Ownership

Ownership and agency come hand in hand. Ownership fosters agency and agency boosts ownership. But if this is a positive cycle, where does the recursion actually originate?

Everything starts with a tiny bit of ownership, and agency HAS to come from ownership. This causation is very important. You have to care about something before you can take initiative to act on it. The project or task has to matter to you enough that you would strive to give it what you've got.

The Two Pillars

Two key pillars hold up ownership and drive agency:

1. Pride in what is done — tightly associated with the sense of accomplishment.
2. Excitement for what's up next — reflected in the feeling of anticipation.

These two pillars sit on a base comprised of meaningfulness.

Ownership as a Creator

The most common and understandable case of ownership: you are the creator of a project. You have full control over what's going on, and any success or failure is directly tied to your actions. Your work straight up pushes the progress of the project, and you visibly see the changes. The bigger the impact, the more motivation it generates. The human brain naturally prefers short-term gratification over long-term returns, which means the faster the effect takes place, the more joy results from it.

For small personal projects, the loop is really small so ownership comes relatively easily — checking the box for accomplishment and anticipation — but is also more susceptible to being discarded due to the scale of impact. Countless small projects get started, built halfway, and then discarded or unfinished because no one else cares or wants it. When no reaction or attention is given to a prided project, a huge sense of diminishment and feeling of insignificance wells up. Most of the time the project would die. However, this also means that a tiny bit of encouragement or just one real supporter can carry the project a long way and help it grow into something much bigger.

Large-scale programs that usually involve multiple people face a totally different scenario. The project itself is big and significant, but each individual's contribution doesn't move the needle too much, which means getting accomplishments is much harder.

You can tell a lot about a person by looking at the projects they initiated — not just because one can only make what one can imagine, but also because a certain type of personality and mindset will only come up with a certain type of project.

For most creators, or founders in the case of startups, ownership comes almost naturally because the idea originated from within themselves. They inherently know the importance of the project and decide to commit because they already find meaning in it. Because their ownership is naturally occurring, some founders don't really understand the working logic and conditions behind ownership and agency.

Cultivating Ownership in Others

How can you induce ownership in someone who didn't create the project? This is a question very commonly asked within companies. Everyone knows that having high-agency employees is a super beneficial thing, but not all founders know how to cultivate ownership among employees.

You can't just hire people with "high agency" and tell them to go take ownership — it doesn't work like that. Even people who have a strong potential for high agency need guidance and a learning period. High-agency people usually refers to those who know what sense of ownership feels like, can proactively seek ownership, have huge potential in becoming high-agency, and strive to go above and beyond as part of their work ethic.

No matter how high-agency someone can be, they have to start somewhere — there has to be a 1 in front of the many zeros that come afterwards. It's crucial to provide them with the necessary context to start working, and guide them while they learn the ways of the company.

A patient and good mentor is really important for growing ownership. It can even let those who never truly experienced ownership take initiative. Focus on helping fix mistakes, encouraging accomplishments, affirming correct decisions, and then slowly let go of their hand. This process may take a while and varies from employee to employee — some may hit the floor running with enough context while others need sufficient handholding. Confidence to make decisions is usually gained bit by bit through time and experience.

Giving employees a branch of the company that they have complete control over can help significantly. This is the way to allow ownership within a larger organization. In order for employees to obtain ownership over what they are doing and manage the relevant items, power also needs to be handed out during the process. The best case is that the employee has major say on a project and the leader of the org acts as advisory to make decisions on larger scopes.

Those leaders who are unwilling to give away part of their authority and power will never have a team with ownership and agency. In this situation, if an employee attempts to take ownership and make decisions according to their own judgment, likely they will be dismissed and their proposal gets shot down. Iterate this several times and even the most persistent employee will be disheartened and choose to stay silent.

Equity Is Not Ownership

There's something I like to say: "You don't need equity to have ownership in a company." Equity is still a form of compensation, and compensation is extrinsic motivation, which cannot compare with the intrinsic drive to contribute to the company. Working hard so that your asset can increase is a very transactional idea. It will get a load of work done, but it will be super difficult to exceed expectation and it's not real ownership.

Who Gets Ownership Easily

It seems to be easier for some people to obtain ownership compared to others. There's a high correlation between someone who experienced excitement while working on their own personal projects and a star employee that takes initiative on their own work. You have to understand what ownership feels like within a smaller scope — a personal project — before moving on to obtain ownership over a part of a big project.

These people are especially good at finding excitement and setting up the positive ownership-agency feedback loop for projects they don't own from the beginning. It's more so an unconscious mindset as compared to a skill, and startups house the largest group of people who can do this. A startup employee often needs to wear multiple hats and learn many things on the job. If they cannot iterate and change at the startup's growth, they either feel burnt out or have to leave one way or another.

Learn It Young

It's crucial to learn and feel ownership as young as possible, because the mind and personality have not fully set yet. My suggestion is to learn it through college and make seeking ownership a habit. Start with something small and emphasize the feel of accomplishment as you go. Being able to say "a project is mine" and be proud of it is the start. Bit by bit, you will understand what ownership feels like and get addicted. Trust me — it's really addicting because pride, power, and joy are all closely associated with it. It will also help a lot if the people around you love what you make and support you, so try to find an encouraging environment while you are making stuff.