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Ownership Thinking: How to End Entitlement and Create a Culture of Accountability, Purpose, and Profit Ture of Accountability, Purpose, and Profit
Boost productivity by replacing employees' sense of entitlement with a sense of ownership. "Ownership Thinking" provides a three-step program for transforming employees from average people just doing their job to top-performing employees who operate with the understanding that they have a very real stake in the company's success. Learn how to educate your employees on the fundamentals of business and finance (how the company makes money and how they add - or take away - value); identify the organization's key performance indicators; and, create incentive plans aligning employees' behavior with business objectives. Brad Hams runs the company Ownership Thinking, which helps organizations combat entitlement mentality. He has served as president of Mrs. Fields Cookies in Mexico and held executive positions in the finance and operations in a Fortune 100 company.
273 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 3, 2011
61 people are currently reading
300 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
June 3, 2018
Lots of important ideas and insights, buried in smug, self-congratulatory advertisement for the author's company.
== The good parts ==
The key idea behind this book is that companies do better if every employee starts thinking like and feeling like an owner. In most companies, owners and employees spend their time focused on completely different things. The owners tend to focus on profit, hiring, competition, expenses, risk, and how to make the business successful. Most employees, on the other hand, focus on the paycheck, benefits, health care, getting work done, job security, recognition, time off, the work environment, and opportunities for growth and/or more money.
In other words, owners spend most of their time thinking about the business, while employees spend most of their time thinking about themselves. To build a more successful company, the goal is to move employees towards spending more of their time thinking about the business. The author uses the phrase, "share the insomnia," which is more negative than I like, but captures the sentiment well. As it turns out, this is beneficial not only for the company, but the employee too, as it will make their work more meaningful.
To make that possible, you need:
1. The right incentives: If the company does well, each employee should do well. You do this by creating an incentive plan.
2. The right education: Each employee must understand how the company makes money and how their work fits into the business model. Note that the vast majority of people know very little about business finance—and may be embarrassed to admit that. Without that knowledge, they make poor decisions and poor assumptions, so it's important to teach basic finance concepts to everyone at the company.
3. The right measures: every employee should be able to see the measures that contribute to the company's success and understand what measures they contribute to. When those measures cross certain thresholds, the incentive plan pays out.
A couple key notes on incentive plans:
1. Do not mistake incentives for entitlements or bonuses. Incentives should only be paid out if specific goals are achieved. The idea is you pick goals that shape the employee's behavior in a way that benefits the business.
2. One of the ways to define goals is to come up with a small number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are leading indicators of the business' success. KPIs should be easy for every employee to measure and understand and you should review progress towards KPIs regularly with the whole company so everyone always knows how they are doing against expectations.
3. In addition to KPIs, you can periodically create Rapid Improvement Plans (RIPs). The idea with a RIP is to (a) define specific, quantifiable goals that can be accomplished in a short time frame, such as ~90 days, (b) determine what impact achieving those goals would have on the business, and (c) if the RIP succeeds, you celebrate it. The celebration for RIPs is generally fairly small: a party, an outing, a small prize. The real reward for accomplishing a RIP is that it contributes to the KPIs, which, in turn, contribute towards the incentive plan.
4. The incentive plan should be self-funding. That means that meeting the requirements produces the revenue necessary to pay the incentive. This is an essential requirement to make this a sustainable practice.
== The not so good parts ==
- A lot of this book is an overt advertisement for the author's company.
- The author describes himself as a "self-made man." If you grew up in the US in the 20th century, you are not a self-made man.
- Way too many Ayn Rand references. If you grew up in the US in the 20th century, you did not live in the world Ayn Rand describes. And you wouldn't want to.
- The author attributes a lot of the problems in the US to the sense of "entitlement" in the younger generations. I'm sure the exact same thing was said of his generation; and that of his parents; and their parents... And I'm sure the struggles of the modern generation have nothing to do with the fact that the price of health care, housing, and education has grown exponentially faster than salaries, and that the previous generation saddled us with global warming, countless wars, and a madman in the white house.
