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Your “Act Like an Owner” Culture Is a Lie
You walk into the Monday morning all-hands meeting. The executive team just unveiled their bold new core value.
It is printed on glossy posters.
It is stamped on the company coffee mugs.
“Act like an owner.”
The irony is thick enough to cut with a lightsaber. You cannot tell people to take ownership while simultaneously designing a workplace that removes all of their authority.
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Employees are smart.
They know when they are being handed an empty slogan.
If your team needs three levels of management approval to buy a stapler, they are not owners. They are highly supervised renters.
And nobody washes a rental car.
They do the bare minimum.
Psychological ownership is the antidote to this mindset. It is not about handing out stock options or profit sharing.
Psychological ownership is the mental state where an individual feels a piece of the project is intrinsically theirs.
You cannot demand this feeling. You have to design it.
