When was the last time you looked at your organization’s job description for you?
The longest one I ever got was three pages. I would get anxious just thinking about it.
That’s why I love the idea of boiling down what you do to a sentence. There’s power in keeping things short. It’s why Twitter is so popular right now.
Andy Stanley puts it like this:
Ask yourself, “what is my unique contribution. What is my core responsibility?” If you could only do what you could do, you need to identify it and schedule accordingly.
Your organization will be at its best when you are doing what you do best. Your entire organization.
To drive this deeper, create a one sentence job description for each of your direct reports. This is time-consuming, but it’s almost magic. No matter how big the job is, you can boil it down to one sentence. And when you do, it’s gold.
My team and I did this a few years ago and it’s been super helpful in keeping us focused on where our focus should be. Here are what some of our one sentence job descriptions look like right now:
Children’s Pastor: Lead, represent, and equip our team to minister to kids.
Secretary: Help our staff stay organized and professional.
Early Childhood Director: Gather and equip leaders who will help infants and their parents experience God’s love and peace.
Preschool & Special Needs Director: Resource and speak up for our 2s, 3s, and special needs leaders and families.
Kindergarten Assistant Director: Prepare our kindergarten leaders to present God’s Word in a way that captures the hearts of children.
Elementary Small Group Director: Connect kids to a caring, consistent leader and group of peers.
Elementary Large Group Director: Help kids worship God and prepare teachers to teach for life change.
Elementary Assistant Director: Provide meaningful questions and activities for our small group leads to engage kids in the Bible lesson.
If you had to sum up your job in a sentence what would it be?
Jeff McClung 