Take a quick peep into the work culture of any of the most successful companies in the world, and you’ll find a single common thread running through all of them. The employees work hard, granted, but there’s more to it than that: they play. And we don’t mean taking breaks in between a busy schedule to engage in fun and games, though that does help employees unwind in a high-pressure environment; they transform the nature of their work into something to be enjoyed, celebrated, and cherished.
How do they do this? They collaborate in a culture of trust and accountability. In short, they take ownership at the workplace. Several studies have shown that, in high-performance organisations, there is a strong link between employees fostering a culture of trust and accountability, and their taking ownership. Ultimately, the best of them grow to embody the values of their organisation.
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What Does it Mean to Take Ownership at the Workplace?
Taking ownership at work comes down to taking initiative; we own a task when we are wholly convinced that it is our primary responsibility, not someone else’s. An individual is accountable for the timelines of a task, as well as the quality of its outcome, whether or not he or she is collaborating with others.
Taking ownership comes down to this: you are as invested in the outcome of tasks or activities as the owner of the organization. This does not mean that you step outside the scope of your role and assume a higher position, but that you act in accordance with the values of the organisation while delivering at your highest capacity.
Let’s boil it down to its essence: when you take ownership, your fellow employees and your higher-ups always trust you to do the next thing. And most importantly, it means you’re on the path of steady career growth and development. Here, we explore 5 actionable steps to move your career into its next stage.
- Optimise Your Time by Focusing on Your Strengths
- Conduct a Post-Mortem on Your Tasks
- Be Proactive, Not Reactive – Focus on Finding Solutions to Problems
- Manage as You Go Up, Collaborate as You Filter Down
- Align Your Ideas with Your Career Goals
Optimise Your Time by Focusing on Your Strengths
It’s hardly an uncommon occurrence to admonish oneself for a less-than-perfect outcome of a project, and go down the rabbit hole of fixating on your weaker areas of performance. It is wiser, instead, to routinely take a step back, see the larger picture, and leverage your strengths to achieve the best results.
Time is the most precious commodity in a workplace; therefore, it is imperative to take help from others whenever you can, and trust your fellow employees or subordinates to deliver on their capabilities to fill up gaps. An in-depth understanding of your habits and needs helps you grow into your responsibilities and hold yourself accountable. It takes enormous strength and an authentic sense of ownership to be able to cultivate an enhanced level of self-awareness while at work.
Conduct a Post-Mortem on Your Tasks
There are two ways of running a post-mortem on your tasks. In the first kind, you visualize a project – or your next career move, for that matter – being unarguably successful. You then map out various conditions that led to this outcome, including the people who collaborated with you and the diversity of talent you were able to harness.
In the other type of post-mortem, you assume the project has gone the other way, and trace the path that led to its failure. In doing so, you identify various risks involved in its undertaking, as well as understanding the pitfalls of specific actions.
Stanford wizards Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao, in their seminal business book ‘Scaling Up Excellence’, expound on the importance of conducting a post-mortem to brainstorm on projects. As per their estimation, it is an absolutely critical component of ownership at the workplace. When you move this into the realm of your long-term career, you will be able to understand exactly what kind of resources you need to move forward and anticipate possible risks.
Be Proactive, Not Reactive – Focus on Finding Solutions to Problems
Taking ownership at the workplace calls for proactive measures to ideate on solutions at any given moment. This means you take the initiative in communicating your needs, anticipating risks, clarifying timelines, and developing strategies to overcome problems.
Instead of waiting for performance reviews and peer reviews, ask for constructive feedback regularly as a standard part of your work routine. Asking for constructive feedback from peers and superiors gives you the chance to better understand how you excel in your role as a teammate and employee. It also helps you determine what areas you should improve to contribute to your company more successfully.
You may use ‘active listening’ as a method to adapt better to your environment; this involves paying attention to non-verbal cues of your employer and teammates, making note of their needs, and absorbing long-term patterns of behavior in the workplace. If you practice active listening on a regular basis, solutions may actually present themselves to you, dispelling the notion that you have to go looking for them.
Manage as You Go Up, Collaborate as You Filter Down
Managing up refers to the process by which you as an employee make an effort to learn about your higher-ups’ expectations, management styles, and communication skills. Earn their respect – it will do wonders for your career in the long run. By actively managing up, you participate in building the culture of trust and accountability that forms the bedrock of ownership at the workplace.
On the other hand, it is equally important to collaborate with your teammates and juniors. They may be able to make that additional contribution that takes a project several notches up. Managers often pay attention to this aspect of your working style.
Align Your Ideas with Your Career Goals
It costs you nothing to communicate with your manager about what you hope to achieve in your role, and how that aligns with your personal goals. Managers appreciate when your ideas are in sync with your goals, because then they understand that you are serious about taking ownership of your work. Moreover, when you are absolutely clear on who you are and firm on where you stand within the framework of the organisation, your seniors are likely to trust that you can handle critical responsibilities, and this is vital to your career path.
But there is another side to this: as you envision long-term plans for your career, be discreet on any big moves as far as the workplace is concerned. You certainly don’t want to be in an uncomfortable position where your teammates are uncertain about your motives or your level of commitment. Your integrity is a valuable asset that shouldn’t be compromised under any circumstances. If you’re taking a bold step in your career – whether it’s moving to another organisation or asking for a promotion – it is imperative that you work systematically towards it. Ensure that it reflects in all your ideas and decisions before you make the leap.
