Introduction
After having led executive training and mentorship sessions around the world, I believe that the following is one of the most crucial leadership lessons:
The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.
As a result, the most effective and healthy method to deal with any and all difficult situations is to ask yourself a primary guiding question:
How are you personally contributing to creating, or not improving, the conditions that you are upset about?
The foundational principle Take 360 Ownership means that in every situation the most effective approach is to take complete 360 degrees of ownership for how your personal actions can improve a situation, rather than complain or blame others.
The 360-degrees aspect is important because it not only indicates requiring a full-circle examination of your own actions, but also because in a corporate/organizational setting people need to recognize that they should take ownership down, across, and even up the organization.
The 360 Ownership principle is effective because when any event occurs, there is a critical 3-step process that must occur for people to hold a healthy and productive relationship with the event:
1 First and foremost, it is critical for people to understand what is truly in their Circle of Control. Very simply, an individual’s true circle of control is only their own thoughts and actions. Other people’s thoughts and actions might be able to be influenced with varying degrees of success, but there is no true and complete control.
2 Upon understanding that an individual only controls their own thoughts and actions, humans then require a feeling of “agency” in order to give meaning and value to their actions. Agency is the idea that through your actions you can affect the world around you, and you are not just a helpless bystander. By only complaining or blaming others, you both ignore how you are personally contributing to, or not improving the issue, and also give away your agency and power to change the situation.
3 Lastly, if people now know that they only control their own thoughts and actions, and that their actions affect the world around them, the most effective and empowered approach is to take a full 360 degrees of ownership over how their own personal actions can improve the current situation or issue, and make any changes accordingly.
One of society’s core issues is a pervasive desire to hold others to standards that we are unwilling to meet ourselves.
A few examples of taking 360 Ownership vs. typical/common approaches:
1 Taking ownership over how you could have over-communicated or engaged in proactive problem prevention with a team/dept/colleague/boss vs. Complaining about how they are the real issue and you have no part in the problem.
2 Taking ownership over how you can be less lazy and unproductive vs Complaining about the work ethic of others.
3 Taking ownership by voting with your dollars and changing what you purchase vs. Complaining about companies’ labor conditions, tax evasion, globalization, etc.
4 Taking ownership over how you can be less bigoted and more open-minded and informed vs. Complaining about the bigotry and ignorance of others
5 Taking ownership of improving your skill set and value creation vs. Complaining about lower-wage workers taking your job
6 Taking ownership over how you can improve your own weaknesses in a relationship vs. Complaining about all of the other person’s faults
Additional articles, case studies, maturity models, and tools coming soon.