- Offering monetary rewards for creative tasks has been shown in many studies to decrease motivation and performance. This is covered extensively in Daniel Pink's book "Drive." I appreciate the author addressing this question head on, but I did not find the response at all convincing.
- No discussion of how to handle failure. What if you don't achieve a KPI? Or a RIP fails?
== Overall ==
Worth reading for the good stuff, but expect to do a lot of head shaking as a highly privileged (and entitled!) white US-born male smugly tells you you're too entitled.
== Quotes ==
As always, I've saved some of my favorite quotes:
"For an organization to achieve excellence, it must engage all of its organization members. Not only will these employees have the ability to engage, but most of them will have the desire to do so. Money is, of course, important, but the truth is that people rarely leave a company because of money. More often it is because they do not feel a part of the company and cannot see their contributions to it."
"The primary reason for providing business acumen training to employees (and for sharing more information than you might be accustomed to) is this: What your employees don’t know can hurt the company."
== The good parts ==
The key idea behind this book is that companies do better if every employee starts thinking like and feeling like an owner. In most companies, owners and employees spend their time focused on completely different things. The owners tend to focus on profit, hiring, competition, expenses, risk, and how to make the business successful. Most employees, on the other hand, focus on the paycheck, benefits, health care, getting work done, job security, recognition, time off, the work environment, and opportunities for growth and/or more money.
In other words, owners spend most of their time thinking about the business, while employees spend most of their time thinking about themselves. To build a more successful company, the goal is to move employees towards spending more of their time thinking about the business. The author uses the phrase, "share the insomnia," which is more negative than I like, but captures the sentiment well. As it turns out, this is beneficial not only for the company, but the employee too, as it will make their work more meaningful.
To make that possible, you need:
1. The right incentives: If the company does well, each employee should do well. You do this by creating an incentive plan.
2. The right education: Each employee must understand how the company makes money and how their work fits into the business model. Note that the vast majority of people know very little about business finance—and may be embarrassed to admit that. Without that knowledge, they make poor decisions and poor assumptions, so it's important to teach basic finance concepts to everyone at the company.
3. The right measures: every employee should be able to see the measures that contribute to the company's success and understand what measures they contribute to. When those measures cross certain thresholds, the incentive plan pays out.
A couple key notes on incentive plans:
1. Do not mistake incentives for entitlements or bonuses. Incentives should only be paid out if specific goals are achieved. The idea is you pick goals that shape the employee's behavior in a way that benefits the business.
2. One of the ways to define goals is to come up with a small number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that are leading indicators of the business' success. KPIs should be easy for every employee to measure and understand and you should review progress towards KPIs regularly with the whole company so everyone always knows how they are doing against expectations.
3. In addition to KPIs, you can periodically create Rapid Improvement Plans (RIPs). The idea with a RIP is to (a) define specific, quantifiable goals that can be accomplished in a short time frame, such as ~90 days, (b) determine what impact achieving those goals would have on the business, and (c) if the RIP succeeds, you celebrate it. The celebration for RIPs is generally fairly small: a party, an outing, a small prize. The real reward for accomplishing a RIP is that it contributes to the KPIs, which, in turn, contribute towards the incentive plan.
4. The incentive plan should be self-funding. That means that meeting the requirements produces the revenue necessary to pay the incentive. This is an essential requirement to make this a sustainable practice.
== The not so good parts ==
- A lot of this book is an overt advertisement for the author's company.
- The author describes himself as a "self-made man." If you grew up in the US in the 20th century, you are not a self-made man.
- Way too many Ayn Rand references. If you grew up in the US in the 20th century, you did not live in the world Ayn Rand describes. And you wouldn't want to.
