Also, as a previous poster said, it helps people within the organization know who to go to about what. I despise the list of silly job titles that people came up with from Quicken Loans. If job titles aren’t important, then why have people spend time trying to be clever and come up with something they think is cool? If I got an email from someone and in the signature it said they were a Conceptologist or a Wicked Website Innovator, I would not take them or their company seriously, and I’m a young guy who is hip to making the workplace more fun. I don’t even work 9-5, I work part time sales and tour in a rock band. Imagine how more traditionalists would view these unprofessional titles.

If you’ve got a healthy organization with people who want to be there and really commit themselves to the work, those self-titles can be fun and can give a chance for self-expression in the workplace. I’d say those are prerequisites, though – without that positive atmosphere, specific job titles become more important.

Poor management in an organization, a lack of obvious career paths, or general career worries such as the economic outlook, can cause employees to be more concerned with establishing career progress that looks good on a resume. While it’s fun to think of yourself as an “Office Superhero and Chief Firefighter”, that title doesn’t have substance outside of the organization. And if someone is genuinely unhappy with their workplace, such a title might actually backfire and cause resentment.

That said… I’ll admit that I used to have a title like that at a company I was formerly with. My director made up the titles and doled them out, however. Every time I looked at my business cards, I’d smile – and I still have a few. Being a Super Poster Extraordinaire didn’t get me my next job when the company went belly up, but I enjoyed that title in it’s own time, and it made me feel pretty good to know that my boss thought that highly of me.

I’m no longer in Corporate America, having left in the mid-1990s to pursue my love of speaking but having been there for several years (16 years on Wall Street), I find this conversation to be quite fascinating.

You (Alexander) are getting some very excellent questions, adding tremendous value to the ongoing conversation. They are asking you to help them solve a problem without diluting the effectiveness of the company’s organization as a whole. While the idea of giving ourselves (themselves, really) a self-made title, there remain real questions of who answers to who and who needs to be contacted should there be a conflict or problem?

The question that is now percolating in my mind is: Will giving ourselves a title lead to further confusion? Or will it lead to a stronger, happier organization? My initial belief would be that it would lead to a stronger, happier workforce becuase everyone feels good about themselves.

This is a great conversation, I’m very much enjoying it.