Shared ownership in a team is defined as the members’ willingness to hold each other to agreements and goals (J. Katzenbach, 2005), and there’s a lot to gain when the level is high. These teams consistently perform better, help each other more, and include more perspectives when they make decisions. On top of that, they’re better at solving problems than teams with a low level of shared ownership (P. Fandt, 1991).
So it can get really expensive if a team doesn’t spot the symptoms of a falling level of shared ownership in time. For example, I interviewed a manager of a manufacturing company. He told me his departments had silted up, because the team focused more on keeping some outdated processes alive instead of renewing and streamlining. In quieter periods, it had become the norm for the team to let tasks drag on longer — rather than spending the spare time on innovation and fresh thinking. When the manager confronted the team, he quickly met a wall of excuses and explanations about being busy — while the office was empty one minute after closing time. In another interview, a manager from a large local authority said: “Everyone on the team accuses each other of being rude. Instead of starting the positive spiral themselves, they’re all waiting for someone else to do something.” Clear symptoms of a far too low level of shared ownership.
The effect is called “the broken windows theory”. It’s about how, if you don’t replace a broken window in a building, all the windows will soon be smashed.
To understand a team’s standard of shared ownership, we first have to understand what makes the level change. We find the answer in a story from the mid-70s in the city of Newark, USA:
As part of a larger initiative to improve law and order in the state of New Jersey, Newark was one of the cities where they wanted to put officers on the beat. It wasn’t something that exactly sparked enthusiasm in the city’s police. Officers on foot could only cover short distances, so the police saw it as ineffective. On top of that, as an officer you had to be outside in all kinds of weather, which several police stations had only used as a kind of punishment. The residents of Newark, though, could clearly feel the effect of the initiative. The officers “tidied up the street scene” — moved on sleeping vagrants, urinating drunks and beggars. That made the prostitutes disappear. The gangs that robbed the prostitutes’ customers disappeared, and the drug dealers who supplied the whole crowd disappeared too. That made the residents feel safe, and they started spending more time outside, which made the children play more in the streets. Slowly but surely the atmosphere in the street changed, and it no longer attracted the hardened criminals.
The effect is called “the broken windows theory”. It’s about how, if you don’t replace a broken window in a building, all the windows will soon be smashed (G. Kelling, 1982). That’s because it seems nobody cares about the building — so smashing another window becomes “free” and therefore without consequence. This respected theory was later put into practice in New York, where it helped bring crime down 10 years in a row. The theory is highly relevant to understanding what affects the level of shared ownership in a team (H. Corman, 2005).
You see, the atmosphere in Newark’s streets wasn’t only improved because of the officers on the beat, but also because of the residents. An informal cooperation grew up between the officers who tidied up and the residents who kept the positive spiral going. It meant they created social control by reminding each other of the street’s law and order. You know it from the phrase: “Excuse me — you dropped something,” when someone throws paper on the street. Here we help build shared ownership, because we remind each other that it isn’t a matter of indifference where the litter ends up. If, on the other hand, we don’t react, the litter on the street also becomes a problem for the person who dropped the first piece of paper (G. Kelling, 1982).
We help build shared ownership, because we remind each other that it isn’t a matter of indifference where the litter ends up.
That was a problem the CEO of a telecoms company told me about. His best salespeople ran their own race. They didn’t need help to reach their goals and created a culture where no one helped each other. That meant the team didn’t reach its goal, and employees were laid off — which created a bad atmosphere, even among the best salespeople.
So what can you do to raise the level of shared ownership? There has to be trust in your team, you have to dare to enter into conflict, and you have to be engaged in every respect. Beyond that, your level depends on whether you, as a team leader and team member, work together the way the officers on the beat and the residents did.
Your role as team leader
A culture with a high degree of shared ownership has four elements:
- Tell the team clearly what you expect and don’t expect of them
- Make sure the expectations are credible and realistic
- Reward good behaviour and performance collectively
- Let poor behaviour and performance have a collective consequence
Your role as team member
If you’re a team member and don’t know what the four points above contain, you show shared ownership by asking your manager. If you do know them, you show shared ownership by making sure the rest of your team knows them too. After that, it’s about you holding your colleagues to the agreements and goals you’ve set yourselves.
It’s about you holding your colleagues to the agreements and goals you’ve set yourselves.
The hard part about behaviour
Fortunately, the vast majority of managers don’t hold back from rewarding the team’s good results or pointing out the poor ones. But when it comes to holding the team to its behaviour, they hesitate. That’s a problem. Because behaviour leads to results. When the team sees that there are no consequences, it’s the equivalent of letting a building stand with one broken window after another. When I ask the managers I’ve interviewed about shared ownership what they’ve said to the team about poor behaviour, they often answer: “Nothing. I find it hard.”
“The broken windows theory” applies both in a positive and a negative sense, and it’s self-reinforcing in both directions.
Note that ownership is about responsible behaviour — and not only about responsible results. Just as the officers on the beat would probably have achieved very little by arresting or fining the criminals, the positive effect appeared when they “tidied up the street’s behaviour”. Once the positive spiral is under way, the team is like the street. Through positive social control, the system has to correct itself. That way there’s less and less need for visible policing — just as there is for visible management — when the team’s shared ownership takes over.
“The broken windows theory” applies both in a positive and a negative sense, and since it’s self-reinforcing in both directions, there’s every good reason to have the hard conversation and kick the positive spiral into gear.
Sources and more inspiration
G. Kelling & J. Wilsonmar, 1982, The Atlantic
J. Katzenbach & D. Smith, 2005, Harvard Business Publishing
Carrots, Sticks and Broken Windows
H. Corman & N. Mocan, 2005, Journal of Law and Economics
J. Wilson, 2009, Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
The Relationship of Accountability and Interdependent Behavior to Enhancing Team Consequences
P. Fandt, 1991, Group Organization Management
