The Moment When Odd Jobs Transform into Company Profit

This is the article for Day 23 of the Mamezou Developer Site Advent Calendar 2024.

I'm Nakayama. For about the past five years, I've been juggling consulting and marketing related to DX.

Today's Advent Calendar article brings you my wandering thoughts about the miscellaneous tasks I struggle with in company life.

Reminding people about attendance confirmations, aligning PowerPoint formats, acting as a proxy for registrations, being assigned spontaneous ideas, making small adjustments within the team, and so on—companies have a wide variety of miscellaneous tasks, large and small.

These are nameless tasks, so of course there's no one in charge. However, for projects or departments to run smoothly, we need someone to do them. Or rather, because nobody wants to do them, in the end we have no choice but to do them ourselves... or are made to do them... Many people might feel this way.

I'm one of those people. But at some point, the feeling of burden began to lessen. Is it a state of resignation, or is it something else?

Previously, while harboring resentment like "This isn't my job," I would reluctantly do the tasks because someone had to, and it was better than waiting for someone else to do them and making no progress.

While worrying that my own tasks were being squeezed (first burden), the quality, productivity, and deadlines of the output were haphazard, and there was no sense of accomplishment (second burden), and even feeling anxious like "Do I have a lot of miscellaneous tasks because I can't be utilized in core duties?" (third burden), naturally my motivation decreased.

The first transformation was feeling a sense of achievement and being praised for quality in tasks that made things easier for me and that I could handle with my strengths.

For example, instead of mere transcription, I started checking for relations with other things or rewriting sentences so they'd be understandable later, and people told me it became easier to understand. Plus, the back-and-forth decreased, making it easier for me too. Instead of just aligning document formats, I began simplifying the content and doing beautification like neatly arranging the layout. There are always some people who are not good at this kind of work, so they appreciated it.

The second transformation was changing my perspective through working with people in higher positions and becoming conscious of whether it would lead to company profit. I started to find ways that even miscellaneous tasks could benefit the company, and began to notice tasks that should be done.

For example, helping create sales materials ("This material might be used in the upcoming exhibition, so it's better to do it now"), organizing procedures for indirect operations ("Every time someone new joins, the same things take time, so let's summarize it once for efficiency"), and so on. As I proactively got involved in miscellaneous tasks that weren't the highest priority but were desired to be done urgently as much as possible, the burden started to lessen.

I feel that miscellaneous task skills are helpful for managing projects and running organizations. By leveraging your second or third strengths to do the miscellaneous tasks you want to do, you can gain experience and acquire skills that can be used over a wide range. I hope that recognizing this can reduce the burden of miscellaneous tasks.

One method to get people to recognize it as a necessary role is to give it a name (conceptualize it). Although I haven't found a good word, perhaps something that has a positive connotation like "The One Who Takes Things On" or "CZO (Chief Zatsuyou Officer)."

I intend to continue handling miscellaneous tasks that I believe will lead to company profit.