"The executives love me. I get pulled into all sorts of major projects. I can see that I add a lot of value. But people say 'your job title is weird', and HR started asking why I'm paid so much if I have no direct reports. Plus I'm always a little worried that someone will turn around and say 'why are you not doing the work that's in your role description'."

What's happening: a language gap

You've been around long enough to build a great amount of trust across the organisation. You pick up what others can't, and people know it. Your work is high-value, often high-stakes. But the official record – your title, your JD, your place on the org chart – is lagging behind.

HR raises questions. A restructure puts you at risk of reporting to someone you've informally outgrown. Nothing is 'wrong', but something is 'off'. And the gap between what you actually do and what your role description says creates a nagging friction that keeps coming back.

This is not a performance problem. It’s not an ‘emotional’ or a ‘you’ problem either. It's a language problem: the work exists, the value is real, but no one has put together the institutional vocabulary to describe it yet. Including you.

Most job description frameworks are built for stable, specialist roles with clear outputs and defined scope. Shapeshifter work doesn't map onto those frameworks. It's responsive, cross-functional, contextual.

The organisation isn't against you. It just doesn't have words for you. And without words, it can't defend you, pay you properly, or place you correctly.

What you can do: take over the narrative

The organisation won't solve this on its own. But you can. The goal is to find language HR and managers can already recognise, and use it to describe what you do. In practice, this means writing your own JD. Don't wait for someone else to write it for you.

Concretely, you can turn to the shapeshifter framework. It will give you vocabulary that is precise enough to describe work that usually escapes definition. You can use it to list the key capabilities needed for your role, and to flesh out your key responsibilities.

Once you have a first draft, don't go to HR first. Find a manager who has done similar work themselves. Preferably someone who worked with you, and trusts you to deliver. They can help you refine your JD, so that it’s more likely to land in the organisation.

Now, to make it official, it’s probably best to wait for the next opportunity. This could be your annual performance review, or an internal change like a restructure or a new manager: when the org is renegotiating structures, proposing a new JD feels natural. This is also your chance to demonstrate that you know the art of timing.

Is this your situation?

• Your title feels like it belongs to a previous version of your role
• You regularly do work that isn't in your JD, and everyone knows it
• You find it hard to explain what you do in a sentence that would satisfy HR or a new colleague
• A restructure, a new manager, or a performance review is creating pressure to clarify

Where to start

• Use the shapeshifter competency framework to map what you do against the capabilities we describe
• Write a new version of your role, describing what the work actually is, using vocabulary from our framework.