Accountability And Ownership Quotes

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you don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own
Kerry E. Wagner
Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.
Shannon L. Alder
When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
If you want your prayers answered, you get off your knees and do the one thing you’re praying someone else will do for you.
Shannon L. Alder
But really people are responsible for their own reactions/feelings and can’t go away blaming others with “YOU MAKE ME FEEL….” when they should really be saying “I FEEL…” because it gives them ownership over their own selves as opposed to constantly holding another accountable for their own happiness.
Hannah Hart
Ownership: 'A commitment of the head, heart, and hands to fix the problem and never again affix the blame.
John G. Miller (QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life)
Don’t ever let your spouse or partner blame an outside person or persons for the ruin of your relationship or their past relationships. If two people are committed to one another then no one can change that.
Shannon L. Alder
Decisions of character come from understanding that they are accountable to God only, not to family, spouses, religious leaders, corporations, public opinion or your own ego.
Shannon L. Alder
In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.
Elizabeth Gaskell (Cranford)
Leaders create leaders by passing on responsibility, creating ownership, accountability and trust.
James Kerr (Legacy)
There is no ownership. There is only stewardship.
LeeAnn Taylor
Continuously lying to yourself is just as fatal as suicide; only slower. Take ownership of your life, be accountable to you.
Noel DeJesus (44 Days of Leadership)
The Diminisher is a Micromanager who jumps in and out. The Multiplier is an Investor who gives others ownership and full accountability.
Liz Wiseman (Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter)
Don’t complain, remain and sustain
Sonya Withrow
This was the beginning of surveillance capitalism, and the end of the Internet as I knew it. Now, it was the creative Web that collapsed, as countless beautiful, difficult, individualistic websites were shuttered. The promise of convenience led people to exchange their personal sites—which demanded constant and laborious upkeep—for a Facebook page and a Gmail account. The appearance of ownership was easy to mistake for the reality of it. Few of us understood it at the time, but none of the things that we’d go on to share would belong to us anymore. The successors to the e-commerce companies that had failed because they couldn’t find anything we were interested in buying now had a new product to sell. That new product was Us.
Edward Snowden (Permanent Record)
Integrity, America. You lack integrity. The degree of distance between how we want to see ourselves and how we are is enormous. Integrity. Individually and as a people. We lack integrity. As an individual, I have long known that the only hope for integrity is not only the effort expended to live up to our word, but the willingness to own how and where we have not, and to hold ourselves accountable for the consequences of that.
Shellen Lubin
It is your life...OWN IT! Your life purpose empowers you and enables you to live life abundantly. Empowerment begins by taking responsibility for your life and being accountable for your actions. Empowerment is the courage to live passionately and purposefully each day
Thomas Narofsky (You are Unstoppable!: Unleash Your Inspired Life)
The worst thing that can happen to you as a young person, is to refuse to grow up. You refuse to grow up when you believe that someone else must take responsibility for your life and life circumstances.
Saidi Mdala (Know What Matters)
Reframe: To put Conversational Intelligence to work, stop thinking of your job as managing resistance and instead accept resistance as a natural part of change. People need to challenge new ideas before they can accept them. For full ownership and accountability to take place, people need to be in the conversation about how to change rather than being asked to merely comply. When leaders reframe in this way, they see that conversations release new energy for change—which will propel their efforts forward faster.
Judith E. Glaser (Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust & Get Extraordinary Results)
As you grow older, start using your brains, energy, and the means available to you, however little they may seem, to go after what you need to get better, so that you can have what you want to live the the life you desire.
Saidi Mdala (Know What Matters)
To have a society, you first need an institutional framework: that’s constitutional law. You need a system of punishment: that’s criminal. You need to know that you have a system in place that will make those other systems work: that’s civil procedure. You need a way to govern matters of domain and ownership: that’s property. You need to know that someone will be financially accountable for injuries caused you by others: that’s torts. And finally, you need to know that people will keep their agreements, that they will honor their promises: and that is contracts.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
What you may not know is that this course load reflects—beautifully, simply—the very structure of our society, the very mechanics of what a society, our particular society, needs to make it work. To have a society, you first need an institutional framework: that’s constitutional law. You need a system of punishment: that’s criminal. You need to know that you have a system in place that will make those other systems work: that’s civil procedure. You need a way to govern matters of domain and ownership: that’s property. You need to know that someone will be financially accountable for injuries caused you by others: that’s torts. And finally, you need to know that people will keep their agreements, that they will honor their promises: and that is contracts.
