Rethinking How Work Actually Gets Done.
Most organizations view work as job-based with clear and defined responsibilities, fixed roles, and established titles. This model helps create organizational systems and definitions that are simple and clearly outlined. However, when we actually observe how work gets accomplished, the “tightly bound” model of job definitions and responsibilities starts to break down.
An example would be a product launch. Rarely will a product launch be accomplished within one “job”. Different types of people (data analyst, marketers, engineers, and maybe even compliance/legal) are usually involved in accomplishing a product launch, and work is completed based on what skills are required versus what job title the person holding that job title has.
This is where the skill-focused model becomes a more accurate depiction of how work is getting done. Instead of asking “who owns the responsibility to accomplish this,” the question is “what skills are needed to accomplish this task.” This very subtle shift in focus creates a very large impact around how teams are developed, how people develop their own skills, and how performance of people is measured.
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An example of organization using this skill-focused model was a telephone company. They assigned project teams to accomplish their projects in a fluid manner based on required skill sets versus the defined departments the project would normally fall under. This means that the network engineer may be contributing to a customer experience initiative but will not be doing it on a permanent basis. They are only contributing to the customer experience initiative when their skill set is needed. The result is much quicker resolution of problems than previously and resulted in a slight bit of confusion around who was responsible for what.
This is the downside of the skill-focused model. People generally “tie” who they are to their job title, and if you remove or loosen that “tie,” there will be an adjustment period and not everybody benefits from the adjustment.
Additionally, not every type of work will benefit from this flexibility. Some types of work still require stable jobs and deep skills in specific areas. The goal of the skill-focused model is not to eliminate roles, but to reduce the boundaries of those roles.
Ultimately, the type of work will not matter. The actual change is in the mindset of the person (or organization) doing the work. Work will continue to be “flexible” in the future regardless of whether it is recognized or embraced by any given organization. The real question facing leaders is whether they continue to attempt to force work into the “containment” of specific job definitions as they have done historically.
