Tag Archives: role description

Identifying KRAs – Quick Exercise

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
Okay, you sold me on the importance of writing better Role Descriptions. In your workshop last week, you referred to Key Result Areas several times as part of the Role Description. I am curious about how you establish KRAs.

Response:
Indeed, Key Result Areas are the framework of the Role Description. When you took English Composition in high school, your teacher always told you, before you write your paper, you should always write the outline. (No one ever did it, but that’s another story.)

Identifying the Key Result Areas (KRAs) in a role is like writing the outline. For every role, there are between 4-8 Key Result Areas, depending on the complexity of the role.

For the Role of Plant Floor Supervisor, here are typical KRAs

  • Raw Material Inventory
  • Personnel Scheduling
  • Equipment Scheduling
  • Production Output
  • Production Output Counting and Reporting
  • Equipment Maintenance

But your question is “how” to identify these Key Result Areas? Here’s a simple exercise. Take a sticky note pad and on each note, write down one task related to the role. Don’t stop until you have at least 50 sticky notes, more if you want.

Now, look at the sticky notes and figure out which ones go together. Put them in groups. You will likely identify 4-8 groups. Once you have all the sticky notes divided into groups, give each group a name, like the names above. Those are your Key Result Areas.

Here is how they work in the context of a Role Description –

Role Description
Role Title –
Purpose for the Role –

Key Result Area #1
–Task and Activities
–Level of Work
–Accountability (Goal)

Key Result Area #2
–Task and Activities
–Level of Work
–Accountability (Goal)

Key Result Area #3
–Task and Activities
–Level of Work
–Accountability (Goal)

Key Result Area #4
–Task and Activities
–Level of Work
–Accountability (Goal)

Key Result Area #5
–Task and Activities
–Level of Work
–Accountability (Goal)

If you would like an template for this Role Description, in MS-Word, just Ask Tom and I will send you one.

Fatal Decision in the First Three Minutes

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This is the third in our series, Six Sins in the Hiring Interview.

  • Missing important (and obvious) clues during the interview
  • Head trash, the distraction of the stereotype in the back of your head
  • The fatal decision in the first three minutes of the interview
  • Losing control, losing your head, losing your wallet
  • Asking the wrong (stupid) interview questions
  • Getting beat in the paint

This series is a prelude to our Hiring Talent Summer Camp.

The Fatal Decision in the First Three Minutes
The iris of the eye opens and she knows she is in love. No matter that he is a drunk, a cheat and a thief. This chemical attraction is a non-verbal response that is as damaging to the resulting marriage as it is in the interview room.

  • “I liked that candidate as soon as I saw him. Reminded me of an old college roommate of mine. Smart guy. This candidate must be smart too.”
  • “I made up my mind in the first three minutes. Sometimes, you just know!”
  • “Normally, I would reject a candidate without experience, but there was something I noticed as soon as we sat down.”
  • “I don’t know why we have to interview the person for an hour. My mind was made up in the first three minutes.”

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Works both ways. How often do we make up our mind about someone in the first few moments of the interaction? What kind of damage could that do to the hiring process?

It’s actually okay to have a first impression, just not okay to make a hiring decision based on it. It’s all about the work. What’s the Level of Work? How is the work organized? What problems have to be solved? What decisions have to be made? These are the questions that balance your first impression.

Our Hiring Talent Summer Camp begins next Monday, June 18, 2012. It’s online, and you will have several chances to make that first impression.

Things Fall Apart

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“I don’t think you have an attitude problem. I don’t think you have clearly defined the accountability and the authority that goes along with that dotted line. That’s why dotted lines are so dangerous,” I said.

“So, what should I do? This Key Result Area is not a high priority, but the work still has to get done,” Megan explained.

“You are shooting yourself in the foot when you describe -it’s not a high priority-. If the work in this area is not done, what happens to its priority?” I asked.

Megan thought. “You’re right, the tasks will take about five hours a week, but if they are not completed, all hell breaks loose, other things begin to fall apart.”

“So, what should you do with that dotted line?” I pressed.

“Get rid of it, change its color, make it bold,” Megan retreated. “I guess I have to specifically define what I want, how much time it should take and what the result should be.”

“You guess?”

It’s a Cakewalk

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From the Ask Tom mailbag –

Question:
I just read your latest newsletter regarding team interviewing. I am a lousy interviewer but trying to get better. I am intrigued by the 50-60 interview questions that need to be prepared as I have a tendency to just wing it.

Do you have a source or listing of that many questions? I’m having a hard time envisioning what a comprehensive list might look like.

Response:
When I first introduce this concept of 50-60 written prepared questions, most interviewers freak out. Looks like a lot of work. No idea where to start? Can I short-cut the work and find the questions online?

The answer is, there is no short-cut. I do NOT have a list you can copy. But, here is the source of the questions.

The template I use to create a Role Description is organized around Key Result Areas (KRAs). When you look at any role, there are tasks that go together, typically related to a single goal or objective. In any role, there are typically 5-8 major goals or objectives, with related tasks in each goal area.

Looks like this –

Role Description
KRA #1
Tasks/Activities
_____________________
_____________________
_____________________
Accountability
_____________________
KRA #2
Tasks/Activities
_____________________
_____________________
_____________________
Accountability
_____________________
KRA #3
Tasks/Activities
_____________________
_____________________
_____________________
Accountability
_____________________
and so on…

Use the Role Description to craft ten questions in each KRA. If you have six KRAs, you will have 60 written prepared questions. It’s a cakewalk.

