Purpose In Position - Part 1

by Mark McClanahan

How many of your employees know why their roles exist? It’s one thing to understand the what, but do they understand the why? Internalizing the why behind a person’s job goes a long way in inspiring the individual to peak performance and promoting longevity within the role.

At Mosby Building Arts, we use a performance agreement that spells out not only the expectations and details of the position but also the reason for its existence. This document is typically five to six pages long. I’m going to focus on just the second page over the next few articles.

The second page is powerful because it creates a clear picture of the role from a high level. There are five important questions asked and answered here:

1. Why does the company have this position?
2. What are the key responsibilities of this position?
3. What does it take to make this role successful?
4. What are the most important ways a person should spend his or her time in this position?
5. What is the easiest way to see whether this role is being performed well?

Looking at this list of questions, you can see we start with why. The answer to this question focuses on the benefits to the organization. Three to six short statements are typically necessary to make up a complete answer. One example for an HR person might be “To promote a positive culture throughout the company.” For a sales manager an answer might be “To maintain and increase profitable sales year over year.”

Having a defined purpose for a position results in all sorts of good: The company elevates the importance of the role, the supervisor better drives performance through this reason and the employee builds a sense of pride from understanding the why.

Mark McClanahan (mmcclanahan@callmosb.com or 314.909.1800) is the president at Mosby Building Arts.