How Do I Get My Team To Take Ownership?

In This Episode

Being the owner of a small business can often be a lonely place, even when you have several employees. One of the things that takes away from that loneliness is when you have good people stepping up to take ownership of different parts of the business and different projects. The challenge is how do you get people to step up and do this? We work with most of our small business owners to help them do exactly that with their teams.

One good guiding principle to keep in mind is that people tend to take ownership of ideas that are their own. As the owner/manager, it’s key for you to make sure the idea belongs to your team as opposed to coming from you all the time. One way to do this is to focus the team on presenting solutions vs. simply identifying problems. Too much of a focus on problems can go negative real quick and won’t lead to the changes you’re looking for. Get people listing ideas on a white board or flip chart to get their best ideas out and discussed.

Another thing to keep in mind as the business owner is that you have to get out of the way! Have your team present their plans for how to handle a situation or start and project and then let them go once you’ve had some input. Let them stumble and even fail. Your job is to help remove barriers and ensure they have everything they need to succeed.