Is your job pointless?

Is your job pointless? Do you add any value? Should you be more proactive?

Three interesting questions. Three questions that matter in the current climate. Three questions that might just define your future. There are three questions you need to make sure you are confident with.

The recent cull at Twitter and other tech companies is a great illustration of how, for right or wrong, jobs are retained or culled based on their perceived value. Certainly, Twitter prioritized engineers in specific disciplines over HR, DEI, marketing, and other roles to cut costs. Those that lost their roles were in some way, defined as less important or of lower value. The output was seen as for some reason pointless. Now, without understanding the logic and each role individually, there will be speculation over the cuts.

We can take that same logic applied at Twitter and pass it on to other roles in other organizations that are or have recently faced cuts. For whatever logic was applied, the jobs were seen as non-essential. Pointless when it came to achieving a shifting strategy.

David Graeber identified in his research a phenomenon known simply as “bullshit jobs” or roles that have been created in modern times that he argues, add little value. In his paper, articles (Link), and his following book, he illustrates how he believes that over half of all jobs are pointless and can be categorized using one or more of five characteristics,

1. Flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters, and makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks.
2. Goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer or to prevent other goons from doing so, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, and community managers.
3. Duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive.
4. Box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, and uality service managers.
5. Taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, and leadership professionals.

(From Wikipedia)

I guess that if we apply this to LinkedIn profiles, the above list will eradicate over 50% of all roles. Hence, it’s a somewhat simplistic illustration, but it does indeed hold some validity; it’s not such much the role but more a reflection of some of the tasks associated with the role.

It’s worth considering the role from an output perspective. Does it directly contribute to a product or service? Does it produce something that improves the customer's experience or use of the product, and can that be measured tangibly? Does it keep the customer or staff safe from harm? Is the company able to avoid specific legal risks or meet specific standards? It’s about something tangible that adds measured value.

If you work in a corporate environment, you’ve seen those form committees and then spend their days enforcing ‘rules’ loosely based on something they heard or read once. Those that use ‘the regulators’ as an excuse to have to demand request submissions, reviews, and approval committee meetings. And those status reports that people spend hours every week crafting. They’re sent out under the umbrella of ‘stakeholder communications,’ but do you know which and how many recipients read them?

I’ve worked in environments where we sat there all night recrafting a PowerPoint so that it looked right even though the message of ‘problem, solutions, recommendation’ didn’t change once. And then some take weeks to make decisions leaving output in limbo while they pontificate and demonstrate their ‘power’ while only causing confusion and chaos to the process. Or the finance staff who insist on reviewing every number to minute detail, forcing the team to spend more time redefining and revisiting the proposal, spending more money in lost time than the initial cost in the first place.

Looking back at the ‘bullshit jobs’ research, there’s much truth behind it.

So, stop, and look at your role, its output with its associated processes. Is a lot of what you do not add value or are you one of those who create a lot of noise and delays that don’t improve the product, service, or customer experience???

#consulting #bullshitjobs #value #employments #processes #improvement #skills #consulting