I was at a Chamber of Commerce “After Hours” event in the 1990s, trying to master the art of networking. I approached this one guy standing by the coffee machine. I handed him my card and introduced myself. He handed me his card, and I noticed after his name it said “DMA”. Now I was familiar with many titles like PhD or MBA but not DMA, So I asked him, “What does DMA stand for?” His answer was “Doesn’t Mean Anything”
It is no secret that a job title can sometimes be useful in describing the responsibilities of the position, the level of the job, or both. But today job titles have expanded in many cases to just make the person holding the title feel important. It is not that they are not important, but changing their title does little for anyone, but the person holding the title.
Let’s take a trash man for instance. If he calls himself a “Sanitation Engineer” he may feel better about himself and the job that he is doing. It may seem silly, because as Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. The fact is, he is important. His job is important to the community and to you. Now, if you do not think so, just let him skip your house for a couple of weeks.
So, the exercise in renaming a title is a great way to make the job more appealing to the one doing it and is at times useful to let the person know how valuable you think they are. So let the fry cook join the “French Frying Legion”, your website designer become the “Digital Overlord” and your marketing director become “The Director of Awesome”. You just might find it to be helpful.