By Heather Stone, President of
myjobsearch.com
Most of us know what job function we do. We're accountants or teachers or nurses. We've been trained in that job and we do it well.
Too bad there is more to career satisfaction than doing your job well.
How many times have you said, "This job would be great if everybody would just leave me alone?" Or maybe you've said, "This job would be a perfect job if I could only get them to listen to my ideas"? Do you feel like you value people but all your boss cares about is getting the work done? Or do you feel like everybody else spends too much time talking and not enough time doing?
You can probably eliminate much of your career frustration by learning about your preferred career track, and the preferred career track of those around you. Career Track describes your relationship to the work being done. Specifically, do you like to
- Tell people what work to do (management track)
- Tell people how to do the work (expert track)
- Do the work (artisan track).
For example, do you want to use your accounting skill to
- Allocate the accounting work intelligently to others in the department (management)
- Teach others how the correct control procedures to follow when doing the work (expert)
- Reconcile the general ledger and bank account (artisan)
Managers tell people what to do. Experts tell people how to do it. Artisans do it. Which are you?
Expert, Manager, and Artisan
I have a client who is an interior designer artisan. He doesn't want to spend his time telling other people how to design a room, nor does he want to organize projects and get people to do work. Instead he wants to actually design rooms. If he works in an enlightened company, he will probably spend his career doing what he loves-actually designing-and continue to make more money and gain more respect without ever having to get into the parts he doesn't like as well-and frankly, doesn't do as well.
Perhaps because "management" typically is viewed as more prestigious, experts and artisans often put themselves in situations where they must function as managers. This can be frustrating for the employee, the staff, and the employer. The following comparison of "managers", "experts", and "artisans" can help you understand where your own interests and skills lie.
Expert track people are typically the "visionaries." They know what direction they and everybody else should be heading. They motivate other people by clearly understanding what it looks like when those people have done their jobs. Expert track people emphasize knowledge--expertise in a given field.
Artisans emphasize proficiency--mastery of a skill or talent. They are motivated by recognition of their proficiency, praise for a job well-done (as opposed to the expert-tracker who doesn't care as much whether the job got done, as long as he knew how to get it done).
Management track people know how to implement the vision. They care about getting other people to work together. They focus on people before they focus on ideas. Experts lay in bed at night thinking "What's the next great thing I can do?" Management track people lay in bed at night thinking, "Now how can I get Fred to work with Sally so that they will both finish that report by noon tomorrow." Artisans sleep at night because they're worn out from doing the work.
Management-trackers spend a lot of time figuring out how to get other people to do what they want. Expert track people spend that same time trying to figure out what it is they want from other people. (Because they assume that if an idea makes sense, people will certainly adopt it.) Artisans spend the time completing the work that needs to be done.
Blindspots
Experts often get blindsided by other people. To experts, people are unpredictable. Experts typically think others think and act just like they themselves do. If an expert is honest or hard-working, he assumes everyone else will also have those qualities. If an expert likes to come to work at 8:00 in the morning, she is exasperated when no one else shows up. Experts often feel shocked and betrayed when other people's behavior doesn't fall in line with expectations. If you have been significantly taken advantage of by another person--your business partner ran off with the money, your employee left with all your customers-you are probably an expert.
To managers, people are often predictable. Management-trackers can usually correctly assess how people will respond when given bad news. Management track people can see trouble coming-at least if that trouble relates to how people are feeling or what they are likely to do. Management track people's biggest career risk is that they will be working on the wrong problem. They will have a smoothly oiled operation, but they will be building a product that is obsolete. The best thing you can do to a management-track person is pair him or her with an expert track person. Let the expert track person figure out what overall project or product should be and let the management track person figure out how to get the product built.
An artisan's biggest risk is being driven by the tools or technology or process they have mastered rather than by real-world conditions and objectives. Everybody has heard of the engineer who built a new product simply because he could. The program may not be sellable to or usable by the average person--there may be no market for that program, but that's ok with the artisan. Have you ever seen an interior designer who does an entire bedroom in purple because when she went shopping for curtain fabrics, there was an amazing new texture available in violet? With an artisan, the tool rather than the original objective, may drive the finished product. At the end of the day, artisans may have built a cool demo for a new technology, but you may not have the lower-tech product you knew you could sell.
Track Fit and Your Next Job
When deciding what next job is the right one for you, ask yourself which track you want to be on.
Do you like being the knowledgable one, the expert, the person other people flock to when they have questions about how to do something? Ideal job titles for you might contain the words specialist, trainer, consultant, advisor, evangelist.
Do you really enjoy getting other people together to accomplish something as a group? Do you think it's fun to trouble shoot interpersonal problems? Perhaps your ideal job title might include the words manager, process leader, team mentor, supervisor, project manager, or program director.
Are you the one who likes to do the work, to feel the wood shape beneath your hands or the project take form because of your effort? Do you like to calculate the numbers or cut the fabric or place the metal struts yourself? If so, your ideal job title might include the words producer, technician, craftsman, laborer, artist, or worker.
Whatever your preference for Career Track, understanding that preference will improve your career satisfaction. When you consider a job change--or even if you are simply trying to increase your satisfaction with your current job-- carefully analyze both the track requirements of the job and your natural preferences.
If you're lucky, maybe you can get a job where other people don't drive you crazy!
Written by Heather Stone, President of
myjobsearch.com, the jobseekers supersite! Heather is president of
myjobsearch.com, the company behind the jobseeker's supersite of the same name. She frequently consults with employers on hiring practices and with jobseekers on the Internet job search process. She has spoken at computer and employment industry conferences, and she was recently recognized by Utah Business Magazine for owning one of the "Top 25 Woman Owned Businesses" in the state of Utah. She is a member of Young Entrepreneur's Organization (YEO), an international organization for company owners under the age of 40.
