A Job Title Is Just a Job Title

Your job title is a label for organisational purposes.

It is not your identity, your worth, or an expression of your limits.

I have seen people refuse opportunities because ‘that’s not my job’ or avoid learning something because ‘I’m not technical’, or ‘I’m not creative.’ The title becomes a cage.

‘I’m just an admin assistant’-that makes you ideally suited to identify a process improvement as you experience the problems daily. ‘I’m a junior’-so you are likely to have the freshest of ideas.

Your job title describes your current role, not your limits. See a problem you can solve? Solve it. Want to learn? Learn.

Don’t let a title hold you back or stop you from asking for help.

How I Use AI, 1 of many.

I use Claude and I have a new regular use. When I have ‘finished’ a piece of writing I drop it into Claude and ask for feedback. I deliver to Claude what I believe is ‘perfect’ from spelling to readability to logical flow. I ask for the feedback to be batched into spelling, grammar, logic of flow etc.

I find the results very, very helpful indeed.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

The phrase is the title of the first book by author Susan Jeffers.

Sometimes, the most productive way forward is also the most fearful. For example, you realise it is critical to stop a project that is going badly, even if few are willing to acknowledge it. And that might involve speaking to a very senior person in the organisation to say, ‘We need you to remove a blocker, and only you have the authority to do it.’ Or it might mean that you must present to the whole division, so everyone clearly and succinctly understands what is going on.

As you pursue the productive path, recognise that you will often feel fear. This is not a sign that something is wrong; often the feeling shows that you are engaging with something that matters. Fear highlights that you are in unfamiliar and risky territory; you might fail but fear is certainly not saying, ‘don’t do it.’ Do not wait to feel fully confident; confidence comes from action. You do not feel brave and then act; you act despite fear and then feel brave.

As I say in my presentation skills course, let’s simply accept that you feel anxious before your talk to the board. But with planning and preparation, it will go well and afterwards you will feel amazing.

Write? Meet? Pitch?

Before defaulting to calling a meeting, consider whether it is necessary. Maybe it could be a report? Perhaps a presentation.

Here is a decision tree:

Write a document if: You’re sharing information You need a record It’s complex and people will need to process it at their own pace

Meet if: You need real-time debate to reach a decision The relationship benefits from face-to-face interaction There’s emotional or political complexity that requires reading the room

Pitch (brief, informal conversation) if: You need quick input You’re testing an idea before committing to formal communication It’s genuinely time-sensitive

If you have any doubt, default to writing. It scales better, respects people’s time, and produces better thinking. Writing forces you to define the problem and to admit whether calling the meeting was simply delaying the decision.

Action: Decide: write, meet or pitch.

In The Pipeline

The Companion Series.

  1. Productivity.
  2. Presenting.
  3. HunterGatherer

Novel Pierre Lambert and The Cold Case Centre.