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Transcript
Hello, my name is Thomas Harris. Welcome to this episode. In it, we’re going to talk about taking ownership or what it means to take ownership of work because, as a leader, you want to be taking ownership of the work you do because it makes a difference in the results you get.
But you also want your team and create an environment and do the actions that it takes to get your team to take ownership of the work, of their work, because it will make a big impact in the results you and your team get.
Owning vs. Renting
When I think of taking ownership, a good example that I have seen is between owning a home and renting a home. That difference between owning and renting can mean a lot in how people treat the property they are on.
When they own it, there’s often a lot more respect and they take care of it more because it’s theirs. They make sure things are in good shape. They may take care of the carpet, better the walls and so on. They make sure it’s good because they own it.
But when people rent it, often there’s a different mentality. And it may not be huge for some people, but there is a different mentality because it’s not theirs. Some people just don’t think or aren’t as careful or observant to make sure things are taken care of as well. And it goes to people just trashing the place because they don’t own it.
It can be easy for people to think, well, it’s not mine. And because it’s not mine, I’m not going to worry about that or I’ll let something slide or treat it differently or not as well because of that.
What taking ownership means
That applies when it comes to taking ownership of your work and your job. Taking ownership is when you take a vested and personal interest in the work that you’re doing and its success. You’re, it’s just not a task you’re doing, but it’s something you want to put effort into because you care about the results.
When you take ownership of the work, you take responsibility for the results in the end because you care about making sure it happens. Its success is meaningful to you. And in fact, you’re likely to go above and beyond and be proactive and be innovative to make sure it happens.
And of course, the opposite is true when you don’t take ownership. When you don’t take ownership, you don’t have a personal investment in it. You don’t really care as much about the results. You’re just do it because you have to, because it’s something given to you.
That mentality of, well, it’s not mine that can apply to renting property can apply to when you are doing work that you don’t take ownership. “Well, it’s not mine, I’m just doing it because I have to.”
Just as you care more when it’s your own home, when it’s your own task, when you take ownership of the work or your team takes ownership of the work, there’s more ownership, you care more about it because of that.
And of course, that obviously gives you different results because there’s a different level of care and you’re going above beyond and so on.
How do you get your team to take ownership?
So the question then is, how do you do that? How do you get your employees to take ownership of their work?
Now, sometimes leaders blame their employees for why they aren’t getting the work done or why they aren’t taking ownership. And to a level, I mean, in truth, there’s a level to a degree that people have to choose to take ownership, but really, ultimately, it’s on you as the leader for why they’re not taking ownership because it’s based on the culture you build, the actions you take, how you delegate, and ultimately how you hire and deal with issues.
It’s on you overall, whether they take ownership or don’t take ownership. So how do you do that then? I will cover one aspect of it in this episode, and we’ll jump more on the next one.
It starts with the culture you build
The aspect I wanna talk about today is dependent on the culture that you build. If you build a great culture, it creates the environment where ownership is more likely to happen. But if you built the wrong culture or if you just allow the culture to be whatever it is, then it’s likely the culture may not be one that encourages ownership. It may actually discourage it.
Negative cultures
Some companies have a lot of bureaucratic rules. There’s a lot of distrust to employees. They feel like they have to control them. They have all these rules to make sure people do what they’re supposed to do. There’s a mentality of compliance and fear that you may be fear making a mistake because it’s going to hurt you.
So you don’t admit mistakes. You don’t admit when you don’t know. You may keep your head down to avoid being seen making a mistake. There’s the politics you have to play and pretend and blame game and all of that.
When you have that mentality, when you have a culture like that, there’s less likely of a chance for people to take ownership of their work because of the fear of mistakes, because of the politics, because, often in those situations, there’s not much input happening from the people. They’re just being told what to do and they better not get it wrong.
And so there’s this fear in it. And so people are more likely to do just what they need to do. They’re less likely to go above and beyond because, if they go above and beyond, then they’re taking a risk. And if they take a risk, then it may not go well, and if they take a risk and it doesn’t go well, it could hurt them in the career, could hurt them in their job, could be a mark on their career, whatever it may be.
So people are more likely to play it safe in those environments. And especially if there’s no input, if there’s, especially if it’s just a bunch of stuff that are being laid out, you have to do this, the control mentality, it’s going to be that “well it’s not my” mentality, it’s theirs.
That’s how often you get that us…. That’s often how you get that us versus them is that there’s that separation. It’s not us in this together. It’s not, we’re working on this. It’s, I’m just doing what I’m told.
And if it fails, it’s their fault. If it doesn’t work out, it’s on them. That was their choice. That was their decision.
And it also kind of goes to when people are making those decisions in meetings and there’s that fear and no one speaks up because they don’t want to upset the boss because they’re afraid it’s going to hurt their job.
So somebody pushes an idea and nobody disagrees in person, but then they disagree in mind and they disagree outside the office. They don’t own what’s happening. There’s no ownership of that idea or the new pursuit or decision that happened because of that fear, that mentality of not wanting to speak up and so on.
So if you have that kind of culture, if you have that mentality, then your people are not likely to take ownership.
Healthy cultures
But if you have a healthy culture, and I may have talked about this before, I think I have with bureaucracy and rules is, really when you have those policies, the only reason you should have policies is because it helps people be more productive. If it’s to control people or to deal with people problems because you don’t want to actually deal with the problems, so you create a new rule that affects everyone else because you’re trying to deal with people problems and you may fear actually dealing with that person individually or whatever it may be, that’s going to hurt you.
Yes, you want systemization. Yes, using checklists and stuff can be good as long as you remember they’re not set in stone and as they’re about productivity and you’re listening. All that stuff can be good, but sometimes those rules again hurt.
So yes, if you have a good culture where you’re listening, where people don’t fear making mistakes, that it’s about learning and growing, they don’t fear disagreeing because they know you’re listening, you accept feedback, feedback’s part of it, people feel safe to asking for help, all of those things. When you have that environment where there’s that listening and the feedback and the people aren’t living in fear, that there’s notes about growth.
And yes, in those environments, there’s still the high expectations and helping people get there and holding people to them. But there’s that feeling of safety. And I believe, what book was it? It was Simon Sinek’s, Leaders Eat Last, and he talked about this a good bit.
And he talked about when people are living in fear in an organization, they’re facing inward. And when you’re facing inward, you can’t really deal with the problems coming from the outside because you’re facing inward.
But when people feel safe, they can face outward and deal with the issues and help the customers and do all that because they feel safe and they have that trust with their customers, or with their company, with the bosses, with the leadership of the company. Now that was kind of beyond the ownership part.
But when you have that safe environment, when you have that culture like that, then you will more likely get ownership because people feel like they can take ownership. If people fear taking risks, then they’re not going to take risks. If they’re not gonna take risks, then you’re not gonna get innovation. But when people feel safe doing that, then they can own it and push and move forward in things because they have that safe environment that they’re in.
So that’s the first aspect to think about when it comes to your employees taking ownership, is do you have that kind of environment where they can take ownership? If not, then you need to start working to fix that and change that. And it may take some time, but you need to start doing that.
And I believe there’s an episode that talks about culture in the previous, first 20, I think. If not, I may can do another one at some point when it comes to building safe cultures.
Build that culture, start off with the right culture. And if you have that, then you have the foundation where people can take ownership.
Without it, it’s just going to hurt you.
We’ll hit some more points tomorrow, or not tomorrow, but on the next episode, and see you then.