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Accountability is an important tool that leaders must utilize. However, it should not be the primary tool. It must be balanced with other leadership tools, such as making sure people understand the why, empowering subordinates, and trusting they will do the right thing without direct oversight because they fully understand the importance of doing so.
Jocko Willink (The Dichotomy of Leadership: Balancing the Challenges of Extreme Ownership to Lead and Win)
By your thoughts, decisions, and actions, you create your future. You're in charge of where you are, how you got there, and what you create next.
Tonya Murray
Accountability is not consequences, but ownership. It is a character trait, a life stance, a willingness to own your actions and results regardless of the circumstances. In
Brian P. Moran (The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months)
You’ll blame your conditions, others will blame your decisions.
Freequill
There’s only one person walking in my shoes, and that’s me. And to state that someone else somehow slipped into them and therefore walked me out to this horrible place is to forget that, shoes or not, I still can choose where to walk.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If you have some working knowledge of business and accounting and have a lot of patience to ride out market ups and downs, you can be a stock picker. You just need to understand that stocks are proportionate ownership of earning businesses.
Naved Abdali
Keep your focus and theirs not on checking tasks off of lists, but on finding root causes. Hold them accountable for personal behavior; don’t let them indulge in excuses or blame the system. Show them how taking ownership of their work and taking ownership of their life are exactly the same thing.
Jonathan Raymond (Good Authority: How to Become the Leader Your Team Is Waiting For)
While many of us struggle with taking too much ownership over things that are not ours, there’s always a truth that both parties contribute to every conflict. Sometimes your part might be as simple as not speaking up or not staying curious; other times it might be a bigger issue, like a tendency to blame or shout, a lack of accountability, an inability to respect boundaries or projecting insecurities.
Gina Senarighi (Love More, Fight Less: Communication Skills Every Couple Needs: A Relationship Workbook for Couples)
A thin line separates success from failure, the great companies from the ordinary ones. Below that line lies excuse making, blaming others, confusion, and an attitude of helplessness, while above that line we find a sense of reality, ownership, commitment, solutions to problems, and determined action. While losers languish Below The Line, preparing stories that explain why past efforts went awry, winners reside Above The Line, powered by commitment and hard work.
Roger Connors (The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability)
To have a society, you first need an institutional framework: that’s constitutional law. You need a system of punishment: that’s criminal. You need to know that you have a system in place that will make those other systems work: that’s civil procedure. You need a way to govern matters of domain and ownership: that’s property. You need to know that someone will be financially accountable for injuries caused you by others: that’s torts. And finally, you need to know that people will keep their agreements, that they will honor their promises: and that is contracts.” He
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
They came late to the empty land and looked with bitterness upon the six wolves watching them from the horizon's rim. With them was a herd of goats and a dozen black sheep. They took no account of the wolves' possession of this place, for in their minds ownership was the human crown that none other had the right to wear. The beasts were content to share in survival's struggle, in hunt and quarry, and the braying goats and bawling sheep had soft throats and carelessness was a common enough flaw among herds; and they had not yet learned the manner of these two-legged intruders. Herds were fed upon by many creatures. Often the wolves shared their meals with the crows and coyotes, and had occasion to argue with lumbering bears over a delectable prize. When I came upon the herders and their longhouse on a flat above the valley, I found six wolf skulls spiked above the main door. In my travels as a minstrel I knew enough that I had no need to ask - this was a tale woven into our kind, after all. No words, either, for the bear skins on the walls, the antelope hides and elk racks. Not a brow lifted for the mound of bhederin bones in the refuse pit, or the vultures killed by the poison-baited meat left for the coyotes. That night I sang and spun tales for my keep. Songs of heroes and great deeds and they were pleased enough and the beer was passing and the shank stew palatable. Poets are sembling creatures, capable of shrugging into the skin of man, woman, child and beast. There are some among them secretly marked, sworn to the cults of the wilderness. And that night I shared out my poison and in the morning I left a lifeless house where not a dog remained to cry, and I sat upon a hill with my pipe, summoning once more the wild beasts. I defend their ownership when they cannot, and make no defence against the charge of murder; but temper your horror, friends: there is no universal law that places a greater value upon human life over that of a wild beast. Why would you ever imagine otherwise?
