Beyond the Role

For me, this thought begins with a simple question:

How well does a company know a person when it knows that they do their job well?

It knows their tasks, their responsibilities and the results of their work. Perhaps it also knows what education they have, which skills they have developed and how reliably they achieve their goals.

That is a lot. But is it enough?

A person can perform their task excellently and still bring little of essential parts of themselves to it. They can be very good at something without it being the kind of work they would particularly enjoy doing of their own accord. And they can make a contribution that matters to others but barely appears in the official picture of their performance.

I am interested in this gap between the person and the part of them that an organisation sees.

Because several questions meet at this point that may at first seem to have little to do with one another: How are good decisions made? What kind of diversity does collaboration need? What does it mean to help people grow? And by what criteria do we recognise who makes a valuable contribution in the first place?

The longer I think about it, the less I can separate these questions.

What someone can do is not all that suits them

A role describes what is expected of a person. Their abilities describe what they can do. Their preferences, by contrast, concern how they prefer to think and work.

These three things can fit together. But they do not have to.

Research into the fit between people and work also distinguishes between two questions: Do a person's abilities meet the demands of their work? And does what the work offers correspond to their needs, interests and preferences? Having the right qualifications does not automatically answer both questions.

I imagine, for example, a woman working in controlling. She works carefully, grasps complex relationships and produces reliable analyses. No one doubts that she does her job well.

But perhaps she particularly enjoys open questions. She would rather develop new possibilities than safeguard existing processes. Her ability to analyse precisely is well developed. Even so, her preferred way of working might lie more in exploration.

That does not make her a worse controller. Nor does it automatically mean that she chose the wrong profession. For now, it means only that her role does not show everything that makes her who she is.

This is precisely where, to my mind, the objection that there are different roles and the corresponding skills falls short.

Of course a company needs expertise and clear responsibilities. But even a complete competency model does not answer the question of who the person using those competencies is. What interests them? What questions do they ask of their own accord? What ways of working feel right to them? And which of these have little place in their current task?

By preferences, I do not mean an unchanging inner truth that a questionnaire could reveal once and for all. I mean inclinations and preferred approaches that can become apparent in conversation and in different situations. Such an inclination is not proof of a particular ability, either. But it can be a reason to try something that was not previously an option.

Perhaps a person is not yet aware of this side of themselves. Someone who has been asked for one particular kind of performance for years may have had little opportunity to discover other forms of their own contribution.

The question, then, would not only be whether a person fits their role.

It would also be whether the role leaves enough room to get to know more of that person.

The diversity that might already be there

From here, the way I look at collaboration changes.

A complex task calls for different approaches. We need to understand a situation, consider its effects on people, explore possibilities and finally act.

Understand → Consider → Explore → Act.

I do not see this as a rigid sequence or a new method. Human-centred design approaches such as the Double Diamond already connect understanding a situation with developing and testing different solutions. The process is explicitly not intended as a straight-line sequence.

What interests me more is who actually brings these different ways of looking at things into the process.

A process can call for alternatives to be developed. But that does not mean the people involved really question the solution they have been pursuing. A team can talk about effects on people without anyone adopting the perspective from which those effects become visible at all.

The right question does not have to come from the person whose role suggests that it should.

Perhaps the controller sees a possibility that nobody on the design team has noticed. Perhaps a developer realises that a technically correct solution unsettles people unnecessarily. Perhaps someone in customer service asks an analytical question that changes the entire project.

That does not replace professional responsibility. But it broadens the circle of people from whom a valuable contribution is expected.

Two people with the same job title can approach a task very differently. Conversely, a team may include many disciplines while its members prefer similar ways of seeing things. Different responsibilities and different perspectives are not the same.

Diversity alone, however, does not guarantee better collaboration. Research therefore looks, among other things, at whether different information and perspectives are actually exchanged and examined in depth. Their mere presence is not enough.

For me, this raises another question: Which differences go unused simply because nobody expects them to be there?

Perhaps, in some places, what a company lacks is not another person with another job title. Perhaps some of the diversity already present in its people remains undiscovered.

A different perspective can matter especially where a team is particularly strong. People who analyse brilliantly and decide quickly do not always need more analysis or more speed. Sometimes they need someone to ask whether they are solving the right problem at all.

At first, that contribution can feel like a disruption. It does not necessarily make a decision easier. It may even challenge something the team takes pride in.

