experiment instead with problem descriptions, setting out the challenges we want to better understand and inviting those that are stimulated by the problem to come on board to help understand it better. Only then can we effectively figure out ways we might address them.