If you have more questions, register for our Hiring Talent program, next Orientation is Apr 23, 2012. For more information, follow this link.

Culture Fit as Part of a Role Description

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Yesterday, I got a question from a participant in our Hiring Talent online program. In the Field Work assignment to create a Role Description (according to a specific template), the question came up.

Question:
I wasn’t sure about including the culture/values piece, as it is not something I typically see in role descriptions, however I felt strongly in doing so, as I think this is something that really lives in our organization, provides a compass for how decisions are made, how people interact, and is why we are able to attract and retain top talent.

Just curious – is the culture/value piece something you are seeing companies incorporate more and more into their role descriptions?

Response:
The culture/values piece is rare to find in a role description, but think about this.

What is culture? It is that unwritten set of rules, intentional or not, that governs the way we behave as a group. It governs the way we work together.

Here are the four criteria I interview for –
1. Capability for the level of work in the role (Time Span)
2. Skill (Technical knowledge and practiced performance)
3. Interest, passion (Value for the work)
4. Reasonable behavior (Habits, absence of an extreme negative temperament, -T)

The elements you describe in the Role Description, related to culture/values have a distinct place in the interview process. Where I can ask questions related to values, specifically value for the work we do, I am looking for interest or passion. Where I can ask questions related to habits, reasonable behavior, I am looking for fit with our culture.

These elements, interest, passion and culture fit are as critical to success as capability and skills. I look forward to seeing the questions generated by this Key Result Area in the Role Description.

If you would like more information about our online program Hiring Talent, let me know. I am gathering the next group to start on March 19, 2012.

Evidence, Not Hope

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
How do you un-do some internal promotions that probably shouldn’t have happened? The person is just not effective in their new Stratum III role?

Response:
Troubleshooting effectiveness in a role can be traced to one of these four factors –

  • Capability
  • Skill
  • Interest (Value for the work)
  • Reasonable Behavior

I rely on the manager’s judgment to determine which of the factors may be in play. In my Time Span workshop, I describe a team member with the following characteristics –

  • Worked for the company – 8 years
  • Always shows up early, stays late
  • Wears a snappy company uniform (belt around waist, cap on straight)
  • Knows the company Fight Song
  • Makes the best potato salad at the company picnic

And yet, is under performing in his role. Put that list against the four factors and I arrive at capability mis-matched for the role. To do a thorough inspection, I would examine each of the Key Result Areas in the role to see where the underperformance occurs. It is likely there are parts of the role that are done well, and parts where we observe underperformance. The mis-match is likely to occur on those longest Time Span task assignments.

In your question, you describe a Stratum III role. I would examine each of the KRAs and task assignments to see which is the culprit and modify that specific task assignment. The modification might be to break the longer task into a series of shorter tasks with more oversight, or to shift an analytic step to another resource.

All of this can be avoided by assigning project work to team members BEFORE they receive promotions. Successful completion, evidence is what I look for, not hopes and promises.

Calibrating Level IV Roles

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
How do you incorporate Time Span into a Role Description?

Response:
This is the fourth post in this series.
Calibrating Level I Roles
Calibrating Level II Roles
Calibrating Level III Roles

Level IV Roles
Level IV roles are typically responsible for multiple systems and subsystems. Left to their own devices, organizational systems fend for themselves and create friction at the departmental level. It is the role at Level IV to integrate these systems together. More than multi-tasking, Level IV managers understand the dependencies, inter-dependencies, contingencies and bottlenecks that exist between multiple systems. The goal is to integrate these systems together into a “whole system.”

Problem solving at Level IV is generally related to longer term initiatives which may take 2-5 years to achieve defined objectives. The focus in problem solving often requires the Level IV manager to step out of the internal elements of a single system to examine (often counter-intuitive) the output of multiple systems interacting together. This may involve the momentum of a reinforcing system offset by the impact of a balancing system. Sales, as a reinforcing system, are often offset by the capacity of operations, as a balancing system. Unrestrained sales that outstrip operational fulfillment create backorders and unhappy customers. Unrestrained operations that outstrip sales create inventory overstocks, carrying costs and bloated balance sheets.

Task assignments at Level IV are defined by operational planning and longer term strategic planning.

Calibrating Level III Roles

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From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:
How do you incorporate Time Span into a Role Description?

Response:
This is the third post in this series.
Calibrating Level I Roles
Calibrating Level II Roles

Level III Roles
Level III roles are populated by managers responsible for production consistency, to create predictability in organizational output. Their focus is on the creation, monitoring and improvement of systems. We depend on Level III roles to create sustainable efficiencies. The problems they solve are related to work flow, system layout and sequence.

Given a problem to solve, the central question at Level III is, “why didn’t our system anticipate this problem, or why didn’t our system, at least, mitigate the damage from this problem?” To solve these problems, those in Level III roles engage in comparative analysis or root cause analysis.

The Time Span of their longest projects typically range from 1-2 years. To manage projects of this length, Level III roles depend on planning scenarios, employing “what if” analysis. In pursuit of any task assignment, they create alternate paths to the goal, contingency planning to anticipate roadblocks outside their control.