You don’t “own” anything at work

After me writing and a friend reading my previous post about organisational silos, we had a great discussion about an adjacent topic and a different kind of silo — one where a person claims to ‘own’ a process or a project at the workplace. This could be stuff like the company website development backlog, intranet content structure, recruiting process or how, when and which kind of coffee should be brewed in the kitchenette.

Don’t get me wrong. Ownership over subject matters is a great and useful concept. There are plenty of issues in organisations when nobody takes ownership of things. Somebody should own the website backlog, or things become messy.

The problematic kind that we were discussing is exclusive or possessive ownership. You know, this stuff:

“it’s mine, so nobody else should touch it”.

There are people at most workplaces who are jealous enough of their “precious” thing that you shouldn’t even discuss that particular domain without the presence of its owner. If the owner learns that such illegitimate discussion has happened, it’s considered a form of betrayal.

In time, other people learn to avoid this behaviour to avoid conflict with the jealous owner, and this gets considered pretty normal. “It’s just the way he/she is.” This, in turn, slows down decision making and hinders innovation within the domain.

People who act in this seemingly erratic way mean usually only good. They think that it’s best for the “precious” — for example, the planning process of the office Christmas party — that no discussion, let alone actions, happen without their presence and guidance. If they’re not in control all the time, control is lost and bad things happen.

Taking possessive ownership can also feel immensely rewarding for the individual. Once you’ve taken all the oxygen around your “property”, nothing can happen to it without your presence. “If I was gone, the recruiting process would be total chaos.” The envious owner feels important and needed, and that feels good.

Time to change the mindset and the vocabulary

Ownership is a problematic word — and semantics matter. Ownership can take the form of the Gollum-like obsession, or it can mean more useful things. When you “own” a process at the workplace, you’re ultimately responsible for its success. But you’re responsible for the well-being and societal conformity of your children as well — and still, you don’t claim to own them. Your job as a parent or a guardian is to support your children, help them when they need help and guide them in the right direction. If things go well, less intervention is needed. Nobody ever complains about that.

To rid ourselves of the problematic word of “owner”, maybe we should assign people as guardians, servants, or caretakers of processes and projects. This way the individual’s role would be to ensure that things go well, even if they never directly contribute anything to the progress themselves. After all, there’s no value in being busy.

In the transformed model, the imaginary organisational pyramid of their project or process is upside down — the servant or caretaker sits at the bottom, not on top of it.

It’s easy to imagine this transformation in attitudes and behaviour for others, but on a personal level, it might be painful. People often base their value to the organisation partly in the fact that they’re necessary. If progress can happen without your direct involvement — like happens to children in daycare and later in school — are you necessary anymore? Will anyone notice if I’m gone? I’m busy therefore I am, right?

What others can do to support these newly transformed “servants to the cause” is to give them credit for all the good stuff that happens in their process or project, especially if things happen via the “invisible hand”, i.e. without the servant’s direct intervention.

Enabling stuff to happen is much better than doing all the stuff yourself.