Owning Your Work – Part I
Today’s Three Things is the first of a two-part series by Rebecca Epstein, the Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Client Services at 
The Management Center (TMC). The Management Center (TMC) works with talented nonprofit leaders who are experts in their fields, have thrived as individual performers, and now must learn how to get things done through other people – in other words, how to manage. Learn more about TMC at www.managementcenter.org.
At The Management Center, our mission is to instill the management practices that make it easier for progressive leaders and their organizations to get results.
We predictably spend a lot of time teaching management skills. More surprisingly, we also find ourselves often teaching “ownership” skills; that is, how to effectively drive your own work forward and manage up, across, and down to do so.
While much has been written about the importance of giving people a sense of ownership over their work, there’s significantly less attention paid to what it means to be a good owner (in fact, so much less that we’ve had trouble finding resources on the topic).
The two practices of handing over ownership and being a good owner are inextricably linked: without trusting that a staff member will really drive a piece of work forward and take responsibility for its success, it’s much harder for managers to delegate full ownership (or, as is often the case, to delegate work at all beyond the simplest of tasks!).
This week we offer up three tips to get a handle on “owning” a piece of work. Next week, we’ll follow up with three tips to make you an effective owner, and thereby a more effective manager.
1. Be Clear About Who The “Owner” Is: The first Ownership Rule of Thumb is that everything (goals, projects, tasks, specific next steps) needs an owner – and only one owner – who is responsible for the work’s success or failure, ensuring that it gets done (either directly or via others) and that others are engaged appropriately along the way.
In the words of one client, the owner is the “obsessor” (i.e., the person who wakes up in the morning thinking about whether or not the work is on track and what needs to happen next). Without clarity about ownership, it’s impossible to take the next steps.
2. Know What You’re Owning: So, you’ve identified that you own a project, task, goal, or other critically important thing. Now what?
· Step 1: To start, begin at the end by agreeing on what success looks like. Ask your manager to paint a picture of what she envisions and make sure you have the same idea in mind.
· Step 2: Next, fill in the details. Once you have a good picture of where you’re going, you’ll want to fill in any relevant other details. The trusty “5 Ws” is one way to make sure you’ve covered your bases. Who else should be involved? What else is important to know? When does it need to be completed by? Where does this fall among current priorities? Why is this task important?
· Step 3: Repeat it back! Sharing what you’re taking away is a simple way to check for alignment, giving you a chance to capture your takeaways and your manager an opportunity to add/subtract/refine expectations as needed.
3. Manage Your MOCHA! As an owner – especially within progressive nonprofits where we place high value on involving multiple stakeholders – you will likely need to engage other people in your work along the way. The “MOCHA” model can help managers and owners be transparent upfront about who needs to be involved and how.
- M = Manager assigns responsibility and holds owner accountable. Makes suggestions, asks hard questions, reviews progress, serves as a resource, and intervenes if things are off-track.
- O = Owner has overall responsibility for the success or failure of the project and ensures the work gets done (and that others are involved appropriately).
- C = Consulted should be asked for input and/or needs to be bought in.
- H = Helper(s) are available to do part of the work.
- A = Approver signs off on decisions before they are final. May be the Owner or Manager, though may also be others in the organization (for example, the Executive Director or board).
Bringing in the right people in the right ways and at the rights times is a key component of good ownership. To do so, you’ll need to stay on top of your Helpers’ work as well as your own and make sure that the rest of your MOCHA has the information and resources they need to keep the work moving forward.
Happy owning, and stay tuned for Part II: Doing it with the Power of O!