I recently came by an interesting article that examined a certain personality aspect and what it means for choice of job. That aspect was the desire to make your own rules in the workplace vs. enjoying to optimize something given. Obviously someone who does not like to work under imposed rules will be better off by starting their own business rather than joining a large organization. So far, so good.

There is, in my view, an additional “angle” to this. Looking deeper into the optimization of existing rules, processes, policies, etc. there are two conceptually different levels to do it. The first is gradual improvement, and I suspect this is what most people think of. It basically means that you do your job and once you have enough experience and the appropriate mindset, you start seeing opportunities where things can be done better.

But where it really starts to get interesting is when we talk about radical changes. A current example is the switch of large parts of the software industry to a subscription-based licensing model. This has implications for an enormous variety of aspects (and their KPIs for that matter). A few examples would be

• Sales: Strategy, staff training
• Finance: Treasury, reporting, investor relations
• R&D: Release planning, product quality
• Legal: Contracts (number, variance, …)

The problem with the examples above, is that it is a purely functional view. The latter, by definition, creates challenges for processes that cross functional boundaries. And I daresay that most core processes are not confined to a single department these days.

So, coming back to job types, what do I do if I have a really fundamental understanding of the situation and its challenges as well as great ideas how to handle things, but do not like corporate politics? I am certain that those three factors (truly understand the problem, have a sound solution, no politics) are a fairly typical combination.

The reason lies in what kind of jobs people with a certain personality typically choose. The people who are interested in deeply understanding things are usually more on the reserved, and often introverted, side of the spectrum. Also, they typically hate office politics and just want to do a great job on the “content level”.

Coming to a (preliminary?) conclusion this means that in most organizations people have three options and they come down to the old “love it, change it, or leave it”. I can accept office politics as a by-product of a really interesting job and learn to live with them. Most people, I guess, will stay silent and just do their job but more or less quit internally. And a few brave souls will look out for something new.