Owning the Work and Making Mistakes

We all make mistakes. There are those who blame everyone else, and those who take all the blame, even if they didn’t do it.

One of the keys to strong teamwork ethics is the ability of the leaders to take all the blame and give all the credit. We all know that leaders can make or break an organization by the culture they create.

Accepting all blame and giving all credit creates an atmosphere that can sometimes be dangerous.

People may start believing it is the truth.

At the same time, accepting the responsibility of making your own mistake is a powerful tool. When you recognize your own mistake — whether you are leading the team or you gave inaccurate instructions — when you accept it and then figure out solutions, it changes the dynamic of the conversations within your team. It allows the team to:

1. Be more responsible
2. Accept the roles
3. Take ownership of the work they do

When I ask someone to accept their responsibility it is not because I want to blame them. Rather, I want them to take on ownership of the work. When they do, their work ethics and approach changes because they believe that they need to do it — and to work with the team — to ensure that things are done correctly.

It’s a tough balancing act, especially in the entrepreneurial space, where someone may think that they could do it and they are the only one qualified to do it best. While I agree that you will never find someone exactly like yourself, you’ll always find people that could do one thing better than you!

My approach and insights let people own their work. Accept the mistakes you make and let them accept the mistakes they make.

Rather than playing the blame game, play the responsibility game — What will happen now that we see a mistake was made and we need to fix it? What are the lessons learned as we move forward?

BEFORE YOU GO

We see our blogs as opportunities for dialogue. Please share your thoughts as comments.

1. What can you do to create an environment of ownership of programs or projects?
2. What can you do to assure the ownership involves learning rather than blaming?
3. What tools have you used to cultivate ownership and allow people to make mistakes without fear of being fired?

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Faris Alami is Founder and CEO of International Strategic Management, Inc. (ISM). He works internationally, presenting Exploring Entrepreneurship Workshops and other entrepreneurial ecosystem — related ventures.

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