An officer and a gentleman?

Prabhakar Mundkur rues the rise of the “Officer” and the demise of the “Gentleman”

In many organizations jobs have not changed over the last 2 decades, but titles have undergone a dramatic transformation.

Take the new affliction and I may call the affectation of people in our business and other businesses wanting to call themselves Officers.  There was a time when only people in the armed forces ie., Army, Navy, and the Air Force, where people beyond a certain responsibility were called Officers. And being a naval officer’s son, I always associated Executive with civilian jobs.  My uncle for example was an executive with Shell, while my father was an officer in the Indian Navy. You know what I mean?

I started my career by being called an Account Representative in an advertising agency. While everyone else who was doing the same job in other agencies were being called Account Executive. I started my strategy planning career by being called a Strategy Planning Director. I got that title with great difficulty because my boss said the term Director was reserved only for Directors on the board of directors of the company. A very valid point, in retrospect.  Wonder how people on the board of directors feel these days? To see everyone around them also being called Directors.

Today, nobody who has a senior planning job worth his salt wants to be called anything but Chief Strategic Officer. Or every Finance Head wants to be called Chief Financial Officer.  Chief Executives were always Chief Executives. Now they are called Chief Executive Officers. Not that I understand what the mere addition of the word Offer does in that title. If someone were called Chief Executive, would you mistake it to mean anything but the number 1 position in the company? Chief Marketing Officer is preferable to Marketing Director and so on. The list is nauseatingly endless. Having said that I know for a fact, that people would not like to be called Marketing Officers. Somehow it seems junior to Brand Managers or Marketing Managers. With the addition of the word Chief however, the title would seem exalted and desirable to most people I would imagine.

In the Merchant Navy the top post on the executive/navigational side is Chief Officer also referred to as the Mate. The people who report to him are called, Second Officer (second mate) Third Officer and so on. Similarly, the Second Engineer, Third Engineer and so on report to the Chief Engineer. The Chief Engineer and the Chief Officer report to the Master who is usually addressed as Captain.  So, while the head of strategic planning might want to be called Chief Strategic Officer I doubt very much if the strategic planners would like to be graded as in the Mercantile Marine system, and be called Second Strategic Officer, Third Strategic Officer and so on according to their seniority? I would think not.

Well, someone whom I know is now being called the Chief Learning Officer. Another friend prefers to be called Chief Knowledge Officer and still another is being called Chief Information Officer. I frankly thought they were all in the same kind of job. Best of all I can’t quite understand what they do! Or how about this one? By the same logic I wonder why we never called our filing clerks when they were around Data Storage Specialists? Wonder why the head of the dispatch department is not being called Chief Logistic Coordinating Officer? I know of one Senior Administration Assistant who takes umbrage at being called Senior.

He feels it doesn’t reflect his level of responsibility. He says it makes him sound old rather than able. How about calling the head sweeper by something more responsible like Chief Hygiene Officer? And we could call the guys who wash dishes in our pantry Chief Cosmetic Maintenance Officers.

Anyway, now is the time to change your job title. If your job title doesn’t do anything for you, don’t just live with it. Try to get it changed. According to one research I came across, 70% of people would choose a more motivational job title over a pay rise. I am not sure about that one, because people are eternally unhappy with their pay rise! Unless the real reason is that they are unhappy with their title. I am sure the HR specialists will have logical and scientific answers to all my questions.

And for any reason if you like the title of Officer, you should take it quickly. Because these days it does not come bundled with the burden of having to be a gentleman, as in that 1982 film classic where Lou Gosset won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. For those of you who don’t know, Section 933 Article 133 of the General Military Law of the United States Code on the conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman says ‘Any commissioned officer, cadet or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming of an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.`

It’s a pity we don’t have code like that. Because while we have many more Officers, the Gentlemen are fast becoming extinct!