EnerBank Blog

Do you remember the very first car you owned—the one you purchased with your own money? Can you recall its make, model, and color? Did you clean it obsessively? Did you tell others they couldn’t eat in the car? Let’s compare these feelings to the last car you rented. Can you even remember your last rental car or its color?

So, what’s the difference between these two scenarios? It’s called ownership—a feeling that comes when you view something as yours—a completely different feeling from something that’s not yours.

Now, let’s look at how this feeling of ownership can be applied within a business organization.

Ownership at every level.
If you were to ask any business owner or corporate executive, there’s a good chance they would tell you they want employees working for them who treat their work, projects, departments, and clients in a way that fosters ownership.

Gene Hammet of The LiiVE Company^® conducted a study of fifty-one of the fastest growing private companies in America. One of the common themes he found across organizations was the mentality in their workplaces of ownership at every level of the company—a concept that he summed up in two words—”own it.”

Own it.
Decades back when most workers were following a prescribed list of steps day-in-day-out, all that was needed from them was to take “responsibility.” They would work their eight hours and would not have to think of work beyond the office.

In today’s fast-paced world, a new level of thinking is required for businesses to stay competitive and serve their customers. The challenges and innovations needed for growth are not solved in eight hours—the brain is solving business issues when away from the office too. So, employee ownership is more critical than ever for success.

Here are examples of how ownership has been critical to growth for a few of the companies included in the LiiVE^® study:

1. Neeraj Singh, CEO of BigBinary, whose company has grown 537 percent in the last three years, said that in the early days of the company he would work on projects from beginning to end. Now he says, “Our employees have a sense of ownership with the projects that don’t require me to be there as much as I was.” Singh can focus on leadership instead of doing the work.
2. Carvana is a disruptive force in buying cars and has grown 7,925 percent over the last three years. Their CEO, Ernie Garcia, shared that ownership comes from the team being part of the mission and vision of the company. Garcia said, “Our employees know they are creating value in the world and contributing to the business. This gives each person a sense of ownership.”
3. Don Caroll, VP of business development for Vantage Point Logistics, creates new opportunities in the world of logistics through its employees. They have a phrase that drives the whole company: Own it. This is about owning your piece of the business. Caroll said, “Our growth over the last three years of 3,422 percent comes from employees that ‘own it’ in every way.”

It’s more than responsibility.
Ownership is more than responsibility. You could say that the gap between responsibility and ownership is similar to the difference between how you treat a rental car and your very first car.

To learn more about another company that empowers its employees to take ownership every day, visit enerbank.com today.

Sources:
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/305846