- The author attributes a lot of the problems in the US to the sense of "entitlement" in the younger generations. I'm sure the exact same thing was said of his generation; and that of his parents; and their parents... And I'm sure the struggles of the modern generation have nothing to do with the fact that the price of health care, housing, and education has grown exponentially faster than salaries, and that the previous generation saddled us with global warming, countless wars, and a madman in the white house.
- Offering monetary rewards for creative tasks has been shown in many studies to decrease motivation and performance. This is covered extensively in Daniel Pink's book "Drive." I appreciate the author addressing this question head on, but I did not find the response at all convincing.
- No discussion of how to handle failure. What if you don't achieve a KPI? Or a RIP fails?
== Overall ==
Worth reading for the good stuff, but expect to do a lot of head shaking as a highly privileged (and entitled!) white US-born male smugly tells you you're too entitled.
== Quotes ==
As always, I've saved some of my favorite quotes:
"For an organization to achieve excellence, it must engage all of its organization members. Not only will these employees have the ability to engage, but most of them will have the desire to do so. Money is, of course, important, but the truth is that people rarely leave a company because of money. More often it is because they do not feel a part of the company and cannot see their contributions to it."
"The primary reason for providing business acumen training to employees (and for sharing more information than you might be accustomed to) is this: What your employees don’t know can hurt the company."
December 18, 2015
Great business concept to eliminate entitlement
After making so many mistakes with employee bonuses and compensation, I wish I had read this book years ago. Very practical ideas about how to execute a company bonus structure and understanding the psychology of why it works. The mindset to carry through your ideas to the very DNA of your company culture and impact every employee. Very good read. I'd recommend to any SMB leadership team and owners.
After making so many mistakes with employee bonuses and compensation, I wish I had read this book years ago. Very practical ideas about how to execute a company bonus structure and understanding the psychology of why it works. The mindset to carry through your ideas to the very DNA of your company culture and impact every employee. Very good read. I'd recommend to any SMB leadership team and owners.
June 3, 2012
Some good stuff in here. Not much new but a useful framework. Too US centric though.
February 14, 2021
The premise of this book is right on target. The author is right in emphasizing that ownership is thinking and cultivated in the organization culture. Having said that, I felt that the book lacked examples I could directly relate to. There are numerous examples about various kinds of organizations and it's not a stretch to interpolate for my needs but the book doesn't give that and it doesn't seem trivial to do that.
February 24, 2021
Was recommended this book as an alternative to pay bonuses (too arbitrary) and stock options (only good when you cash out at the end). The alternative is a profit sharing plan triggered by... profits, oddly enough. Looking forward to putting some of the principles into practice at work.
April 14, 2022
The Rapid Improvement Plan (RIP) framework alone makes this book worthwhile. Interesting push towards ESOP. Better suited as a good complimentary book to more comprehensive frameworks like EOS or Scaling Up.
May 8, 2025
Brad Hamms provides some nice insights into practical things you can do to help people think more like owners. However, unlike Ownership Unlocked, Hamms does not delve very deeply into the psychology of ownership. Still, it's a helpful read and I recommend.
January 6, 2020
this book reminded me a lot of the Great Game of Business and the EOS series. Nothing really new and did not like that he is a big Ayn Rand fan. not a book I'd recommend.
January 26, 2024
great application examples & exercises to lay out successful implementation
August 4, 2013
I loved the concept 100 and would give a much higher rating to Chapter 1 for the inspiration. It is a great philosophy, one that my company is using and I am excited to see the results of the effort.
March 25, 2019
Really interesting premise. The more proprietary thinking, the better. If you call a tech support line and get a contact person in India, vs a co-owner of the business, who do you think is most motivated to do a great job?
March 11, 2012
Gave me some insight into things I sort of already knew...overall, I would have been okay if I had never read this book.
September 1, 2012
I found the beginning and the end of the book useful and applicable to my job.
May 21, 2023
Книга о том, как привить сотрудникам своей компании чувство причастности к бизнесу и высокий уровень ответственности за результаты своей работы.
March 1, 2013
Okay, some good idea and food for though.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews