Sailboarding Your Job Descriptions

The day following my 13th birthday was blocked out on my family's calendar. The weather forecast in the paper (yes, back then, that is how we checked the weather) reported a warm day with a light breeze. A perfect, however unusual, forecast for the end of June in the Pacific Northwest and a perfect day for sailboarding lessons. Sailboarding lessons that did not happen. We spent my birthday out on the lake. While we used suntan lotion, it was not the same as sunscreen, and I spent the day after my birthday with the worst sunburn of my life.

The sunburn and missed sailboarding lessons were insignificant until one August day in my early 20s. I borrowed a sailboard to use on a lake in Canada. Insisting, I knew what I was doing, so I headed out from shore. The breeze grew stronger as the shoreline grew smaller. Cutting through the water with a wind-filled sail was exhilarating! As the water splashed in the wind, it joined with the cloudy skies, reminding me that a storm was driving the wind. Upon reaching the other shore, I was convinced I learned how to sailboard.

Noticing I was nowhere in sight, my friend used a speedboat to rescue me two hours later. After reaching the far shore, I attempted to sail back. I realized I didn’t know what I was doing. I was able to cross the lake back and forth, but each crossing blew me further and further away from where I began. I didn't know how to sail. My fight against the wind transformed exhilaration into exhaustion. I was cold, wet, and tired as I watched the storm creep in. I missed my sailboarding lessons a decade earlier, and now I don't know what to do. I was helpless before the wind and the waves.

Do people ever feel helpless in our organizations? Are they tossed and driven by winds of urgent deadlines, poor communication, and unknown expectations? It might be because they missed their sailboarding lessons or, in the management world, their job description. We use job descriptions when beginning new positions, attracting new candidates, hiring new people, performance reviews, and dismissals. However, job descriptions are rarely conferred with when engaging in daily tasks or new ventures. When we ask our people to venture outside the riverbanks of their job descriptions, we may diminish communication and increase anxiety.

Reduced anxiety may promote reduced job-related burnout and increased job satisfaction. While the literature is full of new and differing approaches to increase job satisfaction and decrease job-related anxiety and burnout, a simple solution may be sitting in your HR folder. Pull out the job descriptions you already have for the people you are leading. Do their job descriptions match their responsibilities? If not, what needs to change? People will outgrow their job descriptions. Don't wait for your people to disappear out of sight. Rescue them today, before their windblown and exhausted. Revisit their job descriptions, increase your communication, reduce their anxiety, and empower them to sail(board) within clearly defined boundaries.

When was the last time you reviewed your personal job description? Is it accurate?

How might the people you serve flourish by increasing your communication through reviewing their job descriptions?