Even so, that very question could prevent a mistake.

When visibility becomes the measure

This brings me to a point that has occupied me for some time and sometimes frustrates me.

I sometimes have the impression that people advance more easily when they present their work convincingly. Those who are visible, position themselves clearly and regularly draw attention to their own contribution get noticed.

Beside them may sit someone whose attention is focused mainly on the work. They improve an outcome, support others or spot a problem early. But they do not tell a particularly impressive story about it.

I have no objection to people being visible or wanting a career. Communicating convincingly can itself be an important skill. And a quiet person is not automatically more competent or less self-interested than someone who commands attention.

It becomes a problem when a person's manner is treated as evidence of something that ought to be examined separately.

In two studies of work groups, Cameron Anderson and Gavin Kilduff found that people who behaved dominantly were judged to be more competent. This relationship persisted even when actual task-related abilities were taken into account. That does not describe every promotion or every company. But it shows that perceived competence and demonstrated ability can diverge.

That distinction is exactly what matters to me.

A convincing presentation can make good work visible. But it can also create a stronger impression than the work warrants. Conversely, a contribution does not lose its value because the person behind it says little about it.

I think, for example, of someone whose careful question prevents a mistake. Of a colleague who shares knowledge in a way that enables others to work independently afterwards. Or of an expert whose judgement improves a decision without their name later being associated with the outcome.

Contributions like these cannot always be assigned directly to a single metric. Even so, in these examples they would be part of what moves the company forward.

If an assessment focuses mainly on what is easy to present, it creates a risk: the judgement is determined not by the contribution itself, but by how readily it can be displayed.

A company might then ask people to concentrate on doing good work while favouring those who devote a great deal of attention to presenting that work.

That would be more than a personal irritation. It would be a contradiction in the company's expectations.

Leadership's task begins before the assessment

At this point, what leadership means to me begins to change.

It is not enough to look at the visible results at the end of a period and assess them as fairly as possible. Even before that, the question arises of whether what matters has become visible at all.

Leadership's task would then be not only to assess performance, but also to make visible value that people themselves do not want to, or cannot, make visible.

By this I do not mean a search for some special talent supposedly hidden in every person. It begins with paying attention to what actually happens.

Who helps others do their work better? Whose judgement changes decisions? Who keeps knowledge accessible, notices recurring problems or creates clarity before a situation becomes difficult?

Questions like these direct our attention to concrete contributions. They require neither mind-reading nor a complete account of someone's personality.

Of course employees also have a responsibility to talk about their work, raise difficulties and express their wishes for development. A manager cannot know everything. But responsibility should not be distributed in such a way that a contribution only counts once the person concerned has successfully marketed it.

The advice “You just have to sell yourself better” may help someone deal with an existing system. As the only answer, it is not enough for me.

Because it leaves open whether the system itself is overlooking something.

Leadership would therefore also have to examine its own way of seeing. A confident presentation should be a reason to ask more closely about the contribution. A reserved presentation should not be enough to avoid asking that question altogether.

That also means not judging work solely from a manager's own distance. People who work closely together can observe contributions that a manager cannot. Their feedback can help complete the picture. The important thing would be to ask about specific situations and effects, not about popularity.

And it means speaking with the person themselves. Perhaps an activity that seems especially suitable from the outside is not where they want to develop further at all. Perhaps they are interested in a task to which they have so far had little access.

Another perspective can then be explored through a manageable opportunity: a different question, a temporary collaboration, a contribution outside the usual area of responsibility. Not as a hidden test, but as a mutually agreed opportunity to learn more.

The manager does not have to claim to know better who someone “really” is.

Their task would be to make a discovery possible instead of making an attribution too soon.

Developing someone is not the same as promoting them

Once more of a person becomes visible, the next question arises: What follows from that?

For me, it would be a mistake to translate all these insights back into a single ranking. A person has not been understood more fully just because an assessment system now adds more characteristics together into an overall score.

It makes a difference whether someone delivers good results today, helps others in their work, could take on a new task or even wants a particular kind of development.

Good performance in a current role does not automatically prove suitability for the next one, either. A study of sales and promotion data from 131 US companies found evidence that companies placed considerable weight on previous sales success in promotion decisions, even though other observable characteristics predicted later management performance better.

This makes clear why recognition and filling a leadership role should not be the same decision.

