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I've been reading _The Servant_ among a number of other books recently as part of a "management focus" in my role and in many ways so many of these books overla

I've been reading _The Servant_ among a number of other books recently as part of a "management focus" in my role and in many ways so many of these books overlap on many of the hot-areas of leadership. One of the big takeaways is that most of this information isn't just professional, you can (and, IMO, should use it personally). How you handle feedback and responsibility with your direct-reports is going (most of the time) how you do/ought to do things with your own children. And with those you worship with. Valuing personal relationships isn't just for the home and friends: it's important in a business context. Taking ownership/responsibility is something you must do personally and also across all aspects of your life. The beautiful thing is that so many of us get so stressed out because we have so much to do. However, being a good servant leader—addressing what people need rather than what they want—will often mean that you pass on things to others. This makes them feel more valuable and also means less stress for you. I did this yesterday with my son and the trash. He's got an Apple Watch and an alarm clock. So I told him: you're responsible for the trash. I'm not going to remind you about it, but if you don't do it, you sure as heck will hear about it. He relishes the idea of me not reminding him, and even though it's just taking out the trash—he likes the idea of "owning" it. (Not to mind the fact that he'll be driving in a few years... God help me!)

avgcorrection 3y ago
This is a one-weird-trick that management tries to use on underlings: they talk about motivating a sense of ownership to things. But this doesn't jive with the fact that employees are hirelings and thus have no ownership to anything in the company. But it would be convenient for management to push more of the responsibilities of ownership on the underlings, even though they will get none of the benefits. This of course assumes that the employee has no stocks in the company... but it would have to be more than just a symbolic amount in order to count.
- lazide 3y ago
  This attitude is the path to hell. If you own nothing (not even your own attitude, or the quality of what you are doing), then you’re a perpetual victim, always at the whims of others, and always unable to change anything that matters for you. If you take ownership of you and what you do, and how it impacts others and can produce value, you can make choices. To say no. To say yes. To push for recognition, and leave if you don’t get it. Owning what you’re working on (and refusing to work for someone who won’t let you) is usually a key part of mental health and actual real world success for everyone.
  - willcipriano 3y ago
    > This attitude is the path to hell. I disagree the other way around is. A lot of people suddenly realize they are 50 and they put decades into someone else's dream. Be realistic, do what you are paid for, but save the heroism for your own efforts.
    - lazide 3y ago
      No one is suggesting killing yourself for someone else’s dream. That is trying to take ownership for something that you have little scope to impact, frankly, and as you note don’t see the benefits for. I’m saying, having ownership of what you are doing and what you control is essential. Not doing so is a path to hell. That can be the section of the codebase you’re specializing in, or just the effectiveness and quality of the code you’re producing. Or the product you’re delivering, as delivered. If you don’t think the pay you’re getting is fair for that, then that is a separate issue - and one solved by not doing it, not by trying to pretend you had no part in the deal.
      - willcipriano 3y ago
        Wouldn't the word responsibility be more accurate here for what you are trying to describe? own·er·ship the act, state, or right of possessing something. re·spon·si·bil·i·ty the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. Part of me that's pushing back here is my manipulative language detector going off.
        lazide 3y ago
        Possession is control, is it not? Ownership is responsibility + benefit (or loss) for an outcome IMO, protected by some kind of agreement. Societal or contractual. Title. Employment agreement/laws. If there is positive benefit received on a good outcome + a responsibility for maintenance and the like, that is a form of ownership IMO. If a negative benefit comes from damage/destruction/bad things happening to that thing, that also tracks. Anyone who owns real property quickly discovers there isn’t anything like truly unencumbered and unconditional ownership of anything - the first property tax bill will make that clear if nothing else. That doesn’t mean someone doesn’t take on significant risks and benefits (hopefully) from owning it. It can still be yanked away if they don’t pay certain people or follow certain rules - or via Imminent Domain. Someone working a job has more constrained ownership, but it still exists. And like buying a property, they need to choose carefully as they’ll still end up with consequences regardless.
- mkreis 3y ago
  100%. It's a cheap motivational "hack" to call it ownership, but it's just responsibility without little power to make necessary changes. A recipe for frustration. In the example with the trash above, can the boy now choose to get a bigger trash can, so that he does not have to carry it outside so often? ;-)
  - dfee 3y ago
    Even better, externalize: throw your trash in the kitchen trash, so the adults have to take it out. Keep the watch. Profit.
- tstrimple 3y ago
