How to Transfer and Instill Ownership
Last updated: October 12, 2021
Estimated reading time: 4.5 min
想象一下，你有一个工作人员，当你告诉他们做什么时，他做得很好，但他们似乎总是在等待你的指示。现在想象一下，你有一个员工，他不仅执行得很好，而且主动推动他们的工作。他们发现并解决你甚至没有意识到的问题，设计流程改进，并找到更好的公平、可持续性和结果的方法。
Assuming that both people are a good fit for the role overall, what’s the differentiating factor?
If you find that your staff person is acting more like an implementer of tasks and less like the driver of their work, the issue might be one ofownership. When we talk about ownership, we’re not talking about proprietorship—we’re talking about someone’s sense of responsibility and autonomy over their work. Ideally, we want everyone to feel empowered to move their work forward—which includes having a clear vision of success, the initiative and ability to anticipate and solve problems, and a sense of accomplishment when the work is complete.
Here are five tips for transferring, instilling, and affirming ownership of the work:
1. Set meaningful roles and goals.
We sometimes see managers defining the roles on their team in ways that treat staff people as assistants or helpers (and not in the capital HMOCHAway!). They create roles and goals that focus on specific activities rather than overall outcomes, such as asking an events coordinator to do X, Y, and Z, rather than saying, “You’re responsible for ensuring that our events run smoothly” or “Your goal is to ensure that this year’s conference gets an average satisfaction score of X% on logistics and that we increase the attendance of people with disabilities by Y%.”
这就产生了一个非常有问题的动态(特别是当存在种族、性别或其他身份差异时)，从而阻碍了真正的关系建设。它还将角色限制为只有经理可以想到(或喜欢)的方法和战术。An event coordinator who feels real ownership over their work might be empowered to come up with new and creative ways to get to the outcomes, potentially leading to better results in the long run.
2. Try the “you’re the CEO of ___” concept.
To fully convey the overall responsibility you expect them to take for their roles, try this statement: “You’re the CEO of ___.” In other words, encourage your events coordinator to think of themself as the CEO of events logistics and your communications director to think of themself as the CEO of media relations. Better yet, have them come up with aCEO statementin their own words! Whatever the statement is, they should feel proud of it and others should easily understand it. (Note: if the language of “CEO” rubs you the wrong way, replace it with “boss,” “captain,” or something else that strikes your fancy.)
3. Be explicit about decision-making power.
Our first two tips focus on specifying what your staff person is responsible for and the things that are within theirsphere of control. To minimize confusion, balance that with transparency about where they do and don’t have power—and where they share it with you.
To really transfer and instill ownership, be clear about the following:
- Decisions they have full authority to make without approval from you
- Decisions that they should make, with approval and/or heavy consultation with you
- 这些决定是由你或其他人来做的
4. Lean on their expertise and skills.
我们已经从责任的角度讨论了所有权，但所有权也涉及赋权。理想情况下，你的员工应该觉得他们是在他们的领域内推动工作的最佳人选——你也应该这样认为(同样，假设这个人总体上很适合这个角色)。通过定期利用他们的专业知识来交流信任和信心。Here are some examples:
- I’m working on setting a team goal to expand our social media presence next year. As our resident expert, what do you think would be a reasonable goal?
- 在你之前的学校，你大大降低了学生停学率。你能分享一些你使用的策略吗?如果我们在这里发起一个类似的倡议，你会怎么做?
- Thank you so much for finalizing the proposal before it went out. It makes a really big difference to have someone on our team who has your attention to detail.
5. Let go of the wheel.
Occasionally, if your staff person isn’t exhibiting ownership, it might be ayouproblem. Be honest—do you tend to micromanage? Do you hold tightly to your preferences and traditions? Do you hover in the background, waiting to jump in and take over at the first sign of trouble? Are you guilty of throwing thedelegation boomerang? If so, it’s possible that they’re not driving the work because your hand is still on the steering wheel.
管理者越投入工作，而不是像教练一样指导、发现和支持员工，他们就越会阻碍员工的成长和发展。从员工的角度来看，这在最好的情况下是令人讨厌的，在最坏的情况下是令人泄气的，导致信任和信心的侵蚀。
当然，放手并不意味着完全把自己排除在外，或者放弃作为资源的责任。在给员工留出工作空间的同时，你应该在有用的时间和地点提供支持或指导(比如采取措施和提供反馈)。