A very good specialist should not have to become a manager before their contribution receives more recognition. Nor should a person be considered incapable of development simply because they do not seek a hierarchical career.

Someone may want to work more deeply in their field. Or on broader questions. Perhaps they want to pass on knowledge, solve difficult problems or have more influence on the quality of decisions without taking responsibility for personnel.

That, too, is development.

Conversely, career ambition is not something to hold against a person. The desire for responsibility, influence or better pay can go hand in hand with a substantial contribution to the company. Equally, good intentions are no substitute for solid results.

I want to keep these things separate.

Performance needs evidence. A new responsibility requires the right abilities. Development needs opportunities. And the person concerned should have a say in the direction of that development.

For the woman in controlling, this might mean continuing to recognise her analytical work while taking her enjoyment of exploration more seriously. Perhaps a new focus would grow out of it. Perhaps a different collaboration. Perhaps it would also turn out that she wants to keep her current role exactly as it is.

An open mind does not oblige anyone to make a change. To begin with, it creates a choice.

And where recognition is justified, it would also have to show up in real decisions: in time, trust, responsibility, development opportunities or pay. Merely praising invisible contributions kindly while leaving the decisive criteria unchanged would not solve the problem.

What grows along with the company

For me, this thought extends beyond the relationship between an individual manager and an employee.

Once a company distributes tasks and decisions among many people, not every assessment can be based on immediate personal knowledge. Role descriptions, shared criteria and transparent procedures therefore serve an important purpose.

The question is not whether an organisation is allowed to simplify. The question is what is lost in that simplification and whether it notices.

Suppose a company repeatedly mistakes a particularly self-assured manner for high potential. People who match that picture are given responsibility more often. Some of them later decide for themselves who will be supported and which ways of working count as exemplary.

In this way, a single misjudgement could become a pattern that gets passed on.

Assessment then affects not only who advances within an organisation. It can also affect who will later determine what counts as performance.

For me, this is where the link to scaling lies: a company can spread more than a successful way of working. It can also pass on the limitations of that way of working.

If a particular perspective carries little weight even in a small team, it may have an even harder time having an effect once the preferred approach becomes part of standards and decision rules.

It does not have to happen that way. Shared procedures can also help correct one-sided judgements. They can require assessments to be justified, different contributions to be considered and wishes for development to be discussed in earnest.

What would be standardised then is not an image of what a valuable employee should look like. What would be standardised is the care taken when deciding about people and their work.

That is an important distinction to me.

A larger organisation cannot know every person completely. But it can try to design its procedures so that a limited view does not become a final judgement.

Diversity would then not be only a matter of a team's composition. It would also concern whether different contributions are recognised and different people have influence over the company's future development.

Seeing more without claiming more

At this point, my thought needs a boundary.

A human-centred company should not seek to understand people more completely only to put every still unused part of them to economic use.

Not every personal inclination belongs to the employer. Not every additional ability has to become the next task. And a person may say that they do not want to bring a particular side of themselves into their work.

Otherwise, the promise to see someone more fully would turn into nothing more than an expectation to get even more from them.

What I mean is something else: the opportunity to make a contribution that suits someone, to receive appropriate recognition for it and to develop in a direction they have helped choose.

This also means taking boundaries seriously. Someone who supports others should not have to take on ever more invisible tasks precisely because they do so. Someone who has so far been overlooked needs not only additional responsibility, but perhaps also relief and recognition.

In this understanding, human-centredness would mean neither giving up on performance nor dissolving roles. It would require us to relate demands and people to one another without equating them.

The role remains important. Abilities remain important. Results remain important.

But they are not the whole person.

Developing our own way of seeing

I began by asking how well a company knows someone when it knows that this person does their job well.

Now that question leads me to another: How reliably does a company even recognise what this person contributes and what they would like to contribute?

The difference is crucial.

An organisation can assign clear tasks and still overlook relevant perspectives. It can employ different people and allow only a small part of their differences to have an effect. It can want to assess performance and respond mainly to signals that are easy to recognise.

It does not follow, for me, that assessment is pointless. What follows is that good assessment must begin with a willingness to question one's own way of seeing.

For leadership, that means not relying solely on those who already make their contribution convincingly visible. It means looking more closely, asking questions and creating opportunities in which other sides of a person can become apparent.

Not in order to find a hidden star behind every role. But to overlook as little as possible of what people actually do and want to develop.

A company that wants to develop people must also develop its own ability to recognise them.