Steven Erikson
The divorce of control, or power, from ownership has been due in large part to the growth of public corporations. So long as a single person, family or comparatively small group held a substantial portion of the common shares of a corporation, the legal “owner” could control its affairs. Even if they no longer actually conducted the business, the operating managers were functioning as their accountable agents. But when the enterprise became more vast in scope and at the same time, the stock certificates became spread in small bundles among thousands of persons, the managers were gradually released from subordination to the nominal owners. De facto control passed, for the most part, to non-owning management.
James Burnham (The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World)
What you may not know is that this course load reflects—beautifully, simply—the very structure of our society, the very mechanics of what a society, our particular society, needs to make it work. To have a society, you first need an institutional framework: that’s constitutional law. You need a system of punishment: that’s criminal. You need to know that you have a system in place that will make those other systems work: that’s civil procedure. You need a way to govern matters of domain and ownership: that’s property. You need to know that someone will be financially accountable for injuries caused you by others: that’s torts. And finally, you need to know that people will keep their agreements, that they will honor their promises: and that is contracts.” He
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
Why Westerners are so obsessed with "saving" Africa, and why this obsession so often goes awry? Western countries should understand that Africa’s development chances and social possibilities remain heavily hindered due to its overall mediocre governance. Africa rising is still possible -- but first Africans need to understand that the power lies not just with the government, but the people. I do believe, that young Africans have the will to "CHANGE" Africa. They must engage their government in a positive manner on issues that matters -- I also realize that too many of the continent’s people are subject to the kinds of governments that favor ruling elites rather than ordinary villagers and townspeople. These kind of behavior trickles down growth. In Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is the problem. In South Africa the Apartheid did some damage. The country still wrestles with significant racial issues that sometimes leads to the murder of its citizens. In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya the world’s worst food crisis is being felt. In Libya the West sends a mixed messages that make the future for Libyans uncertain. In Nigeria oil is the biggest curse. In Liberia corruption had make it very hard for the country to even develop. Westerners should understand that their funding cannot fix the problems in Africa. African problems can be fixed by Africans. Charity gives but does not really transform. Transformation should come from the root, "African leadership." We have a PHD, Bachelors and even Master degree holders but still can't transform knowledge. Knowledge in any society should be the power of transformation. Africa does not need a savior and western funds, what Africa needs is a drive towards ownership of one's destiny. By creating a positive structural system that works for the majority. There should be needs in dealing with corruption, leadership and accountability.
Henry Johnson Jr
Christine Gray wrote in her remarkable 1986 PhD dissertation, Thailand: The Soteriological State in the 1970s:   Any study of contemporary Thai society must account for the U.S. influence on that polity and the mutual denial of that influence. Thailand’s relationship with the United States is complex, heavily disguised and, in many instances, actively denied by the leaders of both countries...    In many cases, it is difficult if not impossible to determine the extent of American influence in Thailand. Thailand is a nation of secrets: of secret bombings and air bases during the Vietnam War, of secret military pacts and aid agreements, of secret business transactions and secret ownership of businesses and joint venture corporations. This is precisely the point; the American presence has taken on powerful cosmological, religious and even mythic overtones. The American influence on the Thai economy and polity has become a symbol of uncertainty, of men's inability to know the truth.
