The Partner Channel Magazine Winter 2017

44 WINTER 2017 | THEPARTNERCHANNEL.COM
take on extra work “pushed” from another department because they feel accountable. But the outcome of doing
that can be pent up frustration and resentment. It also can result in deep diving into a personality conflict. Now,
all of a sudden, someone who was always perfectly “fine” in your eyes has a “personality flaw” because they didn’t
do what you wanted or didn’t pay you back for a favor. Sometimes accountability means you just give the answer,
knowing full well that your answer was not useful or didn’t even come close to fixing the problem…but it was an
answer, right? Your accountability is over. Don’t misunderstand that all accountability is “bad”. More often than not,
it is good because as a project manager, clear accountability for deadlines and task completion is nirvana to me;
however, as I work with more seasoned project managers, we have switched from task completion to ownership
of the customer solution, meaning that the task really isn’t done unless it helps the customer reach success. Just
because the software is live doesn’t mean the customer is successful.
So, what is ownership? Ownership is a culture shift, a philosophy, a mission, and most often, a personal intrinsic
drive to serve. In the book “The Florence Prescription: From Accountability to Ownership”, author Joe Tye encourages
healthcare facilities to think like Florence Nightingale. Florence owned the soldiers’ recovery in the Crimean War. She
owned their successful return to society, whether it be providing them with books so they could learn and feel valued
or stitching a wound. Ownership does not have job description lines or territorial walls; it has a team of people with
expertise driving to serve the customer and own their success. “Their”, in this case, is customers’ success.
Now you may be saying, and rightfully so, “BUT, if we own the success of the customer, how are we going to
get paid, who is going to know what to do if there are no job descriptions or clear lines of accountability?” Fair
questions! However, when employees at Zappos own the customers’ experience and success, they are not afraid to
do what they do best in their discipline, engage others that can help (without worry of job description walls), and
drive for solution, not just activity, until they solve the problem.
Ownership is when you multiply the effects of others on your team and across the company. Liz Wiseman, author
of “The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools”, has some great information on how companies
diminish (unintentionally) team members’ ability to “own” the success of the company. For example, isn’t it a great
idea to have a LOT of ideas as a leader? YES! On the flip side, if the leader is the only one with ideas that ever get
heard or tried, we enable people on our team to feel that “coming up” with an idea to “solve” the problem is only the
leader’s job. What a bottleneck, and worse yet, what a waste of great talent.
On the other hand, Wiseman encourages companies to own the environment but “play fewer chips”. Meaning that
the leader gets a certain number of poker chips to use in a meeting, and the poker chips indicate how many times
they can solve a problem or be accountable, but the team gets unlimited chips and owns the problem. Ownership is
about “finding the genius” in everyone and helping move forward profitability, with high customer satisfaction and
an engaged team. Practically speaking, ownership is about saying to your customer, “If we could solve one problem
for you, what is it, and why is it important to you?” Maybe they will say, “Help me hire better people, account for my
financials better, get to market faster, become more efficient, etc.”
Someone in the software business has been given a gift. If software can own the success in those categories,
bring in the right people, processes, and automation, their business opportunities have just expanded well beyond
double-click implementation margins. A culture of ownership is also one that starts with the company senior
leaders owning the employee experience. It is not a soft culture where everyone gets to do whatever they want.
Rather, it is a culture where senior leaders feel a sense of obligation to their employees to ensure they have the right
resources, working environment, time off, family life, pay, social relationships, and freedom to grow. When asking
300 Gen Zers what they wanted most from an employer who was inspiring, they did not say, “entitlement”; they said
“RIGOR”. They want to know they have to work hard and that they own the problem, but they also want to know
that they are valued and respected and not on the lowest rung of the corporate ladder. Moving from a culture of
accountability to a culture of ownership requires a mind shift first, behavior second, and supporting systems third.
For example, to shift mindset, the senior leadership team (or you, as a leader, even if the big dogs are not on board)
can begin by taking ownership of the employee experience. Don’t be just accountable for a paycheck (which by all
means is important), but be accountable for how rewarding your company is to employees and how valued they feel.
Watch this video on the leadership crisis*, and see what Barry Wehmiller has to say about the new company metric, in
addition to ROI, sales, revenue, and margin. The new company metric is employee divorce rates. Wehmiller feels that
ownership of the employee experience goes beyond accountability to results; it goes to ownership of an employee’s
ability to be the best parent, the best spouse/partner, the best person in the community they serve.
Second after the mind shift is the behavior shift. Knowing all of this is right is probably not arguable; however,
the real shift happens when each of us are faced with a choice to support the new mind set and we choose to act,
even if it doesn’t feel comfortable. For example, I have dealt with a certain record keeper for years, and his standard
answer is why we “cannot” do something. I respect that we have to keep records in education. I respect the fact that