I recently read a book titled “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win” by
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin and I truly enjoyed it. The lessons learned in this book can be used in the business world and as the authors describe in their book, they actually do apply it themselves. I highly recommend this read.
After reading the book it got me thinking, how many of us really take ownership. How many of us really stand up and say, “you know what, I stuffed up it’s my fault and this is how I plan to fix it”. I am not sure whether I am alone in this, but I feel like very few people around me do this, and I am including myself here, I take ownership, but I don’t believe that I am perfect and probably fail at this as well from time to time.
Have you ever heard someone say yes, I made a mistake and it was because of this or that but … there it is, the “but”. Everything you just said means nothing because there is the “but” . It’s almost like reading something from a script called how to respond when you screwed the pooch and then add in the “but” to explain the real reason you are not responsible or not going to take total ownership of whatever went wrong.
How can we as managers allow that type of behaviour to continue within our companies and infect our staff negatively and in most cases teach our staff that this kind of behaviour is acceptable?
I also see a lot of finger pointing and blame shifting, and it seems like it is becoming an epidemic where there is almost a culture of it wasn’t me it was the other guy syndrome, nobody seems to want to take ownership anymore, never mind extreme ownership.
As a manager, do you back your team to the fullest, or do you proverbially throw them under the bus when the pressure is on, or when something goes wrong? I have seen some of this behaviour too, no ownership = no leadership, and with no leadership how do we expect our teams or companies or staff to perform and succeed?
What about the inverse where it is not about what went wrong but rather taking ownership of a task or set of tasks and ensure that you see it through to the end? A lot of times I hear “but this is not my job”, or “this is not in my job description”. Sure, we all have a job to do and each of us has a function to perform, but what about the client, essentially, we are doing something for a client right?
Why can we not instil a culture where everyone works to one common goal. Sure, everyone has their primary function, but when it is crunch time, the entire team pulls together to complete the primary goal and that is most likely to service the client. Instead, what I am experiencing is that in companies where the ownership culture is lacking, you get people that just say, “oh well that’s not my problem, that is not in my job description”.
What do the leaders of these teams do in crunch time? Are they in the trenches with their troops so to speak or are they home managing via email while the team members are at the office trying desperately to finish the work? If your managers are managing via email, you have a problem, and you should probably think about changing that manager as this is exactly what we do not need – a total lack of ownership.
If you have the wrong people in management positions, you will suffer. With the wrong leaders your teams will be led in the wrong direction and eventually you will lose good people to other companies who have the correct people in leadership positions. As the authors also stated “There are no bad teams, only bad leaders” this is probably the statement that I use the most in my own life and business.
I wager that if we instil a culture in our companies of extreme ownership, or at least try our very best to be more like navy seals – not the gun carrying combat ready seals, but the “we take full ownership of our actions and that of our team” (company) type of seals, we will see a turnaround in productivity and culture and we will generate the leaders in our companies that we need in order to succeed in an ever changing business environment
Think about what your company would look like if your staff practised extreme ownership and were led by managers who did the same, and in turn were led by leaders that practised the same belief? I don’t know what would happen, but I can certainly imagine that such a company would quickly become a force to be reckoned with in the business space.
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