Andrew MacGregor Marshall (#thaistory)
You're One Ls," Harold had said. "And congratulations, all of you. As One Ls, you'll be taking a pretty typical course load: contracts; torts; property; civil procedure; and next year, constitutional and criminal law. But you know all this. "What you may not know is that this course load reflects- beautifully, simply- the very structure of our society, the very mechanics of what a society, our particular society, needs to make it work. To have a society, you first need an institutional framework: that's constitutional law. You need a system of punishment: that's criminal. You need to know that you have a system in place that will make those other systems work: that's civil procedure. You need a way to govern matters of domain and ownership: that's property. You need to know that someone will be financially accountable for injuries caused you by others: that's torts. And finally, you need to know that people will keep their agreements, that they will honor their promises: and that is contracts." p116
Hanya Yanagihara (A Little Life)
The Proofs Human society has devised a system of proofs or tests that people must pass before they can participate in many aspects of commercial exchange and social interaction. Until they can prove that they are who they say they are, and until that identity is tied to a record of on-time payments, property ownership, and other forms of trustworthy behavior, they are often excluded—from getting bank accounts, from accessing credit, from being able to vote, from anything other than prepaid telephone or electricity. It’s why one of the biggest opportunities for this technology to address the problem of global financial inclusion is that it might help people come up with these proofs. In a nutshell, the goal can be defined as proving who I am, what I do, and what I own. Companies and institutions habitually ask questions—about identity, about reputation, and about assets—before engaging with someone as an employee or business partner. A business that’s unable to develop a reliable picture of a person’s identity, reputation, and assets faces uncertainty. Would you hire or loan money to a person about whom you knew nothing? It is riskier to deal with such people, which in turn means they must pay marked-up prices to access all sorts of financial services. They pay higher rates on a loan or are forced by a pawnshop to accept a steep discount on their pawned belongings in return for credit. Unable to get bank accounts or credit cards, they cash checks at a steep discount from the face value, pay high fees on money orders, and pay cash for everything while the rest of us enjoy twenty-five days interest free on our credit cards. It’s expensive to be poor, which means it’s a self-perpetuating state of being. Sometimes the service providers’ caution is dictated by regulation or compliance rules more than the unwillingness of the banker or trader to enter a deal—in the United States and other developed countries, banks are required to hold more capital against loans deemed to be of poor quality, for example. But many other times the driving factor is just fear of the unknown. Either way, anything that adds transparency to the multi-faceted picture of people’s lives should help institutions lower the cost of financing and insuring them.
Michael J. Casey (The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything)
We have learned from Ludwig von Mises how to respond to the socialists’ evasion (immunization) strategy. As long as the defining characteristic— the essence—of socialism, i.e., the absence of the private ownership of the factors of production, remains in place, no reform will be of any help. The idea of a socialist economy is a contradictio in adjecto, and the claim that socialism represents a higher, more efficient mode of social production is absurd. In order to reach one’s own ends efficiently and without waste within the framework of an exchange economy based on division of labor, it is necessary that one engage in monetary calculation (cost-accounting). Everywhere outside the system of a primitive self-sufficient single household economy, monetary calculation is the sole tool of rational and efficient action. Only by being able to compare inputs and outputs arithmetically in terms of a common medium of exchange (money) can a person determine whether his actions are successful or not. In distinct contrast, socialism means to have no economy, no economizing, at all, because under these conditions monetary calculation and cost-accounting is impossible by definition. If no private property in the factors of production exists, then no prices for any production factor exist; hence, it is impossible to determine whether or not they are employed economically. Accordingly, socialism is not a higher mode of production but rather economic chaos and regression to primitivism.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe (The Great Fiction)
As an experiment, I tweaked the questions using Kelly’s “Did I do my best to” formulation. • Did I do my best to be happy? • Did I do my best to find meaning? • Did I do my best to have a healthy diet? • Did I do my best to be a good husband? Suddenly, I wasn’t being asked how well I performed but rather how much I tried. The distinction was meaningful to me because in my original formulation, if I wasn’t happy or I ignored Lyda, I could always blame it on some factor outside myself. I could tell myself I wasn’t happy because the airline kept me on the tarmac for three hours (in other words, the airline was responsible for my happiness). Or I overate because a client took me to his favorite barbecue joint, where the food was abundant, caloric, and irresistible (in other words, my client—or was it the restaurant?—was responsible for controlling my appetite). Adding the words “did I do my best” added the element of trying into the equation. It injected personal ownership and responsibility into my question-and-answer process. After a few weeks using this checklist, I noticed an unintended consequence. Active questions themselves didn’t merely elicit an answer. They created a different level of engagement with my goals. To give an accurate accounting of my effort, I couldn’t simply answer yes or no or “30 minutes.” I had to rethink how I phrased my answers. For one thing, I had to measure my effort. And to make it meaningful—that is, to see if I was trending positively, actually making progress—I had to measure on a relative scale, comparing the most recent day’s effort with previous days. I chose to grade myself on a 1-to-10 scale, with 10 being the best score. If I scored low on trying to be happy, I had only myself to blame. We may not hit our goals every time, but there’s no excuse for not trying. Anyone can try.
