Sep 29 2010
OWNERSHIP ROI
ARE YOU ALL YOU HAVE?
You can hire (even borrow) others
but you can only bank on your self!
Whether you function out of a home closet, garage, kitchen table, 100,000 sq. ft. factory or warehouse, a fancy corporate center, a retail storefront, or a truck, it’s one thing to find people or a person you can trust to help you with your business, and quite another to translate that find into responsibility you can bank on.
Reality check: No matter how much you love someone who works for you, no matter how conscientious an employee may be, you are ultimately the one who has everything on the line, and you are the only one who has to answer to investors, lenders, suppliers, and — in the end — customers.
Short of turning to your family (and even that rarely works), it’s probably close to 100% true that people only accept responsibility commensurate with what they think is merited by their compensation. In other words, only business owners and partners practice an ownership sense of responsibility. This goes beyond turning off lights and taking out the garbage.
If you’re not ready to make your support team owners/partners, then consider these options:
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Teaching others to have ownership attitudes and sense of responsibility is not the same as cultivating it or making it happen.
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Leadership by example is one way.
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Small frequent rewards is another.
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Reliance on Maslow’s Hierarchy as a guide for rewarding people at their need level is yet another.
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302.933.0116 Hal@BusinessWorks.US