better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

Own It!

18 June 2017

A faster car, a bigger house, a smarter smartphone …we are all prey to advertisers imploring us to upgrade and increase our material assets.

Maybe we are proud to wear the right kind of trainers, or we enjoy purchasing clothes with the right logos on them.

Even though we might scoff and say that we are imune to the power of the brand I bet that we all have our favourite items, whether they’re jelly babies or jeans.

We like to own things and there is nothing wrong in that.

However, how often do we ‘own’ our behaviour?

It’s tempting to blame others when things go wrong, or shrug our shoulders and say there was nothing we could have done differently. 

If we pass the blame then we are failing to own our part in our failure. In doing this we rob ourselves of the ability to reflect and learn and to make changes next time.

If we can own branded clothes then we can be big enough to own our behaviour too. 

In practice this might mean saying sorry, admitting we took a guess, or revealing we expressed anger when we really felt disappointment.

We might also book some time with a friend, counsellor, or therapist to enable us to increase our own personal awarness. I’m a big fan of getting help as it can be so hard to see ourselves as we need to. 

Equally, if we are leading a team, we can encourage our colleagues to own their behaviour as well. We can operate a no-blame culture and invite them to be honest about their reactions and what they could do differently next time.

This week, if we mis-communicate, we can pause, laugh at ourselves and share what was actually going on for us in that moment. We can own it!

Next week: Turning Up