Marshall Goldsmith (Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts--Becoming the Person You Want to Be)
SELF-MANAGEMENT Trust We relate to one another with an assumption of positive intent. Until we are proven wrong, trusting co-workers is our default means of engagement. Freedom and accountability are two sides of the same coin. Information and decision-making All business information is open to all. Every one of us is able to handle difficult and sensitive news. We believe in collective intelligence. Nobody is as smart as everybody. Therefore all decisions will be made with the advice process. Responsibility and accountability We each have full responsibility for the organization. If we sense that something needs to happen, we have a duty to address it. It’s not acceptable to limit our concern to the remit of our roles. Everyone must be comfortable with holding others accountable to their commitments through feedback and respectful confrontation. WHOLENESS Equal worth We are all of fundamental equal worth. At the same time, our community will be richest if we let all members contribute in their distinctive way, appreciating the differences in roles, education, backgrounds, interests, skills, characters, points of view, and so on. Safe and caring workplace Any situation can be approached from fear and separation, or from love and connection. We choose love and connection. We strive to create emotionally and spiritually safe environments, where each of us can behave authentically. We honor the moods of … [love, care, recognition, gratitude, curiosity, fun, playfulness …]. We are comfortable with vocabulary like care, love, service, purpose, soul … in the workplace. Overcoming separation We aim to have a workplace where we can honor all parts of us: the cognitive, physical, emotional, and spiritual; the rational and the intuitive; the feminine and the masculine. We recognize that we are all deeply interconnected, part of a bigger whole that includes nature and all forms of life. Learning Every problem is an invitation to learn and grow. We will always be learners. We have never arrived. Failure is always a possibility if we strive boldly for our purpose. We discuss our failures openly and learn from them. Hiding or neglecting to learn from failure is unacceptable. Feedback and respectful confrontation are gifts we share to help one another grow. We focus on strengths more than weaknesses, on opportunities more than problems. Relationships and conflict It’s impossible to change other people. We can only change ourselves. We take ownership for our thoughts, beliefs, words, and actions. We don’t spread rumors. We don’t talk behind someone’s back. We resolve disagreements one-on-one and don’t drag other people into the problem. We don’t blame problems on others. When we feel like blaming, we take it as an invitation to reflect on how we might be part of the problem (and the solution). PURPOSE Collective purpose We view the organization as having a soul and purpose of its own. We try to listen in to where the organization wants to go and beware of forcing a direction onto it. Individual purpose We have a duty to ourselves and to the organization to inquire into our personal sense of calling to see if and how it resonates with the organization’s purpose. We try to imbue our roles with our souls, not our egos. Planning the future Trying to predict and control the future is futile. We make forecasts only when a specific decision requires us to do so. Everything will unfold with more grace if we stop trying to control and instead choose to simply sense and respond. Profit In the long run, there are no trade-offs between purpose and profits. If we focus on purpose, profits will follow.
Frederic Laloux (Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness)
community ownership doesn’t work in large-scale societies where people operate in anonymity. In The Power of Scale, anthropologist John Bodley wrote: “The size of human societies and cultures matters because larger societies will naturally have more concentrated social power. Larger societies will be less democratic than smaller societies, and they will have an unequal distribution of risks and rewards.”9 Right, because the bigger the society is, the less functional shame becomes. When the Berlin Wall came down, jubilant capitalists announced that the essential flaw of communism had been its failure to account for human nature. Well, yes and no. Marx’s fatal error was his failure to appreciate the importance of context. Human nature functions one way in the context of intimate, interdependent societies, but set loose in anonymity, we become a different creature. Neither beast is more nor less human.
Christopher Ryan (Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships)
competition in the current system is too local, because it is centered on relatively small, self-contained local institutions catering to local needs. Services are both delivered locally and managed locally. The local bias in health care is a throwback to an earlier era when medical care was less complicated, and travel more difficult. It has been institutionalized by prevailing ownership and governance structures for provider institutions, regulatory and reimbursement practices, and a lack of local provider accountability for performance.
Michael E. Porter (Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition on Results)
Innovation can also increase risk, new things always do; therefore the engineering teams must understand that with freedom comes responsibility, ownership and accountability for the new stuff they produce and/or implement.
Anonymous
He wanted to say that there wasn’t enough accountability or sense of ownership at Yahoo. He thought it was too hard to figure out who was in charge of big decisions at the company. Most of all, he thought that Yahoo was spreading itself too thin. It had acquired a photo-sharing site called Flickr—and yet it was still investing in a product called Yahoo Photos. Why?
