I greatly appreciate this post. Having the concept of “role” burned deep into my psyche early in my consulting career I relate very well to the concept. Moving my clients to the concept is more of a challenge. In the lower maturity organizations, the fluidity of “role” does not seem to exist. What I have seen more of are cultures which everyone has their place and everyone does things their own way (differently). It is horribly inefficient, but culturally the norm.

I have hope for change as the social networks take hold in the lower maturity organizations. Point to point – not hierarchical – behaviors may become much more common, and with this a transition to a real recognition of roles and both the structure and freedom than the concept provides.

Russ

Years ago, Prof. Henry Minztberg described work design as an exercise in standardization – in some cases, standardize the process (e.g, bake a cookie), in other cases, standardize the deliverables (e.g., designing a bridge), and in other cases, standardize the training (e.g, brain surgeon). In each case, as complexity increases, the ability to separate “role” from “job” decreases.

However – in many cases can we not look at a role as a superset of responsibilities that may or may not include regular tasks?

A good example is GM’s IT with its full matrix of what we call ‘job’ tasks, (eg X Axis) and then roles (Y Axis)

Because in some situations I can imagine that *all* a persons tasks are ‘context specific’ and driven by various roles- but also in some cases (as in your original post) where they are external to the various ‘task’ that may make up that job.

All business process frameworks (at least that I am familiar with!) are keyed into that concept of a’role’ (eg sub-process owner)

And attempting to discuss the difference between funtional responsibilities (eg Job) and roles often causes;

a) finger pointing
b) hackles to rise

Because too often individuals feel that ‘role’ must equate totheir status, number of reports etc.

Thank You!