Hippie CEO Life #17 - Are You Typecasting Your Employees
August 5, 2022
The corporate world often feels like a movie set.
We are hired to do a job. We are given a costume to wear. We are assigned a specific role to play. We are given a script to memorize. We act out our part and then we leave that character behind when we go back to our non-work life.
While the above may seem a bit silly, there is actually a lot of truth to it. The corporate world craves predictability and in-order to have predicability, we need to write the script, cast the characters, provide them with the right words to say, and make sure we have a director constantly hovering over them to put them back in line if they stray too far off script.
While this scripted predictability may give management a lot of comfort, knowing their team has the script, they just need to act it out, i often wonder how much this strategy holds people, and thus the businesses they work for, back from realizing their full potential.
If i’m hired as a Software Engineer Level II, it feels like i am instantly typecast into that very niche role, i have all the freedom in the world to act within the boundaries of some corporatized job description that defines the duties and responsibilities of the Software Engineer Level II.
…
Back in 2007, my now business partner and co-founder of 33 Sticks, Hila Dahan and i worked for an online dating company. i was the “Manager of Web Analytics” and Hila was a “SOX Compliance Analyst,” but her genius was so much greater than SOX compliance and she constantly was stretching outside her job description to provide insights and recommendations for how to transform the business. Every time she wandered outside her job, she was put back in her place, was reprimanded, and told to just do her job.
i quickly identified Hila’s genius for understanding how to create amazing customer experiences and started using her in stealth mode, so neither her or i would get put back into our boxes. Behind the scenes, my secret weapon, i would use her genius for when it was time for me to present to the senior executives.
To this day i wonder where that company would be if they allowed Hila, and all the other employees, to fully use their inherent genius to make the company better, to create more meaningful experiences for their customers. Would the company today be an elite business rather than a floundering company that some private equity firm is desperately trying to keep afloat?
Instead of typecasting our employees into such narrow roles, what would happen if when we hired our next employee, we invested in learning as much as we could about that specific person, not just how that person fits into the role we hired them for? What if we truly invested the time to learn what they are naturally brilliant at, and then found a way (regardless of job description) to fully maximize their inherent genius? What would happen?
i wonder 🤔
