Four ways to build a culture of ownership for continuous improvement

“Disruption.” “Transition.” “Transformation.” “Revolution.” 

These are the terms dominating the business press. A lot of leaders have gotten caught up on “Moonshot” initiatives to motivate investors and their company, yet research shows that only 30% of those initiatives actually achieve those goals.

But to disrupt, transition, or transform, much less succeed with a revolution, businesses need to make sure that have the right pieces in place: 1) Employees need to be engaged with their work and have a sense of ownership, so that they can 2) make incremental changes, which can be more successful and more valuable to your customers.

Fostering ownership is an engine for greater employee engagement 

Focusing on ownership has another crucial benefit: It makes work more rewarding. Workers can use a boost, according to Gallup.

The polling organization’s most recent survey of U.S. employee engagement found that just 31% met Gallup’s definition of “engaged,” meaning that more than two-thirds didn’t. Worse, one in six employees were “actively disengaged.” Both marked 10-year lows.

Those disengaged employees do damage. It takes about four colleagues to pick up the slack for each one of them, and that doesn’t factor in the malignant effect that bad attitudes have on the rest of the team (and, too often, on customers).

Transformational projects also carry an outsize risk of failure, delayed value realization, and, if “transformational” projects pile up, change fatigue even among the most loyal and engaged troops.

Four keys to fostering an ownership culture in your organization 

So, there are many reasons to infuse a culture of ownership throughout your company. How, then, does a leader go about it?

1. Gallup’s Q12 Employee Engagement survey, asks only 12 questions (hence Q12) to asses whether employees have what they need to be successful at their job and feel like they are thriving within the organization. Discussing the results of the survey with teams is a powerful way to ensure there is clarity on roles and decision-making authority, but also identify those opportunities for individuals to do their best work to grow themselves and their teams.
2. Consider a Leader Standard Work approach, or something similar to Objective and Key Results (OKRs). These involve an iterative process of the organization’s leaders subdividing broad, strategic goals into digestible, actionable responsibilities that subsequent management layers then further allocate to their teams. Key here is that, by aligning work at all levels with the organization’s goals, effort is focused on what matters most, and not expired priorities or pet projects.
3. Resist the urge to get into the details. Set goals and then let staff solve problems as they see fit within the boundaries you establish.
4. Remember to show appreciation. It’s important for leaders to recognize these contributions individually or publicly, based on their preference. Doing so helps build momentum and creates a flywheel effect that builds a deeper sense of the importance of ownership and keeps continuous improvements coming.

Lots of names for continuous improvement. One bottom line. 

Establishing a culture of ownership and engagement are essential and make the tactics of process improvement more attainable. There are lots of ways to go about that: kaizen events and Six Sigma, Lean, Deming’s Plan-Do-Check-Adjust (PDCA) cycle, and Leader Standard Work among them. All boil down to instilling and relentlessly maintaining a culture of ownership that applies equally in concept, if not in scope, to the CEO, the line worker, and the new intern.

While there are plenty of established, formal continuous-improvement programs to choose from, yours doesn’t have to be branded. It’s OK to ease your way in by implementing aspects of kaizen or lean without naming it such. This can be especially effective if your organizational culture is change-resistant and unready for a formal program.

Ownership yields vital trickles of incremental change — and the occasional gusher — based on common-sense improvements identified by those most familiar with, and affected by, the rough edges around their workflows.

What’s more, organization-wide ownership can ignite new business opportunities. Amazon’s foray into Amazon Web Services started with line engineers working on scaling its computing capacity to more efficiently manage the computing loads of its own online store.

Sustaining the efficiencies and agility required for ongoing profitability takes continuous, broad-based, incremental improvement based on the insights of engaged employees. That profitability then provides the resources and impetus — and, sometimes, the new business ideas — for strategic initiatives aimed at the sorts of disruptions, transitions, and transformations that can indeed spark revolutions. A culture of ownership is the foundation for successes ordinary and bold, and leaders should be making deliberate, ongoing efforts to foster it.

Written by Jim Calko.