Who's problem is it anyway?

Over the last 14 years, I’ve developed a broad set of skills ranging from mixing Cocktails to manipulating complex spreadsheets underpinning large scale financial investments. 

One skill which has applied to every aspect of my career is ‘ownership.’

I’m writing this article because of all the skills we can chose to fine tune, in my opinion, everyone fine tuning this one would genuinely make the world a better place. 

My wife often says one of the things she likes about me is that I just get things done. Recently, a work colleague when providing feedback to me gave the same observation. This got me to thinking, why was this a desirable attribute. When reflecting on a recent project I realised that the reason it completed within the desired timescales was down to individuals taking ownership of each task needed to complete the work. 

Why is ownership good for the owner? 

Have you every written a to do list? Remember how good it felt when everything on the list was done (Scroll down in this article to ‘So, What’s going on in our brains?’ - Link . As an owner, you get a sense of achievement when something is completed & what’s more, as the owner you can claim all the praise that is deserved both from that task and the overall achievement if part of a broader set of tasks - shed loads of Dopamine! 

Why is ownership good for others? 

There is nothing worse than finishing everything you have to do only to find there are a collection of key items which everyone is talking about but no one feels they are responsible for completing. If every task has an owner, this should be avoided as each task has someone’s full attention.  

Who decides who owns something? 

I expect you to think I would say the project manager, the director, the CEO etc… They can and often do decide this sort of thing but in my opinion tasks are best owned by individuals that nominate themselves. Of course you must ensure the correct person is assigned to a task as owning something you cannot complete helps no one!  

Next time you attend a meeting, make sure all the actions have owners & more importantly, take ownership of at least one of the actions. In your personal life, don’t leave it down to chance that things will get done. 

Take ownership & watch as life gets more productive as things get done!