  I'm confused as to what you think work is. Managers are just hirelings as well. They have different responsibilities, which includes effective delegation. If you think "ownership" of a process is just a trick to get employees to work, what's the alternative here? You're responsible for the outcomes of this process but don't own it and thus can't guide the direction of it? That sounds patently terrible. The benefit of owning a process is the control you have over it. I can't tell you how many times I've heard engineers bitch about the decisions made over their head that they have to conform to. But now engineers apparently are just going to bitch if given control over the process. There's no winning with some of you.
  - rexpop 3y ago
    The alternative is actual ownership.
    - marcinzm 3y ago
      Are you fine getting $0 salary for the year if your area of ownership doesn't do well that year?
      - avgcorrection 3y ago
        What kind of ownership entails “salaries” based on “areas of ownership”? This just seems confused. Of course! If you have ownership of something then you also bear the burden in case of loss or mismanagement. Blatantly obvious answer to a useless intended-as-rhetorical question.
  - avgcorrection 3y ago
    > I'm confused as to what you think work is. Managers are just hirelings as well. So what? People can be hired to be more direct servants of the ownership class. They often have more pay and power after all.
- baz00 3y ago
  Ownership is about mandate and ability to effect change. That doesn’t imply any material benefit other than being paid to do it. What management roles tend to do is assign ownership without mandate and ability.
- fweimer 3y ago
  Some companies literally assign to you ownership of your upstream contributions, whether you did them on your time or theirs. But maybe that too is to convey a sense of ownership that isn't actually there.
- nvahalik 3y ago
  > This of course assumes that the employee has no stocks in the company I'm grateful that I get to work for a company that encourages growth and promotes heavily from the inside. Not all organizations are like this. But Servant leadership and companies growing quickly go hand in hand.
- jonfw 3y ago
  Managers are underlings in that sense too. They don't own enough stock or have enough influence that they would rationally be thinking of the gains they'd make in their stock. Managers take ownership because they're looking for their project to succeed, they want to advance their career, etc. and the same applies to "underlings"
- potamic 3y ago
  You may not have ownership of the company but you can have ownership within the scope of your work. For instance, as a developer there are so many areas which involve decision making from code design, testability, reliability, observability, choice of tooling, non-functional roadmap, documentation and onboarding etc. Of course, working within an organizational framework, you may not have infinite degrees of freedom across these, but if you don't have at least a handful of degrees of freedom in what you do, then you depend on somebody to tell you exactly what needs to be done all the time and your work will not be very interesting.
Swizec 3y ago
> He relishes the idea of me not reminding him, and even though it's just taking out the trash—he likes the idea of "owning" it Kudos to you. The worst part of owning chores like trash and dishwasher stuff as a teenager was that inevitably it didn’t matter when I had planned to do the thing. My parents would get on my case about not having done the thing yet. Sometimes literally as I emerged from my room to go do the thing, I would get reminded that I need to do the thing. Thanks mom I know I’m on my way. Always felt like that robbed me of the opportunity to shine. What I’ve learned since then is that it’s extremely hard to need something done and rely on others to make it happen. The internal stress of “I could do this in 10min but I gotta let the junior team members spend 2 hours fumbling around so they can learn” … oof.
- lazide 3y ago
  Yup. Actual good management is hard.
makeitdouble 3y ago
＞ How you handle feedback and responsibility with your direct-reports is going (most of the time) how you do/ought to do things with your own children Your children don't have the option to show you the finger and move to another family. Nor (hopefuly) are you paying them to be your kids. I think it fundamentally changes what you should expect from one and not the other, especially regarding responsibilities and ownership. And I'm sure you won't address your son not taking out the trash the same you'd deal with a team member that don't release the features on time.
- nvahalik 3y ago
  > I think it fundamentally changes what you should expect from one and not the other Not exactly. I want my kids to become great people. I genuinely care about them and their well-being. This is the same thing with the people that I work with and for. I care about them and want to them to get better. > And I'm sure you won't address your son not taking out the trash the same you'd deal with a team member that don't release the features on time. Maybe, maybe not. Did they "give the finger" or did something just happen that is a learning experience? If it's a communication problem, these are fundamentally easy to address.
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    > I care about them and want to them to get better. Those are the same words but pointing to a radically different reality. I care about my coworkers being healthy, but there are clear boundaries that I won't pass over. If they drink all nights all week stay alive during the day through piles of enerfy drinks, I won't have much to say if it doesn't affect their work. Same way I can go any length to help my kid succeed at school, including changing school, paying for tuitions, changing their diet and whole life rythm to improve their focus etc. Helping my colleagues succeed goes as much as talking to them and changing their tasks/career path.

