On Work Culture: Ownership and Execution

One of the worst habits I have come across in post-graduate work life is the inability of companies and teams to execute on the things that were planned, promised or sold. The excuses brought forward are as countless and rich in their variations as the people that express them. From top level managers to workers in the lowest trenches – they all excuse and try to ditch the blame instead of owning the problem and standing up bold even in times of failure.

There is one thing all businesses and industries have in common, and that is the requirement to actually execute on your ideas. On your plans. Strategies. Initiatives. You can spend weeks on planning and visualizing, debating and lecturing. At some point you’ve got to either leave it or execute it. The problem with most “office work” now is the lack of reliable and accurate measurement methods. A lot of trust in employees is required, allowing for a lot of failure and chaos. A good reference to that is the concept of `Work in Progress’, which I stumbled upon in the book ‘The Phoenix Project’, really worth reading for anyone close to IT or leading a company that runs significant IT based operations (https://www.amazon.de/Phoenix-Project-Helping-Business-English-ebook/dp/B00AZRBLHO).

Anyway. During one of my employments in the IT industry, a top manager issued a command to his employees: No more excuses. He had grown tired of his sales and delivery teams having nothing to offer but excuses about why things did not go according to plan again. The order given was understandable in its purpose and reasoning. However, there was literally zero impact on business through that particular command. What was expected was a fundamental change in culture, which cannot be commanded via e-mail. It needs to be established and managed over a period of time. At the time I could not understand why the change in culture demanded by the man was not acted on.

Today, I think I figured it out a bit. I guess, it takes some smaller steps to achieve a “no excuse” culture. People that have been working in a non-independent and top-down management / centralized command environment for too long have simply forgotten what it means to feel responsible to want to deliver. To own a problem. To feel accountable for the success of their company. Some good ideas on ownership are presented in a book I recently read: 'Extreme Ownership' by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. The authors are former US soldiers having served in the Iraq war, hence there is a lot of military slang in the book. But the fundamental message and ideas can be applied 1:1 into the business world: Ownership, Accountability, Decentralized Command, Leadership on all levels.

Another way to address a businesses’ or team’s inability to win certainly is the implementation of a culture of ‘Ruthless Execution’, which means that you execute on your tasks without excuse and without delay against all odds to achieve the mission goals you are assigned to achieve. You get a task, look at it, judge its feasibility. If you accept the work, then you deliver it in time and budget. If for any reason you find yourself failing to deliver in time or budget, raise a flag immediately and explain why you are about to fail. Don’t notify after failure, notify before and seek help. As simple as that and nothing else. 

Actually, owning and executing a task is the foundation of every employment on this planet since the beginning of time. However, in my life I have seen most of all work assigned to people being delivered with delays, flaws in quality or at higher cost than agreed. There is a pattern. It seems that without proper leadership and a culture of ownership and accountability, people just tend to slack around and try to do the absolute minimum somehow instead of the best possible always. Some tiny suggestions to all you team leaders and managers out there to maybe avoid such issues in your team or company:

•      Don’t delegate everything away, you might appear lazy, arrogant and careless
•        Don’t gate-keep and try to own everything, you will definitely fail and burn out and fail
•      Don’t nurture internal competition beyond a certain level, it will eat you alive

Instead you should

•        Do make sure that achievement is rewarded, failure is punished (adequately)
•        Do lead the people in your team, don’t just manage them
•        Do help your guys out and be with them in the trenches, else you’ll have no idea ever

Whether you are a top or low level worker, you should always

•        Own the tasks assigned to you and especially also own your own career
•        Consider your job something that DOES matter to the company’s success
•        Raise inability to execute early and honestly, don’t hide your weaknesses
•        Give 110%, no more but no less either if you want to get ahead healthily

I am not wise or experienced in from a years-worked point of view. Yet, these things above seem kind of simple yet most often ignored or not even held in mind by any employee in any company at all. Yet, the represent the foundation for success and a good work-life balance with a culture of ownership and the ability to execute and win.