Trash Your Job Titles Part II.

---------Continued from Trash Your Job Titles Part I.

So things have changed. The buffalo have disappeared too. If you’re not accepting things have changed, then you’re still looking at that emperor and seeing all those clothes that he didn’t really have on. Just like the industrial revolutions of centuries ago, catastrophically and forever altered the way workers work, and the renaissance with the development of the printing press forever altered the way messages were delivered, the electronic revolution is another major historical milestone.

With the milestone of the electronic revolution, there will be a new set of developing organizational rules. Companies can begin to implement them for the electronic communication age. Yes, it will be disruptive, as I said. But you must be prepared to jolt your company with a new concept of organizational thinking and titles which show the new change. Organizations should have a set of new titles or labels that relate to a specific position. You have your creators, the people that create things. You have your caretakers; they take care of the things that creators created. You have the evangelists. They’re the old sales people that went out and talked to people about the business and the products, the opportunists, the analysts, the switchers. They take information from one person and switch it off to two or three people. There’s value added switchers. Those are people who want to add much value.

Let me give you an example. I call on the phone, and I talk to a person on the other end. They’re a Switcher. I say, “I want to speak with Joe.” That person hooks me up with Joe. That’s a non-value added Switcher.

Let me give you an example of a value-added Switcher. I call on the phone, I speak to Mary. “Mary, I want to speak to Joe.” Mary says, “What do you want to speak to Joe about?” I tell her. Mary says, “Jack could better answer that question.” and she switches me to Jack.

That’s a value-added switcher. A person who is actually going to understand your requirement and switch you to the right person in the company to solve your problem.

Then you have functions like sales manager, product manager, accounting manager, human resources manager, these types of labels which add meaning only with respect to the past. The past organizational charts cease to have meaning in the new electronic age.

Look at Apple Computer. You go into a retail store, and there are virtually no sales people. There are Apple Geniuses. Those people help you with a problem. There are Product Presenters, people that show you the product. But there are no people there who are virtually trying to sell you a product. They’re trying to explain to you what their products do. You will always see many, many people in an Apple Computer retail store around the computers using them. Apple makes all their computers at the store work. They make them accessible. They want you to come in and use the products. How many other retail stores are like that? Most retail stores, you have signs, don’t touch, keep your hands off; if you break it it’s yours. All kinds of negative connotation signs that don’t make the retail store a real experience, a place where you want to go, a destination rather than just a disruption in your daily life.

Your organization, by the way, may be just like the old retail stores. Do you make your organization in such a fashion that your customers want to call in just to see what’s new? See, that’s the electronic age, and that’s what new titles and new organizational charts can do for you.

Look at it this way. In organizations today, information can flow in all different directions, up, down, sideways, over to other countries and back, through the Web, through social media, at the speed of light, to all different levels of the company simultaneously. In this kind of company, there must be major organizational upheavals. Volcanoes are less disruptive to companies today than today’s new methods of electronic communication.

You’re either going to be on top of it or you’re going to be left behind. Companies that begin now to plot their electronic age organizational and title strategy … and by the way, if you don’t think titles are important, then why are you the president or the vice president or manager or director? You obviously think titles are important, and most people do. They’re very proud to have them on their business card. Some people say that titles make the person, and the person makes the title. Gosh, wouldn’t it be great to be an Apple Genius or an IBM Wizard or an ABC Company Gatekeeper? You keep the gates that allow people in to certain parts of the company.

When a company’s organizational concepts matches the 21^st century communication methodology, then you will see significant productivity increases. You don’t see very many standard titles at any of the fast growingSilicon Valley technology companies. They know the old titles don’t work. Companies who refuse or are indifferent to these new communication concepts will be slow to adapt. They will not be competitive, and they will join the campfire stories of, “Gee, Dad, what’s an eight track cartridge? What’s a beta recorder?” and the many other numerous other fallen icons. Don’t let your company be in those categories. Adapt what I’m saying in this blog.

Trash the titles. Start again from the customer’s perspective.