Developing Ownership

Have you ever wished your colleagues or employees would take more ownership? In this podcast we look at some key leadership success factors for fostering true ownership in any team.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Ownership. It's a topic that is in

Speaker 2: 0:04

The minds of many leaders and many organizations I've been dealing with for the past 10, 15 years. And it's become a much bigger topic since most of us are working in a remote setting from home offices, maybe as a leader, you would like your employees to take more ownership over their tasks and their results. If so, please stay tuned. This podcast can provide you with some ideas of how to foster a culture of ownership, even more effectively. My name is James Miller and I am a leadership trainer and management consultant mainly focused on efficient change programs and developing strong team cultures. I've been doing that for 15 years now. And this podcast is called ownership to start

Speaker 1: 0:51

Let's define what ownership means. Ownership means that an employee or a leader takes full responsibility for completing a task or achieving a target from a to Z. That means that they take care of planning, take care of every task required to complete it. No matter what the task is, it might mean delegating things to others. And it will in nearly all cases mean involving other teams, departments, and employees in the process, and someone who takes full ownership, make sure that everything happens from a to Z ownership is a topic of seniority. It's rather difficult to expect full ownership from fresh young, um, more junior employees. It's something we can develop in people over time. Let's have a look at some more detailed criteria of ownership. And to do that, let's first look at ownership or the opposite of ownership. Maybe you've experienced these situations. A deadline comes close or has actually been broken. And the employee says, well, I couldn't do it because of one of these reasons. Number one, other departments weren't contributing quick enough or other stakeholders when answering the emails quick enough, or number two, there was not enough time to complete the task because so many other things were going on and that can often lead to deadlines being missed. And in an experience or in an environment with no ownership, we might find out about that just in the last moments or when it's too late. A key question, there is, well, if there was no time, how long has this employee known that there was no time, or if other departments weren't answering, how long have they known that other departments aren't answering in an environment of ownership? These excuses just don't exist because ownership means completing a task in its full from eight to said, including all of the challenges that the organization brings with it. And those challenges have definitely rides since we're in a remote environment, someone that takes full ownership managers, that despite all of the challenges that are there. So that means in an environment of ownership, there aren't any excuses. There are no complaints. There's just facts, ownership, and movement forward. Now let's look at what we can do as a leader to foster a culture of true ownership. Step number one, number one is to communicate what ownership means to a team. Often first define it for ourselves and then agree on it with the team. If we explicitly, and ideally also in writing agree with the team, what ownership means and stands for. Then we raise the chances massively of people taking ownership, because if people know exactly what's expected of them, they're much more likely to apply it. And even if they don't, we can correct that. Some work on that and develop them. So recommendation number one is to define for yourself, what does ownership mean? What behaviors are ownership or behaviors or not ownership and how you would like that implemented. We can of course, motivate a team to do this. Because if every member of the team takes full ownership of their responsibilities, then the whole team is more productive. It's also a great environment to be in. If I'm working all day long with team members that truly take ownership, very rewarding, we need to define clearly of course, what ownership means by saying things like ownership means taking care of everything from ages. It, it means ensuring that all other stakeholders required to complete a task are involved and also delivering on time. And of course it means that when things get off track that someone that takes full ownership comes and clearly states that something is getting off track at the time they notice it's when the risks happen and also brings solutions with them calculated solutions that could be adding extra resources, doing, you know, a good, positive, calculated escalation, or it could mean moving targets forwards backwards. It might mean changing timelines for a different project to ensure a more important one can work. Someone who has ownership comes with the solutions. Number two ownership then continues when we assign a task to somebody. If I want someone to take ownership of a task, I need to give them a very clear goal with clear acceptance factors of when this task would be completed and then leave the path up to them. People can only take true ownership if they have the freedom to generate the path between where they are now and achieving the goal of a task or a project, as soon as we as leaders, even if we mean it really well. And I start explaining how the tasks could be completed, you know, giving hints and tips, employees quickly understand that as an instruction to do it that way. And as soon as they start doing it, the way the leader say is that reduces ownership, because if it doesn't work well, what are they going to say? Or you said, I should do it that way. I would have do it, done it differently. So as much as it might paint us, let's keep our tips and the way we would do things back and give the employee full freedom, because only if they have freedom, can they take on it? That leads us to the next challenge. Number three, what does it we do when mistakes are made or when things go in a wrong direction? Well, because in an atmosphere and in an organization of true ownership, employees have the ownership also to continuously report on status, share mistakes, share blockages, share risks are defined times and where they're needed and they will come to you and share their mistakes. And that's great, or they'll share what's not working or the blockages. And that's fantastic, more important than them sharing it though, is how we react to what it cause. An atmosphere of ownership also is a culture of learning. That means if someone makes mistakes or things, don't work out as planned, it's a learning opportunity. So we, as leaders should listen carefully, especially to their solutions. If their solutions require, um, us to decide something that's outside the employee's realm, then we can do that. And apart from that, just be there as a sparing partner and help them think through their solutions and find the best ones, most important mistake we should not make in those situations, no matter how well we mean it is to then say things like, well, why didn't you just do it like this? As soon as we do that, it shows distrust in the employee and they'll go and do what you said in many cases. But that again reduces the ownership. Every time someone makes a mistake or something doesn't work perfectly. It's our opportunity to further strengthen the ownership by leaving it in their hands to solve it. And us only solving things that are outside the employee's realm of decision, power, final point reward. Someone takes ownership. They come to us with challenges. They bring their solutions. Let's reward them with praise, with recognition and with confirmation that they're going in the right direction. And giving employees ownership also means that when they're successful, it's their successes. So let's reward them for that as well, both through our recognition, but also through public recognition of ownership and recognition for their efforts. If we recognize true ownership towards the other team members, towards other departments in the organization, we can kick off a really strong change that can bring a great ownership and with ownership, a lot more performance, power, and creative ideas to the organization. And on that note, let's finish for today. I hope you can utilize some of the points in this video to grow a stronger team with more ownership.

Speaker 2: 9:55

It creates even more motivation and better results. If you'd like to check out, gain the lead, please go to our website, www dot gain the lead dot T E, or connect to our LinkedIn page by searching for gain the lead. I'll see you again in a couple of weeks with the next episode of the gain, the lead podcast until then. Bye bye.