Putting On The Ownership Attitude Jacket

Here in Ghana, we are continuing the process started last summer of building Theodora Ghana Virtual Assistants' ability to be an independent business...which primarily means focusing on the ability of the women in the program to manage their business. Viewed objectively, this is a massive undertaking. Viewed in context of what we've already overcome, it is no more massive than the entire project as a whole.

One of our promises to the people in the team was that Theodora would become an employee owned company. We are hoping to have our Employee Ownership Trust in place by the end of February. With that in mind, going back to the summer, I have been talking to the women about what an owner does. We've talked about the tradeoffs an owner is constantly making particularly when it comes to money. One of our people, Ann, back then coined a phrase as she was discussing why she'd made a client decision.

"I put on my Ownership Attitude Jacket!"

I warned the team prior to this visit that we were going to take 'Wearing the Ownership Attitude Jacket" to another level because I was going to institute 'open book management'

Open Book Management is a philosophy that encourages ownership and leadership to share financial information with those being managed. It goes counter to common practice in business where most owner/managers feel they don't want their employees to see what is going on in the business, in particular, how much they make. 

I'd given them the information before I arrived. And we went over it when I got here. Of course, it is not that easy to dig into numbers when you're totally unfamiliar with financial reporting. Nonetheless, the women did pick out a couple meaningful things that led to substantive discussion. Compensation was one which led to me giving them the task of developing a compensation program for the company going forward. (Good luck with that team. LOL. For as long as I've been in business, I've never met a business that was happy with their compensation system!)

Another very interesting example had to do with our hours at work. We struggle because of the need to be responsive to clients in time zones far different, offset by the advantages of having our people in an office to stimulate collaboration, work ethic, and culture. My two managers felt we'd gone too far in the direction of being a 9 to 5 culture which didn't work with the level of service we need to give to our clients. Discussing this as a team, they came to the conclusion that we needed to establish a set of rules that balanced the two requirements.

This led to a last conversation. One of my managers and I knew we had a very long day running around getting new computers and looking at potential new offices. My manager wanted to leave early, there not being anything going on at the office requiring our interaction. I was concerned about the image this presents. In the spirit of our collaborative management approach, I told the manager that we'd bring it up to the team. (This is an easy thing to do since we are small and they all sit in the same room).

I brought up my concern about how a leader should set the tone by example. And if I was leaving the office early, what message did that send to them. One of my people, Mary M, said the following.

"Michael, if I have work I need to get done, I stay late. If I have an early client meeting, I come in early. If I'm done with my work and it is early, I go home. I trust all my teammates. I know they are doing the same. It makes no difference to me if manager M goes home early or comes in late because I know she is doing tons necessary for us to succeed. I know you are committed to us. I don't need to see you in the office to know that."

I didn't breakdown and cry though I felt like it because hearing something like that you KNOW they are owning the Ownership Attitude Jacket.