DTB Services

26/05/2022

Drawing on the reflections and insights triggered by real experiences, mine, and others...

"The meaning of a job is not given by the organization or hiring manager, the meaning of a job is generated and crafted by the job holder. What the organization provides is a context for crafting or generating meaning."...

Drawing on the reflections and insights triggered by real experiences, mine, and others... "The meaning of a job is not given by the organization or ...

21/05/2022

The Career Optimiser Framework Introduced

The career optimizer presents jobs and roles without using job titles. It does this so as to focus the attention on the essence of the role or job, the value the role delivers as a function of the types of problems the role solves, and the capabilities required to be able to solve those problems. In order to do away with job titles, the carrier optimizer uses a proprietary capability framework that is versatile and robust enough to describe any and all jobs at all levels across industries and sectors.

At the outer ring of the framework is the domain and domain expertise. Here we define the domain where the problem to be solved exists, which is the secondary domain and the domain where the specific solution to the problem is coming from, which is the primary domain. Any role or job can be defined based on the primary domain which is the solutions your role or job is expected to offer, and the secondary domain which are the problems you're trying to solve. In an organizational context, the domains are defined by organizational structure of units, functions, departments, or tracks.

The middle ring of the framework is activities, what the role or job does in solving the problem. The framework simplifies activities across all roles and levels into five types based on the specific nature of the tasks and outputs performed in service of solving problems and delivering value. While all roles will perform all activities to varying extents or levels, one or two of the activities will be the focus of the role, taking up most of the roles capacity. In addition, specific departments or tracks will focus on specific types of activities. The activities are strategizing, creating, engaging, supervising, and executing.

Finally, the inner ring is the person, competencies, cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal. The framework simplifies competencies to these three as they are common across all human experiences, all roles people play across life stages, and have the same impact on success across all these roles. In an ideal situation, the competencies will determine how much accountability a person can shoulder as a function of how well the person can manage their capabilities, the responsibilities and the level of authority required for that level of accountability. This applies to any and all roles a person plays across the life stages, including professional and career related ones. The progress across life stages requires higher levels of competency for example, a university-student-aged kid requires higher than the primary-school-aged kid, parents require higher and so on. In an organizational context, this higher competency requirements translates to higher career levels and job grades where the accountability is greater, from junior to senior executives.

By using the career optimizer, you get to view your current past and future experiences in a totally new light...

https://app.careeroptimiser.com/intro.php

18/05/2022

What do you mean by Intellectual Commitment to a Role?

So I wrote a blog post on this idea of intellectual commitment recently, but I'll summarize the essence, extract some of the key messages from there here.

So intellectual commitment basically means you are committed to solving the problems your role, or job has access to solving and to achieving excellence in that role, as compared to simply performing and completing the activities and tasks assigned to you, or expected of you, just so you can keep what you have, or get what you have been promised.

The focus on solving problems and the associated intellectual commitment actually serve as a foundation for adaptive performance, change agility, growth mindset, and so on. Intellectual commitment actually comes naturally when you adopt a "crafts" or "artisan" view of your job or role. But I do recognize that this can be difficult for so called knowledge workers. And that's kind of another reason why I came up with the career optimiser framework.

So do watch the video introducing the framework and browse the application it's free. And for a deeper dive into the framework, consider signing up for programs in the library on https://buff.ly/3L0h4R7

17/05/2022

Where I got the Idea for the Career Optimiser

My career didn't follow the usual path from school to first job, second job and so on my first paid job was in a small business doing something I was already doing, and probably would have done even if I wasn't paid to do it. So the only change was I was now getting paid to do something I was doing already.

In contrast, my first job, or the first job I interviewed for happened when I was 33 years old, which was in a large corporation. This job also happened to come after I completed my first master's program in the human resource development related field. So I had a unique perspective of what I would describe as institutional jobs. I realized very quickly that unlike my experience of jobs until then, jobs in large systems like large corporations very easily lose their meaning and value and become this set of rote, repetitive and largely automatic tasks and activities. You almost need to intentionally seek out and find meaning, sometimes against all odds. Because the system itself seems to be emphasizing the opposite of finding meaning, and, in some cases, punishes you if you do seek to operate with meaning and intent.

While this in no way describes every employee, team or organization, there are a lot of people who experience their jobs in this way. And most are completely unaware of it and would never describe it the way that I just have. So I've spent years trying to understand why this is the case. And this interest got me looking at all aspects of jobs and how jobs have come to be. From thinking about the organizational strategy, goals and structure within which these jobs actually exist, hiring or supervising manager's expectations of jobs, the way the jobs are designed, job ads, interviewing processes, job objectives, job grading, career levels, performance management, performance support for those jobs, concepts of high potential, leadership jobs, individual and non individual contributor roles, career support, and so on.

I actually feel that things in this area have gotten extremely conceptual and maybe unnecessarily complicated as each organization tries to repackage the same things under new names to appear unique or different from the other organizations when the only real difference between the job and roles is the context of performance. The essence of the jobs and roles actually are generally the same. So the career optimizer is one of the things that I came up with, in my search for meaning ininstitutional jobs and to define this idea of the essence of jobs and roles. At its root, it reimagines jobs going beyond job titles and salaries. The goal is to provide a simple and consistent way for individuals to identify and define the meaning of the activities being performed in the job, the value of the results that can be achieved, and the potential for holistic development and growth embedded within those experiences...

https://app.careeroptimiser.com/intro.php

15/05/2022

Who is the Career Optimiser For?

