How To Impress Your Boss: The 3 Levels of Ownership
What can we learn from Army Generals and ‘The World’s Hardest Man’ to impress our boss at work?
TL;DR: Your boss is busy. The easier you make their life, the better.
Welcome to the How To Impress Your Boss Series, where we’ll be exploring… well… ways you can impress your boss 🤭
First up is ownership.
Ownership is all about taking responsibility for your decisions and making no excuses.
You might have already watched Jocko’s TED talk (the comments are hilarious, by the way) or Goggins’ thoughts on ‘extreme ownership’.
Pretty inspiring stuff.
But most of us aren’t leading troops to battle like Jocko or running 100 miles in 24 hours like Goggins, so how can we apply ownership in our everyday life?
Well, let’s start with work.
Most people have a boss.
How can you impress your boss, and more importantly, add more value to your company, by taking ownership on a daily basis?
Ownership at work
Let’s say a problem has come up at work.
It’s a bit of a tricky one, and you’re not sure what to do about it. You reach out to your boss, let’s call her Lizzie, for her thoughts.
Level 1: Ownership Rookie 🤷♂️
‘Hey Lizzie, [insert issue] has just happened. What do you think we should do?
This is a classic Level 1 Ownership response. Something’s gone wrong. You’re not sure how to proceed. You ask Lizzie for her thoughts.
Fair enough, right?
No.
Not at all.
Lizzie is busy.
She’s got stuff to do: she’s on calls all day, 1:1s tomorrow and has all sorts of strategic decisions to think about.
With this Level 1 Ownership approach, Lizzie has to now figure out exactly what happened, weigh up various solutions, analyse the pros and cons of each, and then commit to a solution.
Lizzie is not impressed 🤨
What does Ownership Level 2 look like?
Level 2: Ownership Pro 🤓
‘Hey Lizzie, [insert issue] has just gone wrong. I think the reason is because [insert reason]. I think we can resolve this by doing Z [insert proposed solution]’.
Now that’s better.
You’re being pro-active. You’re respecting Lizzie’s time. You’ve told her the issue, why you think it’s happened, and you’ve made her life a bit easier by suggesting a solution so it’s one less thing for her to think about. Unless it’s a bonkers solution, she can give you the OK and you’re good to go.
Good job 💪
But it could be better 🤓
Enter, Level 3 Ownership 😎
Level 3: Ownership Beast 🚀
‘Hey Lizzie, [insert issue] has just gone wrong.
I’ve done some digging and I’m [insert percentage] X% confident that the cause is because [insert reason]. I think there are two ways to solve this.
Option 1 is to [insert Option 1]. The pros are [insert pros] and the cons are [insert cons]. Option 2 is to [insert Option 2]. The pros are [insert pros] and the cons are [insert cons].
Unless you think otherwise, and assuming we’re optimising for [insert what you’re optimising for, be it revenue, trust, speed, etc] I’ll respond with option 2 [justify why you think option 2 is better than option 1].
A bit of a mouthful, I know. But unless the issue is extremely time sensitive, Lizzie’s going to be over the moon 😊
You’ve done so much of the thinking for her. You’ve told her the problem, what you think has caused it, including how confident you are about your diagnosis (that thought exercise in itself is a good one for you to challenge your assumptions with). You’ve mentioned what you’re optimising for: people so often disagree about solutions because they prioritise outcomes differently, so you’re helping her see your guiding principles. You’ve given her 2 options for solutions and laid out the pros and cons of each and why you think your choice makes the most sense.
Lizzie can now read your thoughts. If she’s happy with your reasoning, she can just give you the thumbs up if she agrees 👍
She might not agree — she might have some context you don’t, or want to optimise for a different endpoint than you — but you’ve still made her life much easier because she can pick specifically what she disagrees with.
What matters is that you’ve just shown Lizzie how pro-active you are, you’ve saved her, and therefore your company time. Time = Money👌
In next week’s blog post, we’ll learn about a particular mental model called ‘First Principles Thinking’ that will help you get to the root cause of problems and think more creatively. Sure, your boss will be impressed, but more importantly, it’ll change how you think about problem solving for the rest of your life.
Peace and love,
Ollie
PS Credit to Rune Kvist, COO of Aula, for showing me what next-level ownership looks like in the workplace 🙏🏼
