People · Proving to Growing
A role with a purpose
Everyone in your team knows why their role exists, and how you'll both be able to tell they're doing it well.
Does this sound familiar?
- Someone has worked for you for three years and their role is still the job ad you wrote back then.
- In the performance review you say you're disappointed, and they're surprised: didn't they do everything they were asked?
- You ask someone what they're responsible for, and you get a list of tasks: answering emails, writing quotes, preparing the meeting.
- Two people both think customer satisfaction is theirs. Or both think it isn't.
Who it's for, and when
For founders and managers whose team grew because there was work to do, without anyone writing down what each role has to deliver. And for team members writing up their own role. While you still work alongside everyone, one sentence per person is enough. You need the whole role scorecard once you can no longer see what everyone does, and someone else judges the work.
The model
A role exists because something in your business has to go right. Write that in one sentence: makes sure X, so that Y. Below it go three to eight outcomes: what's gone right once the work is done, and how you can tell. 'Writing quotes' is an activity. 'Quotes reach the client within two working days, measured by turnaround time' is an outcome.
Next to the outcomes sits the behaviour someone uses to achieve them, and for each level what you see: the bare minimum, what's strong and what's excellent. Only then can you say in a conversation how someone's doing without it being a feeling.
The employee writes the first version, because they know the work best. You read it and agree it. After that it's the yardstick in the performance review (the lesson The performance review), and you add what they can decide for themselves with the lesson Who decides what.
Geoff Smart and Randy Street, in Who: The A Method for Hiring (2008). Their scorecard describes a role with a mission, measurable outcomes and the competencies: the behaviour someone uses to achieve those outcomes. The idea that the employee writes the first version and the manager agrees it comes from Peter Drucker, in The Practice of Management (1954). Setting the bar at three levels is how Boldcaster works.
The purpose
One sentence: makes sure X, so that Y. The X is what has to go right, the Y why the business needs it. Someone who knows the purpose can make their own choice when something new lands on their desk.
The outcomes
Three to eight lines, each with a measure: what goes right, and how can you tell? Where possible, the measure is a KPI from the scoreboard. More than eight and you've got a task list.
The behaviour
What Smart and Street call the competencies: how someone achieves their outcomes. Pick a few that make the difference in this role, plus what your core values ask for. Someone who hits their numbers and loses colleagues along the way isn't doing it well, and you need something to point to when you say so.
The bar
For each level, what you see in the work: bare minimum, strong and excellent. Smart and Street call someone an A-player if they have a 90% chance of achieving outcomes that only 10% of candidates achieve. That's what you write 'excellent' towards.
Agreed
The employee writes it and submits it, you agree it. If the content changes, you discuss it again and agree it again.
Pitfalls
A purpose that covers the whole company
'Makes sure customers are happy' fits everyone. Make the purpose narrow enough that it belongs to this role alone.
A draft that never gets agreed
A role that's been a draft for months isn't an agreement. In the review you're then measuring against something nobody signed off, and that's open to argument.
Writing it once and leaving it
The business grows and the role grows with it. Look at it at least once a year, and whenever the work changes significantly.
Watch and read
In one minute the man who came up with it explains why you write a scorecard first, with mission, outcomes and competencies, before you look for someone or judge them.
Watch on YouTubeThe founder of Opsware explains why, out of frustration with his own team, he wrote down what a good and a bad product manager does: a bar for one role, like the one you put on a role scorecard.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
The co-author at Google on the A Method, with the scorecard as the first step: what does this role have to deliver, and what do you measure someone against? The opening part covers the scorecard.
Watch on YouTubeRead
Who: The A Method for Hiring
Geoff Smart en Randy Street · 2008 · ISBN 9780345504197
The chapter on the scorecard: a one-sentence mission, three to eight measurable outcomes and the competencies that go with them. Written for hiring, and just as useful for a role that already exists.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Ask the employee for a first version
Give them the format: makes sure X, so that Y. Below it, three to eight outcomes, each with how you can tell. Show them the role scorecard below as an example, and give them a week.
- 2
Read it with three questions in mind
Is this an outcome or a task? Does this purpose belong to this role alone? Can I see from the measure whether it's working, without asking them?
- 3
Make the behaviour and the bar concrete
Choose together the behaviour that makes the difference in this role. For each level, write down what you see: bare minimum, strong and excellent. Use examples from the work of the past few months.
- 4
Add what they decide themselves
What do they decide alone, what do they check first, and what sits with someone else? Without that part, the role can't be agreed in the app.
Who decides what - 5
Discuss it and agree it
Half an hour together. Talk about where you see things differently. Agree it once you're on the same page, and say that this is the yardstick in the next review. Look at it again every year, or sooner if the work changes.
Examples
Account manager role scorecard: the purpose
A packaging wholesaler with sixty regular customers. Purpose: makes sure our regular customers buy more from us every year, so that we grow without constantly having to win new customers.
Account manager role scorecard: the outcomes
1. Regular customers buy more, measured by revenue per regular customer compared with last year. 2. No customer leaves without us seeing it coming, measured by the number of customers who stop in a year. 3. A request gets a quote within two working days, measured by turnaround time. 4. The margin holds up, measured by gross margin on their customers. 5. What they sell can be delivered, measured by the number of orders that come back because something wasn't right.
Account manager role scorecard: the behaviour
Calls a customer back within one working day. Checks with the sales support team whether something's possible before promising it, not after. Says no to a discount that takes the margin below the bar, and explains why to the customer.
Account manager role scorecard: the bar
Bare minimum: revenue per regular customer up 3%, no more than four customers lost, quotes within three working days, 26% margin. Strong: up 8%, no more than two lost, quotes within two working days, 28% margin, and they flag which customer is wavering before that customer cancels. Excellent: up 15%, nobody lost that they didn't see coming, and they bring a new product group to existing customers that the rest of the team picks up.
The project manager who already did everything
He wrote twelve lines, all of them tasks. Reading it through together, four outcomes were left: delivered on the agreed date, within budget, with a happy client, and without the founder having to step in. The rest was how he did it.
Two people with the same purpose
The marketer and the account manager both wrote 'makes sure we get enough new customers'. After the conversation: the marketer makes sure enough good enquiries come in every month, the account manager that those enquiries become customers.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- Go to Team members. Open a team member and fill in their role: purpose, responsibilities and expectations. Submit sends it to the manager, who records it with Agree. That only works once it also says what they decide themselves, which is the lesson Who decides what. In the Table view you can see who doesn't have an agreed role yet.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.Your planner's role says: 'draws up the schedule for the following week every Friday'. What's wrong with it?
2.Who writes the first version of a role that already exists?
3.Your account manager's purpose is: 'makes sure customers are happy, so that the business grows'. What do you do with it?
4.Your account manager hits all his revenue numbers, but colleagues work around him and customers complain about his tone. Where does that belong on his role scorecard?
5.Your sales support colleague takes on purchasing after the summer. Their role was agreed last year. What do you do?
6.You want to hire a second salesperson. According to the book Who, what do you write down first?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Who decides what · For each decision, you agree who makes it: the person themselves, after checking with someone, or someone else. And everyone can look it up.
- The one-to-one · You have a regular conversation with each of your people, and it's theirs.
- The A-player matrix · You know who carries your team, and what you'll do with each of them.
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