Pink Elephant Blog
Job Sculpting and How It Contributes to the Five Disciplines of Team Leaders
This blog post has been updated: Please note the term, job sculpting, is a trademark of CareerLeader, LLC and was established in a Harvard Business Review article dated November 1999.
Original blog post:
“…Job sculpting is a term that describes how managers give each employee some work to do that is especially motivating to him/her, while altering or transferring other work that might be demotivating (if at all possible).”
The term, job sculpting, is a practice that is promoted by New York Times best-selling authors Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick in their book, The Best Team Wins: The New Science of High Performance.
Why is it important for leaders to know about a concept like job sculpting? Because a massive shift is taking place in the business world. Through their research, the authors found that up to 80% of employees’ days are now spent working in teams – and that many teams are inefficient – with 96% of executives citing poor teamwork as the source of workplace failures.
Chester and Adrian, authors of multiple award-winning business books, have developed research-based science on how to ensure teams can work together more productively. In The Best Team Wins, they detail five proven methods that managers can use to build cohesive, productive teams, despite the distractions and challenges every business is facing. They offer practical ways to deal with an increased speed of change in business, global and remote employees, the rise of the Millennials, the need to work more cross-functionally across departments, and much more.
The Five Disciplines of Team Leaders
Chester and Adrian studied more than 850,000 employee engagement surveys to develop their five-point guidance to maximize work performance:
- Understand generations: Learn the important cultural differences intrinsic to each generation so you can best meet their needs.
- Manage to the one: Identify the drivers of each team member for maximum engagement.
- Speed productivity: Help new people and teams to work faster and smarter.
- Challenge everything: Inspire greater innovation through healthy debate.
- Now, don’t forget your customers: Focus on building bridges across functions, cultures, and distance.
The practice of job sculpting dovetails with the second discipline, manage to the one. It may seem simplistic, but teams – of course – are comprised of individuals. And, today, teams are increasingly being populated by Millennials who are driven by different motivations than individuals from other generations such as Gen X and Baby Boomers. The theory is that if you properly motivate and affirm each individual (from the respective generations) – and reinforce their positive behavior – your organization will then be better positioned for success.
Want to Learn More?
- Read a book review of The Best Team Wins by the Gainsville Business Magazine that states, “Suggestions and ideas abound – any team leader will find this a useful and inspiring guide.”
- Listen to the podcast How to Lead Your People to High-Performance with Chester Elton during which he discusses the five disciplines every leader needs to have to empower and motivate their team.
- Read Chester Elton and Adrian Gostick’s LinkedIn article that outlines Three Disciplines that Every Team Leader Needs to Master, which focuses in on three of the five disciplines contained within The Best Team Wins.
- Listen to a podcast or read an article on leadership featuring Chester hosted by the Della Leaders Club: Della Leaders Club, New York Chapter
- Attend Pink23 where Chester will be on hand to share his insightful knowledge and provide actionable guidance…
Expand Your Leadership Knowledge at Pink23
Chester – who’s been ranked the world’s #2 top organizational culture expert and #4 top leadership expert (by Global Gurus in 2020) – will once again return as a noted speaker who will deliver three different sessions at Pink23: the 26th International IT Service Management Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas from February 26-March 1, 2023. Chester has been called the “apostle of appreciation” by the Globe and Mail, “creative and refreshing‚” by The New York Times, and a “must read for modern managers” by CNN. Here are the sessions he will present at Pink23:
- All In: How the Best Leaders Create a Culture of Belief and Drive Big Results: Based on Chester’s New York Times best-selling book by the same name (co-authored with Adrian Gostick), this is a preconference three-hour interactive workshop that will help leaders with engaging, enabling, and energizing their workforces.
- The Best Team Wins: 5 Disciplines of Today’s Most Effective Team Leaders: This is a Power Hour session based on Chester’s book by the same name (co-authored with Adrian Gostick). Chester will explain the five disciplines (as outlined in the blog post above) as well as how managers can better lead teams to improved performance given the volatility and challenges that teams face today.
- The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance: This is an exclusive session for Executive VIP and Platinum Pass holders and is based on Chester’s best-selling book by the same name (co-authored with Adrian Gostick). This session will show, definitively, that the central characteristic of the most successful managers is that they provide their employees with frequent and effective recognition.
Pink23 Super Faithful Early Bird Offer – Just Three Weeks to Go!
The Pink23 conference program is still under development, but have faith that we will once again (and for the 26th time!) deliver the very best and most content-rich program in the industry. Register and pay before August 5, 2022 to save up to $1,400!
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