Page 52 - Make Work Great

Overtness About Task

Be Overt About Your Purpose
WRITE YOUR SUMMARY OUTPUTS

• Don’t make assumptions. Delve deep to discover your workplace
purpose.

• Write your workplace purpose as a short, overall statement

followed by a list of five to seven summary outputs.
• Realize that your list may change frequently and require adjustment.

and-after overtness helps the owner to recognize what’s different. The
list is a snapshot in time and always subject to revision.
When it comes to workplace purpose, your goal is to become overt
about your purpose at the moment, to have a detailed picture of what
you’re supposed to produce. In doing so, you make your work life easier,
pave the way for your other five types of overtness, and write the script that

later becomes a platform for communication within your new culture.

2. Be Overt About Your Impact
Behind your workplace purpose lies its impact—the answer to the
question “So what?” Perhaps you make a direct contribution to the
company’s bottom line. Maybe your work supports the efforts of your
management team, creates better processes for those around you, or
disseminates knowledge. Perhaps your efforts produce a better experi-
ence for customers or your work supports a product that saves lives.
In any event, the application of your particular expertise to your sum-
mary outputs will produce a unique and valuable result. It pays to be
open with yourself about that impact.
Consider Brenda, an IT technician in a sales organization. She
spent most of her time supporting her company’s sales force in the use
of customer database, communications, and tracking software. One

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