A wise
(but confused) old man once said, “What you know won’t
hurt you, and what you know you don’t know won’t
hurt you, but what you don’t know that you don’t
know will kill you.” This sums up the decision-making
ability of the well-intentioned and under-informed employees.
And chances that they take better decision if they have
all the necessary information are higher. The onus thus
lies on the business leader to ensure that they have the
necessary information and insight into the business at depth.
This needs to make ownership an integral part of the company’s
brand identity, which in turn will explore the power of
a corporate culture to create an environment of shared values
and goals.
Mark had recently joined a large international management
consulting firm. He was hardworking and intelligent, but
had never been responsible for building a business before.
He had a few solid ideas and sensed that the company would
support him. For the next two years, Mark had built a $2-million
consulting business by creating an alliance with one of
the largest computer manufacturers. This alliance became
a key part of the company’s revenue growth for next
several years. But why was this new employee motivated to
achieve tremendous personal and business activities?
|
The
very concept of acting like an owner demonstrates
that an ownership culture is a powerful organisational
development technology
|
Take
the case of Shawn. After working for six weeks round the
clock to get the remaining bugs out of the software, the
client was demanding that 200 additional changes be made
to the system in less than 14 days. How could he ask his
team to work for another two weeks round the clock? He decided
that he couldn’t - whatever may happen to his project.
Gathering the team together, he thanked them for their effort
and said that he was proud of them. He told what the client
expects from them now, but didn’t expect the team to
kill themselves as they had done enough. But his team wouldn’t
let him go as they believed that they could pull it off.
The team brainstormed how to solve the problem and set to
motion a plan to complete the necessary changes. Two weeks
later, the customer accepted the system. How did Shawn have
the courage to say enough is enough? Why does a team, when
given the chance to slow down, agree to do even more?
These are not standalone cases and they don’t happen
naturally. They are the result of a calculated effort to
nurture entrepreneurial spirit throughout the organization
- is all about building up a corporate culture - the ownership
culture. It’s about addressing the management and leadership
aspects of building an ownership culture and applying these
concepts to one of the most pressing problems facing business
today: attracting and retaining skilled workers. In this
way, the very concept of acting like an owner demonstrates
that an ownership culture is a powerful organizational development
technology. This culture tries to build for the
successful implementation of the business by focusing on
the customer, encouraging entrepreneurial spirit, empowering
everyone and sharing both success and failure. This is what
is known as the ownership culture.
Acting like an owner provides a leadership philosophy that
helps to communicate effectively with the customers and
employees, develop effective teams throughout the organization,
and design business systems that support and enhance empowerment,
and help crystallize the vision for the business.
The
Internal Franchise
The internal franchise is to be used as a framework for
putting the ownership culture to work as a competitive weapon.
Employees must be trained, coached and mentored to operate
the business at the highest level of proficiency. The internal
franchise is not a legal binding contract; it’s the
company’s culture - the ownership culture. The key
strategy in developing such a culture is a strategy for
crystallizing the way of doing business, and then turning
the organization’s operating model over to the employees
to run as if they own it. Unlike many other advocates of
employee participation, however, don’t settle for “as
if they own it” but suggest strategies for building
equity into the ownership culture to make it part of the
company’s brand identity.
The
fundamental challenges the internal franchise addresses
* A new competitive landscape where it’s not what
you do, it’s how you do it
* A new breed of employees who want opportunity, not
job security
* The inability of industrial-era techniques to address
information-era challenges (processes versus people) |
Beliefs
that builds the ownership culture
1. Belief in the leader
2. Belief in the purpose
3. Belief in the operating model
4. Belief in empowerment
5. Belief in the reward |
When
employees are taught the operating model of the business,
and are empowered to run the business, a new distribution
channel is established for the company - its products and
services. This offers a tremendous value proposition for
the employees and a powerful form of leverage, an effective
framework for dealing with the challenges of running a business
in today’s competitive and rapidly changing environment.
Types
of Corporate Culture
* Strong Culture: Every one in the firm shares a consistent
set of values and methods of doing business.
* Strategically Appropriate Culture: The type of culture
that fits in the current industry and business climate.
* Adaptive Culture: A strong culture that can rapidly
change to meet new market demands. |
An ownership
culture enforces the fundamental law of the entrepreneurs:
What’s good for the business is good for the entrepreneur.
Imagine that every person in the organization shares the
same belief, imagine the possibilities of the business if
every employee believed in the purpose of the business and
believed in the reward for exercising initiative in creating
value for the customers and thus profit the business. The
moment all employees share these beliefs, the ownership
culture is created. They think and act like the owners of
the business – that’s the power of ownership culture.
The corporate culture is like the front wheel alignment
of a car – it does not allow the organization to get
derailed from the idea or goal the company is targeting,
even without the energy to monitor it constantly. In a dynamic
world like today, where the key word of business is change,
ownership culture becomes the most important tool for capitalizing
the constant and accelerating pace of change. The owner
of a firm knows the importance of flexibility - no matter
what, to keep the customer’s request. When every one
in the organization feel empowered and in control, focus
on the relationship with the customer and making the business
a success, the organization can definitely thrive in an
environment of rapid change. Nurturing this culture develops
a particular brand for the workplace. Employees then get
attracted to the workplace not for the salary or perks,
but for the intangibles of working for the company - working
for the culture.
Modeling
the Business
Understanding the business inside out doesn’t only
require the details about the business processes, economic
model, the operating parameters and the core processes -
it needs something more - it needs leadership, it also needs
the following two things:
* Aligning the business constructs along with the operating
model
* Analyzing the operating model across the entire supply
chain.
Sitting down and redesigning the business model every day
does not make much sense, even in the period of designing
a new strategy. However, an open debate about the entire
operating model of the company, starting with the business
focus, should be dealt with a welcome note. It’s always,
however, advisable to identify and grab the ideas floating
around the organization slowly. Though the current business
has to be taken adequate care of, but a clear focus has
to be maintained about the new idea. The operating model
should be questioned and changed, but not all alone. A broad
range of people must get involved in the discussion, as
the employees closest to the customer have at times, the
greatest ideas.
The business can never sustain on hiring and firing the
employees till the rare superstar employee is recruited.
The company should keep a clear focus on hiring entrepreneurial
employees and create an environment, which encourages their
lookout for opportunities – this gives the organization
a significant competitive advantage. The matching of the
aptitude and attitude of the employees matter a lot; the
initial throttling may create some revolts and fall-outs,
but convincing people that it is actually possible to act
like an owner should be carried out – this attitude
definitely pays off in the forthcoming days.
