Job Descriptions

I was on a call last week with an owner who had just lost his third operations manager in two years.

He walked me through the hiring process each time. The interviews went well. The candidates seemed sharp. References checked out. And then, within six to eight months, things fell apart.

I asked him one question: "Can you show me the job description you hired from?"

He sent it over. It was a list of tasks. Answer emails. Coordinate with vendors. Manage the team. Attend weekly meetings.

That is not a job description. That is a to-do list with a salary attached.

Here is what was missing. There was nothing about what success actually looked like in the role. No outcomes. No standards. No clarity on what decisions this person owned versus what they needed to escalate. No indication of what "good" looked like six months in.

So the managers showed up, did tasks, and had no real anchor for whether they were winning or losing.

Eventually they either burned out from the ambiguity or the owner quietly lost confidence in them.

The job description is not an HR formality. It is the first place you either set someone up to succeed or quietly guarantee they will fail.

When your job descriptions define outcomes instead of activities, something shifts. People stop waiting to be told what to do and start orienting themselves around results. That is the difference between a hire who needs managing and one who can actually carry the role.

Most owners I work with have never written a job description that defines what winning looks like. They have only written ones that describe what busy looks like.

So here is the question worth sitting with. If someone joined your company tomorrow in a key role, would your job description tell them what they are actually accountable for, or just what they are supposed to do all day?

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From "The Owner's Almanac" - 90 days to build a business that runs without you. Available on Amazon.