The career optimiser is designed for you as an individual.

It is focused on you.

It helps you examine and profile your roles in a way that you probably haven't done before. The framework helps you commit and engage with the role intellectually, and by so doing, you find meaning in what you're doing, or you find insights into what you could be doing, that will be meaningful to you, and you'll get paid for.

Because it targets individuals, it means organizations can use it to help the employees engage, and commit intellectually with the roles available within the organization. Learning and Development teams can use the framework to develop solutions that have greater relevance, significance and impact.

HR professionals teams and department leaders can use the framework to design and manage jobs that naturally emphasize meaning purpose and capabilities. And the framework can be used in all types of organizations from public to private organizations, religious not for profit startups, you know, small, medium, large enterprises and so on.

https://app.careeroptimiser.com/intro.php

13/05/2022

Why I developed the Career Optimiser (contd.)

From the organizational standpoint, lack of intellectual commitment to jobs and roles means that organizations, as a managed system of people supposedly engaged in coordinated activity, will continue to experience resistance to change, challenges in developing the culture of innovation, agility and collaboration; which I know a lot of organizations are seeking to do.

And all those different corporate initiatives around new ways of working and other transformational efforts will remain just that, initiatives, perpetual initiatives re-emerging year on year under new names, labels and executive sponsors.

https://app.careeroptimiser.com/intro.php

13/05/2022

Why I Developed the Career Optimiser

The career optimizer is my way of addressing some of the challenges I experienced as an employee. Challenges I had to overcome in my desire to commit intellectually to the various roles and jobs, and to find meaning and value in what I was doing.

My experiences made me realize that a lot of people in employment are not intellectually committed to their jobs, and I believe, without intellectual commitment, employees will not be able to connect with the meaning and purpose of jobs and roles and this robs them of experiencing the happiness and fulfillment possible in those jobs. And consequential frustrations and stress have implications for families, communities, societies, I actually believe employees over time, get so used to these frustrations and stress that they no longer recognize them for what they are and treat them as part and parcel of the experiences with little or no effort invested in trying to reduce these frustrations and stress

https://app.careeroptimiser.com/intro.php

12/05/2022

Problems, Possibilities, Potentials

" A lot of people working in jobs. Over time we get into this routine of doing activities, but no longer being intentional about the problems we're trying to solve. So after 10 years of having 10 years of experience in a particular domain, you actually don't have domain problem solving abilities, you have activity experience....
...the first thing to think about to see how much of my experience in this job or over the last couple of years in this career has been about solving domain problems, as opposed to just completing activities.

Now, the good news is, most people, no matter how, whether you thought about this before or not, most people have been involved in solving problems, but they might not have been intentional about it. What that basically means is that for anyone listening to this, even if you've never thought about it this way, you have expertise in solving certain kinds of problems based on your experience, that you were not consciously pursuing these problems means that the the experiences were not optimized, that means you didn't, you could have gotten a lot more from those experiences if you're paying attention, but you didn't."

08/05/2022

"A lot of times when I talk to people, I ask the question, what, after so many years of working, what would you say you're really good at? What is that one thing that you would say that, with my 20 years of experience, I'm really good at this? And a lot of people actually, interestingly find that very difficult to answer.

So a lot of people have been involved in doing a lot of things at work, and they've changed roles and all that. Some people have been in a particular industry for a long time, working in different roles and all that. But then they find it difficult to confidently say that because I have 20 years of experience, I'm good at x or good at y. And that got me thinking a lot about, why that is.

If you look at other industries, if you look at other areas of endeavors, like sports, for example, or other places where people do things for a long time, they can very easily tell you, whether they're really good or how good they are in that area or not. Like a runner can tell you how good he is after running for 20 years, clearly, you know. So it got me thinking about what is it about the experience of work, that doesn't immediately translate into a sense of confidence around certain core capabilities or core areas of competence? Confidence that allows you to walk out and say, look, I can do this, and people listen to you, and you can talk about it?"

06/05/2022

"When we encounter difficulties, when we encounter challenging situations, they force us to suddenly pay attention, they take away all the distractions, and we're forced to focus on what's left. What is left is you.

You have the opportunity to actually expand the more challenging the situation is because when the challenges go away, and they will go away, and this is the message they will go away,... and when they go away, the people who have responded to that challenge in the right way will by default have expanded their capacity."

20/04/2022

I read this piece and figured I needed to share it because of the way the idea is described and explained.

While the piece talks about distributed leadership, there is still a sort of lead role needed, just that’s it’s not a top down, command and control type…

“Their job isn't to be the smartest people in the room who have all the answers,” Isaacs said, “but rather to architect the gameboard where as many people as possible have permission to contribute the best of their expertise, their knowledge, their skills, and their ideas.””

In the checklist section, this jumped out at me (of course)

“Provide coaching and learning opportunities so that people can practice the decision making, entrepreneurial activity, and influencing skills needed to work in this mode of operating. Provide opportunities for employees to meet one another and network across the firm.”

This is not training them to “do their job” but providing them with the support and scaffolds needed to embrace and thrive in the freedom offered by the kind of work culture this type of leadership creates. That’s a whole new way to think about L&D!

Managing the future of work requires a nimble mindset focusing on small, short-term wins, and a ‘cultivate and coordinate’ approach to leadership.