4 steps for ownership thinking

1. The Right Education: Provide your employees with the tools and training they need to actively participate in the financial performance of the business. This program should effectively tie personal finance to business finance toward taking the intimidation out of finance and helping participants to retain the information. The program also introduces them to the Ownership Thinking concept, and provides the tools they need to become active participants in the business.

2. The Right Measures: Develop a mechanism which is best for you and your business and associated templates to identify your Key Performance Indicators, build scoreboards, and forecast results with accuracy and accountability. We will teach your organization members to forecast results on a regular and formal basis, creating an environment of proactive, rather than reactive management.

3. The Right Incentives: Most incentive plans are nothing more than entitlements. Develop a training that insures that your plan will do what an incentive plan should do; that is to shape employees behavior toward improving financial results. Plans should be tied to the appropriate measures, but more importantly, they provide employees with the education and tools they need to fund them. Ownership Thinking can also help you to design sales compensation plans that focus your sales team on gross margin and overall company performance.

4. The Right People: Creates an environment of high accountability and visibility, and eliminates entitlement. In this environment, your top performers will excel, while your poor performers will typically choose to leave. Over time, and as shown in research from the NCEO, you will retain people at a 200% rate than your competitors who do not do business this way.

Attitude and Ownership are Everything by Art Sobczak

There are two attributes I've observed over the years that separate achievers, producers, and wealthy people from those just getting by or are failing, also being miserable, and perhaps bankrupt.

They are a great attitude, and taking ownership.

Without these two, you don't have much of a chance of passing mediocrity.

WITH these two, you can accomplish anything.

Attitude of course is comprised, among other things, of your desire, how you view everything around you and what happens to you, and your vision of where you're going.

Ownership is taking personal responsibility. Viewing and handling situations as if you owned them, even if you don't.

When attitude and ownership are in place, you can move mountains.

Let me share an example of attitude and ownership that I view as extraordinary.

This week I traveled to Dayton, Ohio to conduct a training program with some great pros at LexisNexis. While waiting for my bags at the airport, I finally realized that no more were coming out on the carousel. One of mine was missing. The one that contained the 50 training manuals for the next day. Gulp.

Being a road warrior, I know the drill. So I calmly got in line at the United baggage claim office. While waiting I studied the service representative handling the other unlucky bagless travelers.

The rep was masterful. Calmly answering questions, assuring the customers--a few understandably frustrated, and one inexcusably rude -- that their bags would arrive and be delivered to their destination that night. She handed out courtesy kits containing toiletries for those who needed them. She acted like a mother tending to a sick child, comforting, helping, reassuring.

Now, if you think this is unusual, consider the circumstances here:

United is in bankruptcy. Many, if not most, United employees are wondering if the airline will be around in a few months, and in what form, and if they will have a job.

United just this week won a court decision allowing them to walk away from its employee pension plan, meaning losses of lots of retirement money by employees.

United is still seeking further wage concessions from its employees in order to stay in business.

As if that wouldn't be enough to reduce any remaining morale to vapor fumes, consider the job of a person staffing the lost-baggage counter. All of the customers they deal with have just come off a flight (typically not a good experience), they are either going home or need to be somewhere WITH the items in their bags, and now they have the potentially pushing-them-over-the-edge news that their bag is not in the same city they are.

But, despite all of this, Erica Gehret had a great attitude, and took ownership.

When it was my turn, she again demonstrated the same helpfulness I had observed:

"Mr. Sobczak, I am so sorry. There is another flight coming in late tonight, and I will be certain your box is delivered to your hotel by 5 a.m. In fact, I'll update the status of this and you can check on that by calling this phone number tonight. I see you're a Premier customer with us and we appreciate the business."

I complimented her on a great job. She reiterated, with heartfelt empathy, "Again, I am soooooo sorry."

"It's not like YOU personally lost the box."

"I know, I know. But I'm a representative of the airline, and I want you to know we will take care of you."

Wow.

Most people don't have a fraction of the issues Erika, and other United employees are dealing with right now. Yet, she is looking at what she can control, and going beyond even reasonable expectations.

In my mind, she is acting as if she is being compensated based on how well she services her customers. And in her mind, perhaps that IS her compensation.

SELF CHECK

What is YOUR attitude toward your environment, what happens to you, and where you're going in your career and life?

Are you an optimist, or a pessimist? When difficulties arise, a pessimist says, "Oh, it figures, this always happens to me." An optimist says, "OK, what am I going to do about this, and what can I learn from this?" Then they do it to the best of their abilities.

Do you take ownership of what you do, or do you just put in time as if you're serving a jail sentence? Ownership means going above and beyond "good enough," ensuring the job is done at the highest level. Taking ownership means the difference between someone who dreads what they do, and someone who thrives on what they do, and are proud of their accomplishments after the fact.

When you own something, you take better care of it. You take responsibility for it. Keep in mind that you own your life, your career, and your future success.