avgcorrection 3y ago

This is a one-weird-trick that management tries to use on underlings: they talk about motivating a sense of ownership to things. But this doesn't jive with the fact that employees are hirelings and thus have no ownership to anything in the company. But it would be convenient for management to push more of the responsibilities of ownership on the underlings, even though they will get none of the benefits. This of course assumes that the employee has no stocks in the company... but it would have to be more than just a symbolic amount in order to count.

lazide 3y ago
This attitude is the path to hell. If you own nothing (not even your own attitude, or the quality of what you are doing), then you’re a perpetual victim, always at the whims of others, and always unable to change anything that matters for you. If you take ownership of you and what you do, and how it impacts others and can produce value, you can make choices. To say no. To say yes. To push for recognition, and leave if you don’t get it. Owning what you’re working on (and refusing to work for someone who won’t let you) is usually a key part of mental health and actual real world success for everyone.
- willcipriano 3y ago
  > This attitude is the path to hell. I disagree the other way around is. A lot of people suddenly realize they are 50 and they put decades into someone else's dream. Be realistic, do what you are paid for, but save the heroism for your own efforts.
  - lazide 3y ago
    No one is suggesting killing yourself for someone else’s dream. That is trying to take ownership for something that you have little scope to impact, frankly, and as you note don’t see the benefits for. I’m saying, having ownership of what you are doing and what you control is essential. Not doing so is a path to hell. That can be the section of the codebase you’re specializing in, or just the effectiveness and quality of the code you’re producing. Or the product you’re delivering, as delivered. If you don’t think the pay you’re getting is fair for that, then that is a separate issue - and one solved by not doing it, not by trying to pretend you had no part in the deal.
    - willcipriano 3y ago
      Wouldn't the word responsibility be more accurate here for what you are trying to describe? own·er·ship the act, state, or right of possessing something. re·spon·si·bil·i·ty the state or fact of having a duty to deal with something or of having control over someone. Part of me that's pushing back here is my manipulative language detector going off.
      - lazide 3y ago
        Possession is control, is it not? Ownership is responsibility + benefit (or loss) for an outcome IMO, protected by some kind of agreement. Societal or contractual. Title. Employment agreement/laws. If there is positive benefit received on a good outcome + a responsibility for maintenance and the like, that is a form of ownership IMO. If a negative benefit comes from damage/destruction/bad things happening to that thing, that also tracks. Anyone who owns real property quickly discovers there isn’t anything like truly unencumbered and unconditional ownership of anything - the first property tax bill will make that clear if nothing else. That doesn’t mean someone doesn’t take on significant risks and benefits (hopefully) from owning it. It can still be yanked away if they don’t pay certain people or follow certain rules - or via Imminent Domain. Someone working a job has more constrained ownership, but it still exists. And like buying a property, they need to choose carefully as they’ll still end up with consequences regardless.
mkreis 3y ago
100%. It's a cheap motivational "hack" to call it ownership, but it's just responsibility without little power to make necessary changes. A recipe for frustration. In the example with the trash above, can the boy now choose to get a bigger trash can, so that he does not have to carry it outside so often? ;-)
- dfee 3y ago
  Even better, externalize: throw your trash in the kitchen trash, so the adults have to take it out. Keep the watch. Profit.
tstrimple 3y ago
I'm confused as to what you think work is. Managers are just hirelings as well. They have different responsibilities, which includes effective delegation. If you think "ownership" of a process is just a trick to get employees to work, what's the alternative here? You're responsible for the outcomes of this process but don't own it and thus can't guide the direction of it? That sounds patently terrible. The benefit of owning a process is the control you have over it. I can't tell you how many times I've heard engineers bitch about the decisions made over their head that they have to conform to. But now engineers apparently are just going to bitch if given control over the process. There's no winning with some of you.
- rexpop 3y ago
  The alternative is actual ownership.
  - marcinzm 3y ago
    Are you fine getting $0 salary for the year if your area of ownership doesn't do well that year?
    - avgcorrection 3y ago
      What kind of ownership entails “salaries” based on “areas of ownership”? This just seems confused. Of course! If you have ownership of something then you also bear the burden in case of loss or mismanagement. Blatantly obvious answer to a useless intended-as-rhetorical question.
- avgcorrection 3y ago
  > I'm confused as to what you think work is. Managers are just hirelings as well. So what? People can be hired to be more direct servants of the ownership class. They often have more pay and power after all.
baz00 3y ago
Ownership is about mandate and ability to effect change. That doesn’t imply any material benefit other than being paid to do it. What management roles tend to do is assign ownership without mandate and ability.
fweimer 3y ago
Some companies literally assign to you ownership of your upstream contributions, whether you did them on your time or theirs. But maybe that too is to convey a sense of ownership that isn't actually there.
nvahalik 3y ago
> This of course assumes that the employee has no stocks in the company I'm grateful that I get to work for a company that encourages growth and promotes heavily from the inside. Not all organizations are like this. But Servant leadership and companies growing quickly go hand in hand.
jonfw 3y ago
Managers are underlings in that sense too. They don't own enough stock or have enough influence that they would rationally be thinking of the gains they'd make in their stock. Managers take ownership because they're looking for their project to succeed, they want to advance their career, etc. and the same applies to "underlings"
potamic 3y ago
You may not have ownership of the company but you can have ownership within the scope of your work. For instance, as a developer there are so many areas which involve decision making from code design, testability, reliability, observability, choice of tooling, non-functional roadmap, documentation and onboarding etc. Of course, working within an organizational framework, you may not have infinite degrees of freedom across these, but if you don't have at least a handful of degrees of freedom in what you do, then you depend on somebody to tell you exactly what needs to be done all the time and your work will not be very interesting.