Nicholas Carlson (Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo!)
Q. Can I form a multi-member IRA/LLC between my Roth IRA and my Traditional IRA? A. Yes, this is possible. The ownership between the accounts will be set based on dollars invested, and the IRA/LLC will need to file a partnership tax return annually since it will have more than one owner.
Mat Sorensen (The Self Directed IRA Handbook: An Authoritative Guide for Self Directed IRA Investors and Their Advisors)
■ Poor labor efficiency due to lack of job costing ■ Sales team focus on revenue rather than margin (discounting quotes, making concessions, and so on) ■ A lack of emphasis on service sales (rather than product sales), which were generally more profitable ■ Excessive punch list items requiring follow-up work without the ability to invoice ■ Errors in order entry: finish, fabric, pricing, and so on ■ Installation damage and concealed damage on receipt of product ■ Excessive nonbillable overtime ■ High average collection days ■ Small-tool loss and damage
Brad Hams (Ownership Thinking: How to End Entitlement and Create a Culture of Accountability, Purpose, and Profit)
Responsibility is actually broader than this. We think of responsibility in terms of ownership. To take ownership of your life is ultimately to take control. Ownership is to truly possess your life and to know that you are accountable or your life-to you and others. When you take ownership, your realize that all aspects of your life are truly yours and only yours, and that no one is going to live your life for you.
Henry Cloud (Boundaries with Kids: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Children)
Sense of ownership should not be an outcome of ones title, stock ownership or salary but readiness to take work, passion & accountability.
Sandeep Aggarwal
It is very hard to look at the raw data on firearm suicides and homicides and see any benefits from Australia’s gun buyback. In 2004, the U.S. National Research Council released a report reaching this same conclusion: “It is the committee’s view that the theory underlying gun buy-back programs is badly flawed and the empirical evidence demonstrates the ineffectiveness of these programs.”10 Australia’s buyback program was only one experiment, and we can’t account for all of the other factors that may have come into play. The solution is then to look across many different states or countries and try to discern overall patterns. The U.S. data is clear: laws that restrict gun ownership adversely affect people’s safety. Police are extremely important in reducing crime—my research indicates that they are the single most important factor. But police themselves understand that they almost always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has occurred. Behaving passively is definitely not the safest course of action to take.
John R. Lott Jr. (The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies)
leadership is a verb, it’s not a noun, it is about taking ownership responsibility and accountability for transforming something.
Bala V Balachandran (Living Legends, Learning Lessons)
savings and time deposits, savings-and-loan-association accounts, life insurance, annuities, and real-estate mortgages or equity ownership.
Benjamin Graham (The Intelligent Investor)
As I see it, co-ownership weakens accountability. If an OKR fails, I don’t want two people blaming each other. Even when two or more teams have parallel objectives, their key results should be distinct.
John Doerr (Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs)
Why is owning equity in a business important to becoming rich? It’s ownership versus wage work. If you are paid for renting out your time, even lawyers and doctors, you can make some money, but you’re not going to make the money that gives you financial freedom. You’re not going to have passive income where a business is earning for you while you are on vacation. [10] This is probably one of the most important points. People seem to think you can create wealth—make money through work. It’s probably not going to work. There are many reasons for that. Without ownership, your inputs are very closely tied to your outputs. In almost any salaried job, even one paying a lot per hour like a lawyer or a doctor, you’re still putting in the hours, and every hour you get paid. Without ownership, when you’re sleeping, you’re not earning. When you’re retired, you’re not earning. When you’re on vacation, you’re not earning. And you can’t earn nonlinearly. If you look at even doctors who get rich (like really rich), it’s because they open a business. They open a private practice. The private practice builds a brand, and the brand attracts people. Or they build some kind of a medical device, a procedure, or a process with an intellectual property. Essentially, you’re working for somebody else, and that person is taking on the risk and has the accountability, the intellectual property, and the brand. They’re not going to pay you enough. They’re going to pay you the bare minimum they have to, to get you to do their job. That can be a high bare minimum, but it’s still not going to be true wealth where you’re retired but still earning. [78] Owning equity in a company basically means you own the upside. When you own debt, you own guaranteed revenue streams and you own the downside. You want to own equity. If you don’t own equity in a business, your odds of making money are very slim. You have to work up to the point where you can own equity in a business. You could own equity as a small shareholder where you bought stock. You could also own it as an owner where you started the company. Ownership is really important. [10]
Eric Jorgenson (The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness)
It may seem easy and convenient to blame your absentee father for our unhappiness, but in the long run you lose out, as indulging in blame costs you the authority to be in charge. We miss the profound potential which can be unleashed once we take total responsibility for our life experience, and preside proactively over the purposeful direction of our lives. To take full ownership of your life, your choices and happiness takes a lot of accountability.
