GALT Consulting LLC

It's pretty well an unchallenged practice in business.  You need to hire an employee so you create a job description outlining the position you need.  You then hire a person and tell them to perform the job in the job description.  If they struggle with the job, you review their performance periodically and provide them with copies of the job description so they know what is expected of them.

Let me introduce a paradigm shift in the world of the job description.  People are naturally inclined to work well within their strengths and to work poorly outside their strengths.  You can't ask someone with a low imagination to be visionary and you can't ask someone with very high energy to sit at a desk all day.  At least... you can't ask for it and expect good results. 

I am in favor of creating job descriptions for your company.  It will help you define the roles that you feel are missing in your organization.  However, don't expect to bring in ANYBODY to fill that role just because you took the time to write it down.  Your job in effective hiring is to find a person whose strengths match that job description.  Then, once you bring in the person, tweak it so that it REALLY matches the person. 

Am I condoning creating custom jobs for all of your people?  You bet!  We are all uniquely hardwired, so why not take full advantage of all of the things a person brings to the table.  If you think this sounds like a lot of work think about all of the energy your people spend trying to overcome the areas where they are required to do things they aren't good at doing as part of their job.  This is a huge drain on your organization's human resources.

So remember... job descriptions are easy to change.  People are not...