Guy Reams (00:01.262)
Today's day, 197, the art of job crafting. So you might've heard someone say, this is not in my job description. I always laugh when I hear that because let's be honest, in today's day and age, your job description has a shelf life of about two to three weeks. I mean, I don't know how many times my job description has changed, but almost every time I get hired for a job within a few, within less than a year, the job description has already morphed many times over. So.
This idea that you have a job description is kind of an old idea that's just gone away. Next time someone tells you this, hey, it's not on my job description. Here's a trick I like to do. Give them a piece of paper and a pencil and say, here, I'll give you five minutes. Write your new job description. Write down your job description. And what's interesting is this ends up becoming a highly instructive lesson because if they take it seriously and they actually write down what they think their job is,
You can then sit down with them and go through it with them and it'll be highly instructive. Both you and the person you're talking to will learn a lot because you'll understand expectations, you'll understand what the person thinks they're doing, what you think they're doing. This is a powerful way to connect in a meaningful way because it really concludes with, hey, I now know my job description is variable.
But I also now know that I need to communicate openly about what I'm doing so that my boss or my colleagues know what's happening. You can also use the same concept during interviews. You know, one trick I learned from a seasoned interviewer once was they asked me a very open -ended question. Or they would ask an open -ended question to candidates. And that was, you know, let's say they were interviewing for a sales position. The person would ask,
You know, if you were in charge of writing the job description for the sales role, what would it be? Describe the perfect sales role. And some people were very reluctant to answer that. They're like, I want to know what you're going to say before I say something. But if you push them on it, they'll eventually start to answer what they think the perfect job description would be for a salesperson. And that can be very revealing, very revealing in a bad way, or in some cases, or many cases,
Guy Reams (02:23.31)
very revealing in a good way. So, and a lot of times when people object to it, I say, well, we're hiring professionals like you because we want that person to help us craft the role. We're not exactly sure the perfect role. So we're looking to hire professionals like you to help us create that role. So this is your opportunity to tell us the way you think it should be. What is the ideal? Describe, you know,
what the perfect role is for you. This certainly is a better question than asking, describe your perfect day, which I've had somebody ask me that question and that's, what's funny is you can answer that in two ways. Like you can say, you can just blow smoke and try to describe the perfect day where you're an awesome salesperson or an awesome whatever, or you can describe time with your family and not working and.
That's what I usually elect to do because it breaks the ice. It makes you realize you're a human. And honestly, I want to establish very clearly and very early on. I am here for my I am here working for myself and my family. I'm not working for for any other purpose. I mean, let's just be clear. But so I mean, I certainly want to help out the business or help out whomever and grow things. But let's be honest, we're all here for the same reasons. And let's be honest about that. So.
That's another way to open up this concept of job crafting. But what I really want to get to is what I call the magic wand. So oftentimes when I'm talking to a client or colleague, or mainly a client when they're having a problem, like a challenge, and they're starting to complain about the job or this or that or this problem, or they don't have enough money for this, or they can't get this done or whatever the case may be, you know, it's very easy place to dwell on complaint though.
You know, the complaint department is always open. And sometimes when you're talking to employees or your employer or clients of yours or whatever, it's sometimes very easy to go down the path of complaining about the job.
Guy Reams (04:37.422)
So instead, what I like to do is ask, well, hey, I understand there's challenges, but if you could wave a magic wand, so if you had a magic wand today and you could wave that magic wand, what would happen? What would change? Like what would go away? Or what would you add? So if you had that magic wand and you could get everything you wanted, what would it look like? And you know what, that's a very interesting aspect of job crafting too, because now people start to dive into,
what it is they would want to create the ideal, the perfect scenario. And you know, often times people can't answer the question. They can't get even close. They get through a couple things and then they stop. And usually a couple things will happen. Number one, they come up with some really good ideas. That's always great. Or number two, they realize that the problem's actually not that bad. That actually there's not a lot in their way of changing it. So their complaints are really silly. Because...
there's actually a very clear path to get what they want. They just gotta do it. So the magic wand thing always helps me. In fact, I've gotten to the habit where I ask myself, like I wake up and I'm miserable about something, guy, I need to get this done, but I can't because this is a problem and this is a problem and this is a problem. So instead of doing that, I asked myself, well, guy, if you could wave your own magic wand, what would happen today? And just simply by going through that exercise, I realized, you know what?
I'm actually not that far away from getting what I want. I just need to clear a couple of hurdles and I'm there. So that clearly changes it for me. It makes me feel better about the situation. So I would consider this art of job crafting for yourself. Like maybe could you sit down and write your own perfect job description? Whether you're the CEO, the CRO, the VP of technology or salesperson or just somebody doing inventory all day.
Whatever it is you happen to be doing, could you sit down or write your own job description? Now this may seem a little overwhelming, and it should be, because what is your perfect job? What is it that you would like to be doing? You've got to work to bring in money, because in today's society that's pretty required. So you're going to have to transfer your time for money. So in that time space where you are working for somebody to make money, what is it that you would like to be doing? What is your job description?
Guy Reams (06:59.566)
Can you write that down? Now if you can write that down, then what'll end up happening is you will now have a very clearly identified ambition. And now you're gonna figure out, okay, well, now that I've got the perfect job created, how would I get it? And here's the fun part, because you can actually create that job. You can start a company, go raise money, create your own job. You can interview for people and tell them what your job that you want is.
And finally, you could go to your current leadership and tell them what you would like to be doing and ask them if there's ever a path to get there. These are great, enlightening, powerful conversations to have with people. In fact, the more people you tell what your dream job is, the more likely it is to come true. Now, that is, of course, you're gonna say something silly like, my dream job is to do nothing and get paid lots of money. Well, that ain't gonna happen, as long as it's realistic. So anyway, try it. Wave the magic wand in your own life and craft your own job description.
to what happens.