Responsibility needs Ownership

Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash

If you want to get something done, you need both responsibility and ownership. Why?

If you own the outcome, you’ll be much more driven to get it done right.

Here are some red flags to know if you don’t have sufficient ownership:

• You have no “decision-making” power — prevents you from moving powerfully and fast in a direction. You are instead busy in “checkpoints” with senior leaders
• You have to “design by committee” — forces you to make the “politically-right” decision, instead of what’s best for the project or product
• You have arbitrary “gate keepers” — prevents you from interfacing with customers or stakeholders directly, so you never really know the true problem you’re trying to solve.

With the blockers above you may still get the task done, but how do you know you solved the right problem?