The HR consultants define all the tasks an organization needs to get done and then slice it into competencies, roles with job descriptions and hierarchies. At start these are documents and soon they become the pigeon hole the employees and people aroud them limit themselves to.
The result of this is situations where a software developers says but I coded what I was supposed to code I can’t help it if thats not what the customer wants. Essentially, situations and a world where everyone is supposedly doing their jobs well and yet not much is coming out or what is coming out is either incorrect or significantly suboptimal and without any impact.
So should we ditch job descriptions as companies? Then how do we make people accountable? How do we measure performance?
The short answer is “you get what you focus on”. If you measure performance you will get performance not necessarily results. If your effort is on squeezing out compliance to a standard you will get exactly that and not an iota more.
Alternatively, if you choose to ignite the persons passion, if you align them to a vision not just for the company but how they can contribute to that vision, you will have a person who will find ways to make things work. A person who keeps an eye on the end result and does not worry about job description or other definitions or boundaries defined for some convenience.
Bottom line is people don’t need to be managed by job descriptions. Give them an empowering vision, the support and resources and set them free to achieve more than you can imagine!