Saturday, November 26, 2011

Ownership

Means more than just having the title to an asset.

I am a small business expert and I fix companies.

Ownership can be exchanged for another word - accountability.  It means that you will get up from your comfortable bed, chair, (fill in the blank) and take the inconvenient call, bring the dog in, discipline your child, (again, fill in the blank).
I don't know how you teach this if you aren't born with it; I think it can be awakened if it is dormant, but how do you teach someone to care?
Too many times I run into people who, truly, have no business being in their current role and responsibility; the guy who is paralyzed with indecision by the cushion that his wife's income from her job in Corporate America provides him so that he can afford to not make the tough decisions and declare himself.  Instead, he embraces mediocrity like a warm, moist towel and wallows in something that is not victory yet isn't defeat.
Or the guys who were partners in a business and wanted to go to the next step - one guy wanted to do what it took; the other was still smarting from a business reversal that had happened a few years prior.  That lesson, rather than galvanize him into action, taught him that he needed to now become the bottleneck for every decision (large or small) in the company.  Meanwhile, the business slowly strangled...

Ownership - requires boldness, wisdom, humility and (more than anything) the ability to shake the cobwebs out of your head and refuse to settle for complacency.

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