People Own the Work: Ownership
When everybody owns something, nobody really does. The work that falls between two desks tends to be the work your donors notice first.
The Pattern.
In a lot of the teams we meet, everything still runs through the founder or the executive director. Their calendar is full and their inbox is full, so they do not know where to start. Staff are not sure where their job ends and someone else’s begins. Every decision waits on one person, which means the whole team waits too.
What we Take Out FirSt.
We write down everything that still runs through the leader and sort it into three piles: what stops, what gets handed off and what stays with them on purpose. Before we hand anything off, we close out the work that does not matter anymore. Then we agree on who decides what, before we build anything new.
What we build
- A list of who owns what, with every item named to one person
- Decision rights written down, so the team knows what needs the leader and what does not
- Role definitions people helped write
- A monthly count of what still runs through the leader, going down
Your leader should be spending their time on the work only they can do.
Erin Peshoff is the Founder of Vivid Operational Advisors. She has spent thirty years inside nonprofit operations, helped raise over $100 million for institutional missions, and built Vivid around the operating discipline most strategic engagements skip.
