VIII. It’s Ours!

49. Think ... Dream ... Act: WOW! Beauty! Impact! Distinction!

50. We own this place! The mantra-to-end-all-mantras in PSF-land: "We are HR Inc. This is our joint. It is our life. We are in charge. Excellence is in our hands ... to choose ... or lose."

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Detail Overview

Provide details of the concept; what does it mean to you?

MM: A client of ours pulled off a remarkable PSF transformation by positioning his management team of a business unit as a Professional Service to the organisation. He launched the initiative by calculating the gross cost of employment of the 12 person team (a few miilion UK pounds!) and asking if they felt they could justify the value that they added. There was a tense moment or two at the event, but from that point onwards we noticed a shift in the team's mindset. We went on to reframe their work agenda to transform the ownership that they had of what the unit was attempting to achieve.

MN: "It's ours" also means to me that we are uniquely qualified to offer the services or products we provide. For those of us in the consulting world, it is our "proprietary viewpoint". A psf specializes and gains mastery in what is truly ours. When asked to do something that doesn't fit our offerings, we are the first to recommend others. When offered a chance to partner with a client that needs our mastery, we celebrate. When offered a chance outside our mastery, we say no, and have the courage to put short term cash flow second. Can you imagine Picasso working for a factory producing replicas??

Issues/Concerns/Risks

What are some of the issues, concerns, or risks associated with this concept in your organization?

MM: When you are an employee in a big company, however senior your role, it can be really hard to generate a true sense of ownership. You are always a cog in a wheel. In order to grasp the PSF opportunity, someone needs to provide the wake-up call to behave powerfully, rather than slotting in.

Stories of Implementation

Tell us about your success or failure in adopting these concepts.

MM: One of the critical success factors in helping a team to take ownership is to have them to reframe their objectives so that they feel a much more personal connection. In my example, the management team had the usual performance targets - volume up, cost down, efficiency improved, customer satisfaction excellent.....They overlaid these objectives with a much higher level 'mission' to put a stop to the outsourcing of work to (so called) lower cost providers that was going on in their business. This converted their existing efficiency and performance targets into something that had a much higher purpose!

Lessons Learned

What did you learn from the exercise? How would you advise others attempting to follow your path?

MM: If we want ownership of our 'PSF', what we are trying to achieve needs to become personal. If we can get to the point where our objectives have an emotional angle to them, we improve our chances of engagement significantly!

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