How much OWNERSHIP you owe to your organization?

"Extreme Ownership" means ‘answerable for everything’! That means everyone is accountable for what’s happening to the organization and to your portfolio!

Recently my friend had has an interesting experienced with a lady who was temporarily taking care of HR portfolio of a corporate house. During their interaction, my friend understood that the lady was not taking 100% ownership of her short-term assignment. One point of time, she speaks up, ‘you know, I am helping you to have a smooth transition of this matter’ and, she redirects my friend to contact with CEO. Here, the word, ‘help’ is extremely vulnerable and showing her ownership below 100%. That’s not how simply organization becomes high performing? Ordinary people become extraordinary!

Look at the US Navy SEAL team, the people who join there, are very ordinary people; those are coming from our own family, but once they graduated; they become extraordinary. What’s making them difference? They have owned ‘extreme ownership’ for their country and for their portfolio whatever assignment they assigned to be!

That’s why those have still lack of ‘extreme ownership’ to their organization; they need to read this "Extreme Ownership" book, written by two Navy SEAL commanders Jocko Willink and Leif Babin and share hard-hitting secret of Navy SEAL combat stories that translate into lessons for business and life. With exciting first-hand accounts of making high-pressure decisions as Navy SEAL battlefield leaders, this book is equally gripping for leaders who seek to dominate other arenas in business.  The book has three sections:

[1] WINNING THE WAR WITHIN: The leader is truly and ultimately responsible for everything. That is Extreme Ownership, the fundamental core of what constitutes an effective leader in any leadership endeavour. On any team, in any organization like hospital, all responsibility for success and failure rests within the leader of each portfolio.

[2] THE LAWS OF COMBAT: Cover and Move: it is the most fundamental tactic, perhaps the only tactic. Put simply, Cover and Move means teamwork. All elements within the greater team are crucial and must work together to accomplish the mission; mutually support one another for that singular purpose.

[3] SUSTAINING VICTORY: Planning begins with mission analysis. Leaders must identify clear directives for the team. Once they themselves understand the mission, they can tell this knowledge to their key leaders and frontline troops tasked with executing the mission. A broad and ambiguous mission results in lack of focus, ineffective execution, and mission creep. To prevent this, the mission must be carefully refined and simplified so that it is explicitly clear and specifically focused to achieve the greater strategic vision for which that mission is a part. The mission must explain the overall purpose and desired result, or “end state,” of the operation.

This thought-provoking book is defined leadership in such a great way-“Without a team—a group of individuals working to accomplish a mission—there can be no leadership. The only meaningful measure for a leader is whether the team succeeds or fails. For all the definitions, descriptions, and characterizations of leaders, there are only two that matter: effective and ineffective.

Effective leaders lead successful teams that accomplish their mission and win. Ineffective leaders do not. For leaders, the humility to admit and own mistakes and develop a plan to overcome them is essential to success. The best leaders are not driven by ego or personal agendas. They are simply focused on the mission and how best to accomplish it”.

The book is also talking a lot about accountability. This statement is provoking interest: “On any team, in any organization [hospital], 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 best leaders don't just take responsibility for their job. They take Extreme Ownership of everything that impacts their mission”.

Still if you’re not clear about Extreme Ownership. People know about ownership in workplace like Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella said, “Most people have a very strong sense of organizational ownership, but I think what people have to own is an innovation agenda, and everything is shared in terms of the implementation”. Frankly speaking, this is what I see in our hospital how we achieved JCI Gold Seal of Approval, I observe doctors, nurse, midwives, pharmacists, nutritionist, infection control, quality assurance, medical affairs, operation are talking the full ownership of the JCI project. They drive the hospital into happiness hub for patient and their family. That what’s Extreme Ownership?

What’s Extreme Ownership in an organization or what it means to us? The book said an exciting dialogue, “There's an inherent contradiction in here that really clarifies the concept of Extreme Ownership. As a junior leader, if your team doesn't understand the plan, it is your responsibility (you should provide clarification). If you don't understand the plan, it is also your responsibility, not senior leadership's (you should ask for clarification). But that's what makes the concept so powerful - there's always no one to blame but yourself. If someone (subordinates or superiors) aren't doing what you think they should be doing, it is your responsibility to change that”.

How many of us have the Extreme Ownership feelings in our own portfolio in the organization? Can you make difference between Simple Ownership Vs Extreme Ownership! Only Extreme Ownership people believe that they are solely responsible for anything that makes the organization into ‘excellence’; on the other hand, Simple ownership just does their assign job perfectly!

Which group you belongs to: Simple Ownership or Extreme Ownership! It doesn’t matter if you think you’re good at job and adding value to the hospital! It only matters when ownership comes forward to hold this organization to go beyond good to great, create an excellent business model to go beyond boundaries’! In reality we all have ‘Extreme Ownership’ for our own portfolios but some people do practice ‘simple ownership’ that creates a hinder to grow beyond target! Don’t fall in trap on those simple ownership models where comfort is the carrot of interest!

Without Extreme Ownership, this is simply impossible to make it possible to any assignment, any project, any plan, any strategy, any work, even the simplest one! That’s why Steve Jobs said ‘Stay hungry, Stay foolish’! STAY HUNGRY means never be satisfied and always push yourself beyond your capacity. STAY FOOLISH means do or keep willing to keep trying the things people say cannot be done. ‘Sometimes life’s going to hit you in the head with a brick. Just keep going.’ According to Mr. Jobs, ‘the only way to do great work is to love what you do… don’t settle’.

One of the best statements is to create surroundings of ‘Extreme Ownership’ within your portfolio and the organization and this creates an inner circle of love and affection of not only your own work but as a whole of the organization.

Sometimes, people think that ‘this is not my job; I’m just helping’; these feelings give away ‘Extreme Ownership’ spirits. Rather think always everyone working within the organization including the contractor are the owner; then do what you need to do to everyday perfectly, what you need to contribute every minutes, think how you reduce waste, how you remove pain, sufferings and or difficulties of others and your team? That’s where Extreme Ownership to be existent. Nevertheless to understand more about ‘Extreme Ownership’, read this book.