From Impossible To Inevitable

Chapter 21For Executives: Create Functional Ownership

Let's break down how you start and create functional Ownership in your teams.

If you're an employee and this stuff doesn't interest you, feel free to skip ahead to Part 7: Define Your Destiny, which is just for you.

A Simple Survey

It's best to start out with a fresh pulse check on the morale of your teams. If you have any moral or trust issues, you need to know about them in more detail, or else they can derail everything else. Employees that don't trust management don't listen, care, or follow through. If they don't feel the company is investing in them, they're not going to invest in helping the company.

A Simple Survey: Six Questions

1. Context: What's your role? Who's your manager?
2. Likes: What do you like about [working here | your job | your manager | our product | how we sell…]? Please include details or specific examples.
3. Dislikes: What don't you like about [working here | your job | your manager | our product | how we sell…]? Please include details or specific examples.
4. The twist: If you ran things, what would you do differently? Please include details or specific examples.
5. Catch-all: What else is on your mind? Anything else we should know?
6. Optional: How do we contact you if we have follow-up questions about your answers?

Notice how by focusing the “Likes” and “Dislikes” questions, you can target any specific or general topic.

You want honest feedback from people, and so you need to make it optional, but not required, ...