A task is done when the box is checked. An outcome is done when the resident has heat, the owner has the statement, the guest is inside the home. We hire people who feel responsible for the second one, because the first one is easy to fake and the second one is what we are paid for.
Responsibility is also what makes coaching work. We give people a standard and a coach, not a script, which only functions if they own the judgment calls in between. Someone who follows the script and lets the outcome fail has done what they were told and failed at the job.
And it runs upward. When a process is wrong, the responsible thing is to say so and change it, not to follow it and blame it later. The standard is never finished; the people who run it are responsible for improving it.
- Every ticket has one owner by name. Two owners is no owner.
- Nobody is chased for status. If your work is off track, the team hears it from you, early, with what you plan to do about it.
- When a resident asks who is handling their problem, the answer is a name, and that person calls them back.
- A mistake is reported by the person who made it, before anyone else finds it. That report is never punished; hiding one is.
- When you disagree with a decision you are asked to carry out, you say so once, clearly, and then you carry it out fully or you escalate. You do not carry it out badly.
- It is not blame. Ownership is about the next step, not the last one.
- It is not doing everything yourself. Delegating a task and owning the outcome is exactly the skill a team lead needs.
- It is not taking the fall for a broken process. Fixing the process is the responsible act.
We hire for it, coach to it, and measure it.
How we hire for it
We ask for a time you finished something nobody was checking on, and a time you told someone bad news before they asked. People with real answers to both tend to have several.
How we coach to it
Coaching questions are framed around ownership: what did you decide, why, and what would you decide next time? The coach never takes the decision away from the person who owns it.
How we know
Tickets that close without a chase, problems reported by their owner versus discovered by someone else, and promotions, because every team lead here came up through owning outcomes, not tasks.
Read more: The Standard Is Never Finished →