A Year as Chief Culture Officer

Late in 2012, I was tasked with writing my own job description. My role had been shifting steadily at SmallBox. I was doing less client work, focusing more on marketing the agency. We noticed a growing need for some human resources expertise, which I’d learned a thing or two about in my accidental career. I knew I had the makings of a dream job, I just wasn’t exactly sure how year one as Chief Culture Officer might unfold.

Because I’m a bit of a geek, I actually included a pie chart of how I planned to divide my time on the job description I wrote and submitted to our CEO, Jeb. I’m not surprised I didn’t quite get it right. I vastly underestimated how much investment would be required in HR, and daydreamingly glossed over the need for crucial operational things like time-tracking and emailing.

The chart below shows in hours:
a.) how I thought I’d spend my time in the first year on the job,
b.) how I actually spent my time, and finally,
c.) how I hope to shift my focus in 2014.

The numbers from a.) were easy to come by, since I’d created that initial pie chart. Analyzing the data from our time tracking software, Harvest, made getting the data for b.) a snap. Now, if I can just will the figures in c.) into being.