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Our startup team has accomplished a lot over the past few years. As a team leader and entrepreneur, the story I am sharing with you right now is the secret behind our success. We were successfully acquired by our largest competitor, where we became a corporate R&D group building businesses and software products that have made over $100m and helped millions of people across diverse industries. But first, a story.
It’s Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend.
The clock is pushing well past quitting time. The last few details of a major product release are coming together in the waning hours of the day. “How about we call it a week, and get a start on the weekend?” I ask with a quirky smile. I figured what the answer would be, and I was right. Nobody moved. It was more important to carry through the last steps of the project than to head home for the holiday. This is a small gesture that lends visibility to something much more important than an extra couple of hours on a Friday. This attitude of dedication and involvement is typical of teams where a strong Ownership Mentality is present. The word "owner" stands in stark contrast to when employees see themselves simply as employees. Employees run for freedom as soon as the official workday is over. Ownership Mentality is a defining characteristic of entrepreneurs, where work is imbued with self-identity. And while Ownership Mentality is most often thought of as a characteristic of entrepreneurs, as we found out ourselves, it is powerfully important for teams working together within corporate environments. And what happens is magic. When a few group members begin to operate with a strong Ownership Mentality, you begin to see the formation of a High Performance Team (HPT).
With an active Ownership Mentality, contribution of each individual and for the team as a whole moves into high gear. From a results standpoint, we see that this kind of high performance team gets work done, at higher quality, in less time, with greater creativity, than teams that don’t feel ownership of the work. On the personal level, HPTs enjoy work more and find higher levels of learning, satisfaction, and personal growth. Being a member of this kind of work environment feels like being aboard rocket taking off from a launchpad, with no upper bound to what you can accomplish together.
One particularly striking result of Ownership Mentality is the very strong and direct alignment of team members and the goals of the company. This is the 'holy grail' of HR and corporate management courses in MBA programs. When the HPT mindset is present, there is an acute sensitivity to a wide spectrum of the elements that come together to make the business run. Seeing it in action is one of the great privileges of being a manager of such a team. We have terms like “Ownership Mentality” and “High Performance”, but what do they actually mean?
“Let’s play a game, you and me”
This is what children do all around the world. They bring their imaginations together and share stories and imaginings. They create castles in the sand, fly through the woods together in imaginary airplanes, have tea parties with royalty, and allow their imaginations to carry them and their curiosity forward into unknown and exciting places. Kids do this universally and automatically. And it’s what adults want to do too- even if many of us have forgotten. This energy and curiosity, channeled to a shared purpose is what lays behind high performance teams. Asking the question "what if?" is a powerful way for all of us to switch into exploration mode and activate a sense of play in our work.
Ownership Mentality is curiosity and play, channeled through a skillset and applied to a set of tasks and desired outcomes.
Ownership Mentality in the workplace:
- Team members show strong motivation to improve their skills
- Strong alignment of actions with objectives
- High levels of satisfaction
- Sense of ‘work' becomes a sense of purpose and play
- High attention to detail, workmanship
- Push to deliver finished projects to customers
One of the most interesting aspects of Ownership Mentality is to experience a shift in perspective with regards to the very nature of work. What happens is that there is a “polarity flip” from the sense of “doing someone else’s thing” to “doing something you own thing? When you identify with the work, when you own it personally, the sense of work (as in ‘when is this work going to be finished?’) disappears. It is replaced with a sense of purpose and a desire to act with curiosity and to see what happens
Because the Next Step is Always the Most Important One.
Let's take it together, you and me.
