T-shape Person Model

 

Recently a client introduced me to the T-shape person model.  It’s certainly worthy of reflection when considering personal and professional development.

T-shaped people have two kinds of characteristics, depth and breadth.

The vertical stroke of the “T” represents the depth of their professional competence.  See the 10,000 hour rule.

The horizontal stroke of the “T” is their ability to work with others in a wide variety of situations.  The focus here is on empathy and enthusiasm.  I would substitute emotional intelligence, a bit more sophisticated and research based view of the same elements, thus more teachable and learnable.

 

 

 

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Five Key “Knows” For Leaders

Recently I contributed to the Wrap-Up session of a community leadership program.  We spent some time discussing the “power of knowing.”  Wise Leaders must be well-informed, the challenge is the era of data overload is how to evaluate the data and convert into information. Take a look at A Course Load For The Game of life in the NY times.  This is a fine self-test: DO I HAVE the knowledge to filter the noise from the information in our modern communication systems?

 

 

There are a couple of ways that people can subscribe to this blog. Click the “+ Follow” link on the bottom right section of the site and enter your email address. This is a very easy way to receive the newest post as an email. The other way is via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS Feed link is located on the right sidebar of the site, directly above the Categories section. Click on “RSS – Posts” to receive your posts in their favorite RSS reader. The RSS reader that many prefer is Google Reader (http://reader.google.com). It is free, well organized, and easy to use.

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Jobs: The Social Role

 

A fully functional person is one who has a robust repertory of social roles and knows when to use them appropriately.

 

A social role is a set of integrated knowledge and skills that are appropriate to certain social situations.

 

When people in organizations understand their co-workers social roles, i.e. jobs, they work well together.  There is compelling evidence that most internal conflict In organizations results from misunderstandings regarding  social roles (jobs).

 

We build cultures with families and organizations with jobs.  Clearly defining jobs can improve organizational effectiveness.  A recent trend is to define jobs, not as sets of tasks, but rather as sets of responsibilities.  Tasks have more of the nature of rules whereas responsibilities are clearly principles.

Most job descriptions can be reduced to three to five responsibilities.  This approach acknowledges that jobs change rapidly and invites employees to exercise their experience and common sense to preform the job.  Tasks often encourage employees to do only what is defined and nothing more.

Teaching people about jobs as social roles as small sets of responsibilities is an antidote to the entitlement disease that seems to be sweeping some organizations.

For an in-depth discussion of this issue go to Beyond Luck.

 

There are a couple of ways that people can subscribe to this blog. Click the “+ Follow” link on the bottom right section of the site and enter your email address. This is a very easy way to receive the newest post as an email. The other way is via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS Feed link is located on the right sidebar of the site, directly above the Categories section. Click on “RSS – Posts” to receive your posts in their favorite RSS reader. The RSS reader that many prefer is Google Reader (http://reader.google.com). It is free, well organized, and easy to use.

Jobs: More About The Social Contract

I don’t do that, it’s not in my job description!

This is a phrase that makes most managers shudder.  It succinctly illustrates the ongoing balance, or as some may say imbalance, between “rights” and “responsibilities.”  We are living in an age of increasing rights. 

There is a continuum here with the anchors being rights and responsibilities.  The previous social contract does not explicitly identify which are rights and which are responsibilities.

Rights are fundamental and tend to be settled by litigation whereas responsibilities are managed by cooperation.  Effective leadership and management is based on the heavy use of communication and cooperation.

Organizations that are heavy on rights, think work rules, tend to have lower productivity resulting from inflexibility.  Work environments where management is top down, heavy handed, and authoritarian tend to create the need to define rights to protect workers from such management practices. 

Entrepreneurial organizations tend to be job creators.  One reason is their focus on responsibility and flexibility.

 

For an in-depth discussion of this issue go to Beyond Luck.

Next week, the job as a social role.

 

There are a couple of ways that people can subscribe to this blog. Click the “+ Follow” link on the bottom right section of the site and enter your email address. This is a very easy way to receive the newest post as an email. The other way is via RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed. The RSS Feed link is located on the right sidebar of the site, directly above the Categories section. Click on “RSS – Posts” to receive your posts in their favorite RSS reader. The RSS reader that many prefer is Google Reader (http://reader.google.com). It is free, well organized, and easy to use.