I based my version of Position Agreements on the book E-Myth Mastery by Michael Gerber.
I modernized Gerber’s concept of a position agreement to reflect the realities of a connected enterprise with service levels agreements as well as the opportunity to model a job position with a focus on the functional, interpersonal and institutional Jobs to Be Done by the person, now and in the future.
So, Position Agreements constitute an agreement by and between the CEO and a team member. These agreements do not constitute a binding legal document or contract.
Rather they work more like a memorandum of understanding that articulate and define what would otherwise persist as unexpressed assumptions, expectations, and behaviors.
Beyond a basic job description, Position agreements feature role-specific Objectives and Key Results, two categories of work (working IN the business and working ON the business), and values, behaviors and protocols.
So, Position Agreements define why, what, and where to model the performance of a specific job and social norms for how we roll and get things done … relational guidelines for the who, how, and when.
While I have written elsewhere the mechanics of Position Agreements, I have startup CEOs and COOs use Position Agreements to outline the accountabilities of a new position, blending the development of new and existing systems to achieve or enable achieving OKRs for the company, team or individual.
The addendum of a Position Agreement includes a growing list of operationalized protocols, starting with Weekly Check-ins, Weekly Management Meeting, Monthly Business Review of ORK progress, closed-loop communications, needed solution prototyping, and so on.
