To be a leader, think like an owner

Jim, a vice president of a consumer goods company, called me to discuss a problem. A former student of mine, he’d had a jarring experience, and was trying to make sense of what went wrong.

Jim was working on the launch of a new product. He was a member of a team headed by the senior vice president in charge of one of the company’s divisions. The team was charged with all aspects of the product’s design, packaging, marketing, and distribution. Each member of the team was assigned one aspect. Jim’s responsibility was point-of-sale promotion. He felt this wasn’t the most critical assignment, but still a good opportunity.

After several weeks, he came up with a detailed plan regarding display and placement for the product within each retail context: grocery stores, drugstores, and other consumer outlets. Jim was very pleased. “I thought I did a very good job,” he told me.

At one late-stage project team meeting, Jim presented his recommendations. To his surprise, several members of the team roundly criticized his proposal. They felt it was out of step with the nature of the product, price point, and consumer buying behavior.

Jim was shaken. After the meeting, the team leader took him aside and asked how much he really understood about the product being launched. “I’ve been in every meeting,” Jim replied, “and I’ve listened carefully.”

The team leader proceeded to ask Jim specific questions: “Who do you think should buy this product? How should it be priced? How should it be packaged?” Jim admitted that he hadn’t really thought about these issues because they weren’t part of his specific assignment. Other team members, he argued, were supposed to worry about those questions.

The team leader was exasperated by Jim’s comments and gave Jim some pointed advice. He urged him to think about how he would answer these questions if he were the team leader, rather than simply a member with narrow responsibilities.

Jim called me to get my reaction and ask for suggestions for responding to the project manager. My response was straightforward: “Jim, your team leader has given you some great advice. I agree with him. Imagine that your life depended on getting every aspect of this launch. How would you do it? Think like an owner.”

Jim acknowledged he hadn’t considered this approach. “That’s going to take a lot of thought and analysis on my part. Are you sure this is really my role? Do I really have to do all that?”

“Yes,” I said. “If you want to be a leader, you absolutely do.”

He decided to take this challenge. He interviewed other team members, conducted research at selected retail outlets, and came to a disturbing insight: He had done a lousy job. He apologized to the project team and proposed new positioning recommendations, which his teammates quickly approved.

Jim promised himself that in the future, he wouldn’t think like a narrow functionary, but instead approach his work as if he were an owner of the company.

It sounds simple: Think like an owner. In fact, it is hard to do. It means getting to conviction — a threshold level beyond which you feel a high level of confidence about what you believe should be done.

Searching for conviction can be challenging. We need to take sufficient time to gather information, consider alternative arguments, agonize, and make sure we arrive at a balanced judgment. This process might feel like a grind, but as a leader, you do need to constantly strive to get to a level of conviction on key issues. You and your team need to focus on the steps that will get you to sound judgment.

With practice, you will learn what conviction feels like. Leaders don’t look for excuses for why they can’t act like an owner. Instead, they embrace the challenge of ownership and encourage their teams to do the same.

Reprinted with permission of Harvard Business Review.