Ownership - High agency - Manager of One
Table of contents
Definitions
What is holistic ownership of a project?
Holistic ownership. Person ABC, in the projects we have worked together, has excelled at holistic owning the problem (beyond specific projects or tasks). This is particular important when dealing with large scope problems where stepping back and looking at the overall picture to propose next steps is very important.
How important is ownership in leadership?
On any team, in any organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader. The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership of them, and develop a plan to win.
Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job”.
The 37signals folks advocated for hiring managers of one back in 2008.
A manager of one is someone who comes up with their own goals and executes them. They don’t need heavy direction. They don’t need daily check-ins. They do what a manager would do — set the tone, assign items, determine what needs to get done, etc. — but they do it by themselves and for themselves.
Having ownership and being a manager of one is very closely related to “high agency”.
High Agency is a sense that the story given to you by other people about what you can/cannot do is just that - a story. And that you have control over the story. High Agency person looks to bend reality to their will. They either find a way, or they make a way. Low agency person acepts the story that is given to them.
When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something?
High Agency is about finding a way to get what you want, without waiting for conditions to be perfect or otherwise blaming the circumstances.
All the above, except one (😉), are definitions given by people for ownership, high agency, and being a manager of one. There are many other terms referring to the same thing.
Some companies like Amazon put this in their leadership principles and company values. Others, put this as an explicit dimension in their performance evaluation criteria (most of the tech companies at least).
This particular skill, owning some problem end-to-end, is a key ingredient for success in business, family, and personal development alike.
Applicability and importance
Throughout my career, I have been putting a lot of effort in developing my ownership skills.
I always try to understand a problem holistically, think about problems and edge cases, design a solution, and ultimately make sure the solution rolls out successfully.
Does this apply to tech jobs though, or only software projects? Absolutely not!
Actually, one of the previous quotes is from Jocko Willink’s book “Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy Seals Lead and Win”. He explains how being a leader with ownership within the US Navy SEAL forces is crucial. And he was literally in “life or death” situations.
Check his talk below for a short glimpse of his perspective on extreme ownership.
Being a person with the quality of owning whatever you do, having high agency to being able to navigate ambiguities and the unknowns, is so crucial that everyone can benefit from.
Are you working in tech? Are you a surgeon? Are you an investor? Are you a trader? Are you just a parent struggling with the kids?
You need to be able to identity problems and understand them end-to-end. You need to be able to find solutions, and ensure they are implemented. You need to be able to acknowledge mistakes and take responsibility in order to improve things going forward.
Everyone has colleagues that are just waiting to be told what to do all the time, without taking any initiative or having any bias for action.
Many middle managers usually hide within the bureacracy of big organizations, acting as dumb passthough proxies from reports to superiors and vice-versa. Most times, even doing a horrible job at that, when they filter out the wrong things. Never owning any of the problems hurting the team and never taking actions to improve things.
There are also folks that can never acknowledge they are wrong. Everyone makes mistakes. That’s how we learn as a species. Having ownership, means you own the mistakes too.
It doesn’t even have to be that you individually made the mistake, but that someone on your team did. If you are leading a project or a team, and turns out that better guidance or better communication could avoid the mistake, then you share the mistake.
A leader should take responsibility, and find ways to improve a bad situation going forward.
Conclusion
Fun fact: As I hinted earlier, all the quotes at the top are definitions I found from online sources, except one. One of the quotes is verbatim feedback I copied from one of my performance evaluation reviews. Can you figure out which one? 😉 Shamelessly self-bragging.
Be an owner. Have high agency. Be a Manager of One.
References