I Am My Position
People often confuse their job title or role with their identity, leading to a narrow focus on individual tasks rather than the larger system. This cognitive bias creates silos, reduces accountability for outcomes, and hinders adaptability.
THE IDEA
1. “I AM MY POSITION”
We are trained to be loyal to our jobs—so much so that we confuse them with our own identities. When a large American steel company began closing plants in the early 1980s, it offered to train the displaced steelworkers for new jobs. But the training never “took”; the workers drifted into unemployment and odd jobs instead. Psychologists came in to find out why, and found the steelworkers suffering from acute identity crises. “How could I do anything else?” asked the workers. “I am a lathe operator.”
When asked what they do for a living, most people describe the tasks they perform every day, not the purpose of the greater enterprise in which they take part. Most see themselves within a system over which they have little or no influence. They do their job, put in their time, and try to cope with the forces outside of their control. Consequently, they tend to see their responsibilities as limited to the boundaries of their position.
Many years ago, managers from a Detroit auto maker told me of stripping down a Japanese import to understand why the Japanese were able to achieve extraordinary precision and reliability at lower cost on a particular assembly process. They found the same standard type of bolt used three times on the engine block. Each time it mounted a different type of component. On the American car, the same assembly required three different bolts, which required three different wrenches and three different inventories of bolts—making the car much slower and more costly to assemble. Why did the Americans use three separate bolts? Because the design organization in Detroit had three groups of engineers, each responsible for “their” component only. The Japanese had one designer responsible for the entire engine mounting, and probably much more. The irony is that each of the three groups of American engineers considered their work successful because their bolt and assembly worked just fine.
When people in organizations focus only on their position, they have little sense of responsibility for the results produced when all positions interact. Moreover, when results are disappointing, it can be very difficult to know why. All you can do is assume that “someone screwed up.”
When to use it
When redesigning organizational structure or job descriptions, to avoid creating silos that limit cross-functional collaboration.
During change management initiatives, to anticipate and address resistance that stems from employees defining themselves by their current roles.
In team retrospectives or after-action reviews, to uncover whether positional thinking contributed to poor outcomes or finger-pointing.
When mentoring individuals to broaden their perspective, helping them see beyond their immediate tasks to the system’s overall purpose.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Steelworkers' Identity Crisis
In the early 1980s, a large American steel company closed plants and offered retraining to displaced steelworkers. Senge reports that the training did not take and that the workers drifted into unemployment and odd jobs while struggling with their identities. When asked why, they replied, 'I am a lathe operator,' showing they saw their job as their core identity, not a learnable skill.
American vs. Japanese Auto Design
American auto makers found that Japanese cars used the same bolt three times on an engine block, while American cars required three different bolts, wrenches, and inventories. The reason: three separate engineering groups were each responsible for their own component, whereas Japanese engineers took a whole-system view. Each American group considered their bolt successful, but the overall assembly was more costly and slower.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
Think about your current role: Do you identify more with your job title or with the purpose of the larger system you work in? How does that affect your decisions and sense of accountability?
Consider a time when a project failed due to miscommunication between departments. To what extent was that failure rooted in people focusing only on their own position rather than the overall goal?
If your job were eliminated tomorrow, what aspects of your identity would remain? How might this realization change how you approach your work today?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- The Fifth Discipline The Art Practice of the Learning Organization (Peter M. Senge)