Job titles and their significance
In updating my website for the first time in a couple of years, I have been thinking about what I do and how to communicate that. As someone who has carved a living out from working with mission, it is often the case that I take on many different roles from project managing, fundraising & administration to activist, facilitator & catalyst.
On top of that though is another large part of my life which is being a parent and it is a job that I do, when at my best, with a great amount of passion, care and self reflection. And like with my professional life, it has skills that I am constantly developing through courses, listening partnerships and self reflection, which also have an impact on the quality of my professional work.
On creating this new version of my website and updating my mission, I started to ask myself whether the inclusion of this part of my life was something that needed to be added to my "job title". Having had some feedback on my mission already, which although largely positive, also included comments that it was "too new age" or "not open to corporate's", I began to consider more deeply what kind of work I am attracting towards me and what potential clients may want as well as what I can offer.
My hope and my intention is to be part of working environments which allow me to offer my extensive skill set for good use, and which creates opportunities for reflection on whether the work that I and clients do together is of benefit to the greater good as well as the clients primary need. What I mean by that is; Are our teams and workforces happy and contributing in a way a positive way to themselves and others? Does our work contribute to a better society and culture? Does it benefit our community (whether that is organisational, local, national or global)?
I am an optomist and whilst I appreciate these may not be obvious key business drivers in our stretched modern economic focused culture, I think that they address a more fundamental issue about whether what we do in a large part of our working lives contributes to the future of our children and all future generations.
Being a parent and the process that this journey has taken me on has been a large contributing factor in my outlook on life and the skills I have learnt along the way have made me better at what I do. It also enables me to more fully present on a day to day level with the multiple realities that we are faced with and adds compassion and kindness to the other tools that are in my box.