Swizec 3y ago

> He relishes the idea of me not reminding him, and even though it's just taking out the trash—he likes the idea of "owning" it Kudos to you. The worst part of owning chores like trash and dishwasher stuff as a teenager was that inevitably it didn’t matter when I had planned to do the thing. My parents would get on my case about not having done the thing yet. Sometimes literally as I emerged from my room to go do the thing, I would get reminded that I need to do the thing. Thanks mom I know I’m on my way. Always felt like that robbed me of the opportunity to shine. What I’ve learned since then is that it’s extremely hard to need something done and rely on others to make it happen. The internal stress of “I could do this in 10min but I gotta let the junior team members spend 2 hours fumbling around so they can learn” … oof.

lazide 3y ago
Yup. Actual good management is hard.

makeitdouble 3y ago

＞ How you handle feedback and responsibility with your direct-reports is going (most of the time) how you do/ought to do things with your own children Your children don't have the option to show you the finger and move to another family. Nor (hopefuly) are you paying them to be your kids. I think it fundamentally changes what you should expect from one and not the other, especially regarding responsibilities and ownership. And I'm sure you won't address your son not taking out the trash the same you'd deal with a team member that don't release the features on time.

nvahalik 3y ago
> I think it fundamentally changes what you should expect from one and not the other Not exactly. I want my kids to become great people. I genuinely care about them and their well-being. This is the same thing with the people that I work with and for. I care about them and want to them to get better. > And I'm sure you won't address your son not taking out the trash the same you'd deal with a team member that don't release the features on time. Maybe, maybe not. Did they "give the finger" or did something just happen that is a learning experience? If it's a communication problem, these are fundamentally easy to address.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  > I care about them and want to them to get better. Those are the same words but pointing to a radically different reality. I care about my coworkers being healthy, but there are clear boundaries that I won't pass over. If they drink all nights all week stay alive during the day through piles of enerfy drinks, I won't have much to say if it doesn't affect their work. Same way I can go any length to help my kid succeed at school, including changing school, paying for tuitions, changing their diet and whole life rythm to improve their focus etc. Helping my colleagues succeed goes as much as talking to them and changing their tasks/career path.