The Hindu Business Line : The art of creating ownership

In conference rooms and seminar halls across India companies are now busy defining the final contours of their targets and budgets for the ensuing financial year. The top team is anxious to see what the numbers portend! CEOs, CFOs and COOs are on tenterhooks trying to balance the expectations of their stakeholders with the unforgiving scrutiny of Dalal Street. Everybody is grappling with the tough task of homing in on an acceptable topline and its matching bottomline!.

Target attainment

Fixing the target is one thing and achieving it is quite another. Ceteris paribus, I am convinced that the most important factor in target attainment is its ownership. Therefore I’d like to postulate my Law of Target Attainment: the probability of attaining a target is directly proportionate to its ownership by the people who are supposed to attain it. It’s really quite simple: if they own it they’ll achieve it. That’s because ownership envisages the investment of personal stakes in the target. These stakes are often far removed from monetary considerations; rather, they have everything to do with satisfaction, self-esteem and pride. When these juices flow copiously all skill deficits and resource constraints are swept away by determination and innovation. Ownership guarantees infinite return for a CEO who learns to create it! So, how can a CEO create it?

Ownership creation

First, the environment has to be open, transparent, fair and non-political; for this the CEO will need to re-examine his personal style and fix any kinks in it. Then he’ll have to detox the environment by removing or mitigating negative influencers (easier said than done, but eminently possible).

Second, a culture of inclusion needs to be built. Many organisations go horribly wrong by excluding entire sections of its people from the grand adventure of success. Many top managers are specialists in exclusion. That is like the fool in one of Kalidasa’s plays: the man saws away at the branch he is sitting on!

The minute you’ve excluded someone (without good reason) you’ve helped him build a wall that keeps you out! After that neither you nor your ideas can get through. Every human being has a deep need to belong, to be part of something, to be included. When you trample on that by thoughtless exclusion you’ve lost a great opportunity to harness initiative and creativity.

It’s very important therefore to give serious thought to who will be part of meetings, teams and groups. Clear communication and clarifications are vital if people are not to feel left out. The mantra is: involve as many people as you can so that you can benefit from diverse ideas and capabilities.

Third, trust and empower! There’s no substitute for entrusting people with important resources and results. That’s how you build capability. Training and development are of course critical but at the end of the day the leader has to let go and let people operate with freedom. Mistakes will certainly be made but these are investments in success, not excuses for witch-hunts! Debriefing and learning from what went wrong are as important as learning from success.

Fourth, specifically involve people who are tasked with target attainment in the process of target setting. Unilateral target fixation is an invitation to miss the target! Let the people concerned be fully engaged in the process of developing targets! Sure, they’ll baulk at exponential growth but that’s where leadership makes the difference. Ordinary people can willingly prepare and strive for extraordinary results if the leadership is exemplary.

CEOs will do well to keep in mind that financial wizardry or strategic acumen are necessary conditions but not sufficient to attain ambitious targets. Over and above everything else, they need to be masters of the art of creating ownership.

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