Creating the title for a blog or a new post is part of the fun. The title 'Coming up for air' is a better description of this moment than the content of the post, but it seems appropriate for a post about titles. I've been drowning in the adventures of life and work since finishing my MBA, and wondering if I'd ever have time to blog again. The title 'Coming up for air' describes a moment, not content, not me. Titles are tricky that way.
At work, titles can be useful in some professions and more trouble than they are worth in others. In IT, titles almost never tell you anything about the skills and experience a person has or what that person might bring to the table. Even if someone has a 'senior' or 'managerial' title, does that mean they merely rose to the top in an environment that used out of date technology or manual processes? How does that seniority bring value in a role that requires rapid learning and adoption of new technologies? What does some one's title really tell you in IT?
Don't get me wrong, I understand the social utility of a title and have asked for my fair share of important sounding titles (yes, I have an ego too). As an IT consultant, a senior title is a marketing tool - it gives the customer the impression that the consulting company has sent you one of their best people (well, one of the best titled people). I embraced the utility of titles as an IT consultant and did benefit from the marketing value. I was a technology mercenary, and did not have any trouble wearing the uniform (and the title) of the army for which I marched.
Within a corporate IT organization, it's less clear that IT titles really add much value. There could be a parallel to consulting titles for those IT roles that have face to face interaction with end users inside a company, but end users don't usually pay attention to the title of the person who resolves an issue. Titles might also have some value if they really reflected a person's responsibilities, but as a person who is responsible for multiple projects and systems, it's really hard to come up with any meaningful title in IT these days. Technology has changed rapidly, and 'typical' IT titles have not kept up.
Titles in corporate IT do have meaning; I'm just questioning whether the meaning has much value. Your title can quickly give people throughout the organization an instant understanding of your expected relative importance and authority. But, not everyone with a senior title delivers that expected value to the organization. A person's title can also indicate their relative value within a department - for example, if three people report to manager X, while two of the people have Senior titles and the third does not, there is a natural conclusion that the third person has less responsibility or experience, or delivers less value. But, the seniority implied by some one's title is fragile. Eventually, the impressions are either backed up, or contradicted, by what the individual delivers to the organization. If someone with an important title 'flips the bozo bit', their formal title does not matter.
Looking back at my own career, I've had some nice formal (boring) titles: Architect (twice), Director, Advisory Programmer, Vice President (once with a 'Senior' embellishment), Manager of this or that a couple of times. In managing my career, I now have to be careful of whether my past titles might make me look 'overqualified' or 'non technical'. What a pain. For the first half of a technical career you fight for titles, and the second half you try to escape them, like some kind of handcuffs. Fortunately, I've been able to find roles that allow me to enjoy learning about and applying technology where I don't need the 'instant authority' of a title in order to get things done. If the company I work for sees utility in a particular title, I wear the uniform, title, and authority of the army I choose to march for. Regardless of my title, I am comfortable working through influence, communication, and knowledge when I don't have formal authority based on a title. I manage people, but don't need the word 'Manager' in my title in order to do that.
The more interesting titles I've had are the informal names that I've been called along the way: Queen of the Island of Misfit Toys, Agent of Change, Cleaner (as in the Harvey Keitel character in Pulp Fiction), Counselor Troy (although trust me, I do not look anything like Harvey Keitel or Counselor Troy). I've been called a few other names I can't publish here, but none as interesting as one I've been called twice now in my career: 'Mom'. In my first job as a software development team lead at IBM, the team started calling me Mom; it's come up again in the past couple of years. Talk about having a high level of influence without formal authority; who needs formal authority when nobody likes to disappoint Mom? I do enjoy working with organizations that are evolving and maturing, or 'growing up', so maybe I am something of an organizational Mom.
Maybe we should stop worrying about titles in IT and give everyone some kind of avatar instead. What kind of avatar would I choose for myself, and what would our organization chart look like if all the boxes were replaced with avatars of the roles that were needed in the organization? Or what if we chose the avatars for all the people we worked with; our own custom view of the individuals on our teams? We can pick ring tones for people, so why not avatars? Or, maybe we should all adopt position names instead of titles, something like a football team. Being a member of the 'Special Teams' squad sounds interesting. I can hear my friends in HR groaning now.
At the end of the day, the company I work for does not exist to make me happy about what I'm called; they need to return value to the shareholders (of which I am one). For that, I'm happy to wear the uniform, title and authority of the army I march for. When I want to fuss over a title, I just create a new blog post and give it any title I choose.
Happy New Year!
