I feel that I am very fortunate to work at Intercon Messaging. One of the many reasons is that there are so many people here that love to read! “Ownership Thinking” by Brad Hams is one that Pat picked up a bit ago and lent out to anyone that wanted to read it.

Ownership Thinking is a book not only for leaders within an organization, but for everyone within the company! The book is a guide on how to implement ownership thinking within an organization including that employees understand the financials, how they impact them, and providing bonus plans that pay for themselves.

In the book, Hams explains that Entitlement is a disease that is killing companies, destroying the economy and crushing potential. In many ways entitlement has been cultivated for decades.

He makes a distinction between employees who think they’re owed a job and those who own their jobs. Employees who believe they’re owed a job produce more busy-ness than business. By doing the minimum (ie showing up), they expect the maximum – great wages, great benefits, etc. He also says that the situation is as much the employer’s fault as the employee’s!

His approach of getting employees to engage, wanting to contribute and feeling better about how they contributed has involves the core principals of Ownership Thinking:

• The Right Education: Educating employees the fundamentals of business and finance, how their company makes money, and how they add (or take away) value.

• The Right Measures: Identifying the organization’s Key Performance Indicators (with an emphasis on leading, activity-based measures), creating scoreboards, and forecasting results in an environment of high visibility and accountability.

• The Right Incentives: Creating broad-based incentive plans that are self-funding (by virtue of the first two components), and that clearly align employees’ behavior to the organization’s business and financial objectives.

Hams shows organizations how to implement these core principals into a program that turns employees from paycheck-collecting drones to engaged and active participants. As a result, employees are more fulfilled and returns improve! Simply put, Ownership Thinking shows employers how to get employees to think-and act-like owners.

Added bonus: Ownership Thinking is a something that can be carried over into your personal life!