Most of us think we have role clarity in our companies.

It is highly likely there is at least some, if not a lot, of confusion about who’s doing what. Every position or title has a number of different roles. Think of a title as a just the name for a set of roles.

Each role is a commitment to hold an area of responsibility in the company and is usually at one of three levels:

• support – has capacity or specific expertise,
• production – manages output, for themselves or for a group, or
• director – holds the responsibility across the entire organization.

Each person likely will hold somewhere between 2-8 roles. More than 8 roles tends to produce the potential for overload or burnout. Holding all the processes and practices to coordinate with the rest of the team is a lot to hold for very long.

For instance, a Project Manager might have the following roles in one company:

• Project Manager
• Estimator
• Detailing Support
• Project IT Support

and these roles in another company:

• Project Manager
• Customer Liaison
• Marketing Support
• Strategic Marketing Resource

How are each one of the roles connected? Not how are each one of the positions connected but how are the roles connected?

Getting clarity on roles and how those roles connect in an organization is part of the Self-Accountability Baseline.