Think of an A4 sheet of paper. Or even better, grab one. Imagine it represents your work week time. Start drawing lines on it to divide the space and depict the tasks /activities you spend your time on. The cells sizes should be proportionate to the amount of time you spend on each of those activities. Take a look at your sheet.
? How satisfied are you with what you see?
? How does the picture make you feel?
? Where are you leveraging your strengths?
? What are you curious to learn more about?
? Where do you see adding the most value… to your team, organisation, the society?
? Which parts of the picture do you feel least excited about?
? What is missing that you wish was there?
? Whose support do you require?
While most jobs come with a job description, we often do not realise that there is at least some freedom within the parameters and expectations set for us. Research by Jane E. Dutton and Amy Wrzesniewski proves that this statement does not apply to professional roles only.
With some creativity, we can craft our role scope, tasks sequence and time dedicated to them. We can influence the interactions and relationships that we initiate and foster. We can modify our mindset and change the way in which we interpret the task or role we are carrying out.
Job crafting is a way for reshaping our roles for greater satisfaction. It is a way for experimenting too. When I moved into working in generalist HR from a Talent Development role, becoming a career development mentor, offering #careercoaching and facilitating development plan workshops was my way for creating opportunities to engage in talent development, an area I felt passionate about and saw a need for. At the same time, it was a way for experimenting with new frameworks, exercises and skillset that I was building up at that time. Ultimately it had led me to pursue a #careerpivot, but it helped me leverage my strengths and increased my engagement in that role for close to 3 years. At times my A4 expanded into an A3 sheet, as quite a bit of my job crafting happened in the evening or early in the morning. Yet, there were also tasks that thanks to the “time audit” I removed from my and my team’s schedule.
“I need to follow procedures”, “I do not have the freedom to choose where and when I work”, “It’s all up to the customer”, “There is too much to do and no time to think…” – is that true, or is that an assumed barrier?
David Pink, in his book Drive, talks about autonomy and the positive impact of feeling self-directed on motivation, so let’s get job crafty this week. Have a fresh look at your A4 and consider which parts of the picture you want to expand, shrink, erase, add on… What can you tweak, alter, swap, negotiate, delegate?
Redesign the picture, yet with the added challenge of not expanding it to A3 size!
And if you are looking for an extra challenge, go for 12months, or 5-10 years from now. How would you like your week to look like then? How would you like to live your life?