Here’s why I approach everything with an owner mentality.
Several years ago in my career, I was the chief information officer for a large, family-owned business. This business had a very significant technology infrastructure and a large engineering department. It became clear to me that our network wasn’t built to handle the demand that engineering required, and the engineers were waiting for 20 to 30 minutes to download files.
After much review and planning, I went to the owners of the company and told them we needed to spend about $1.4 million to upgrade our network. I started to explain the network configuration, bandwidth, etc., and the owner stopped me. He said, “I don’t understand any of this, nor do I want to. I hired you because you’re an expert in this field. I have one simple question for you: If this was your company and you were spending your money on this, would you do it?” I replied, “Of course I would. I’ll never recommend something that I wouldn’t do if it was my money.” To which the owner replied, “Then go do what needs to be done.”
At that moment I realized it’s not about the details of the project. Of course these are important to be successful, but it’s about ownership — ownership of the project, ownership of the financial impact, ownership of the success of the company, ownership period. If you make every decision like an owner, there’s a high probability that you’ll do the right thing.
This defining moment came to me over 20 years ago, and I’ve kept it present with me throughout my career. In one such teachable moment, I was the CEO of a contract manufacturing company, and one day I was walking through the facility with the quality assurance manager. She was explaining to me some of the changes they were making in the facility to make it more efficient. As we were walking I saw some trash on the floor and stopped to pick it up. The manager turned around as I was walking toward the trash can and asked what I was doing. I told her I was picking up the trash. She responded, “We have janitors for that.” I asked her, “If you have a housekeeper and you were walking through your house and you saw trash on the floor, would you pick it up?” Of course you would because you own the house. You have to act like an owner at your place of work too.
Another example is my most recent venture as an owner and CEO of Alter Eco. Having been on the board of Alter Eco, I could see the potential in the brand, but something was missing, and it was clearly the ownership of the team. There was minimal communication from the management to the team, and the team didn’t feel empowered to act as owners because the management didn’t act as owners. When the opportunity came along to acquire the company, I knew that turning it around wouldn’t be easy, but it would be possible if I had a team that took ownership — and that’s exactly what has happened.
Everything you do, every decision you make should be made like an owner. This isn’t limited to financial decisions. If your company employs people, treat them like you want to be treated. If your company manufactures products, make sure they are the type of products you would want your family to purchase. And if your company has the ability to impact the world around you, make sure you tackle these things like an owner of your destiny. Leave the world better than when you found it. Wake up every day as an owner.