Thabo Katlholo (Blame Less: A Grim Journey Into the Life of a Chronic Blamer)
The only private partnership I can talk about authoritatively is the one in which I was a partner from 1992 to 1999, when the firm went public: Goldman Sachs. Partners there owned the equity of the firm. When elected a partner, you were required to make a cash investment into the firm that was large enough to be material to your net worth. Each partner had a percentage ownership of the earnings every year, but the earnings would remain in the firm. A partner’s annual cash compensation amounted only to a small salary and a modest cash return on his or her capital account. A partner was not allowed to withdraw any capital from the firm until retirement, at which time typically 75%–80% of one’s net worth was still in the firm. Even then, a retired (“limited”) partner could only withdraw his or her capital over a three-year period. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, all partners had personal liability for the exposure of the firm, right down to their homes and cars. The focus on risk was intense, and wealth creation was more like a career bonus rather than a series of annual bonuses.
Steven G. Mandis (What Happened to Goldman Sachs: An Insider's Story of Organizational Drift and Its Unintended Consequences)
The message: Sometimes you must be willing to burn all your other ships and grasp the helm of the one under your command. Doing so can stimulate the conviction and create the ownership necessary to get started on a new program of action that will help you rise above your circumstances.
Roger Connors (The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability)
Accountability: “A personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results—to See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It.
Roger Connors (The Oz Principle: Getting Results Through Individual and Organizational Accountability)
To be sure, temperament and genetics explain some of Nicklaus’s tremendous achievement, but as we know both from research and from his own story, it was also through his relationship to his father, Charlie Nicklaus, that he developed a sense of ownership and accountability. When Jack said, “Dad, it’s my game,” that comment came out of their Corner Four relationship, in which his father was his fuel and his support. But his father also respected Jack’s sense of ownership and self-control. Charlie Nicklaus supported him from the days of playing junior golf up until the pros. He encouraged him, provided a coach for him, and gave him input, discipline, and much more. But he also gave him something huge that all Corner Four relationships give us: autonomy and responsibility. The balance between support and autonomy were there all along. As a psychologist, I can tell you that this balance helped develop the self-control that hit that 1-iron and helped him own the results he got in every other tournament he played.
Henry Cloud (The Power of the Other: The startling effect other people have on you, from the boardroom to the bedroom and beyond-and what to do about it)
Over the past thirty years the orthodox view that the maximisation of shareholder value would lead to the strongest economic performance has come to dominate business theory and practice, in the US and UK in particular.42 But for most of capitalism’s history, and in many other countries, firms have not been organised primarily as vehicles for the short-term profit maximisation of footloose shareholders and the remuneration of their senior executives. Companies in Germany, Scandinavia and Japan, for example, are structured both in company law and corporate culture as institutions accountable to a wider set of stakeholders, including their employees, with long-term production and profitability their primary mission. They are equally capitalist, but their behaviour is different. Firms with this kind of model typically invest more in innovation than their counterparts focused on short-term shareholder value maximisation; their executives are paid smaller multiples of their average employees’ salaries; they tend to retain for investment a greater share of earnings relative to the payment of dividends; and their shares are held on average for longer by their owners. And the evidence suggests that while their short-term profitability may (in some cases) be lower, over the long term they tend to generate stronger growth.43 For public policy, this makes attention to corporate ownership, governance and managerial incentive structures a crucial field for the improvement of economic performance. In short, markets are not idealised abstractions, but concrete and differentiated outcomes arising from different circumstances.
Michael Jacobs (Rethinking Capitalism: Economics and Policy for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth (Political Quarterly Monograph Series))
MICROMANAGERS manage every detail in a way that creates dependence on the leader and their presence for the organization to perform. INVESTORS give other people the investment and ownership they need to produce results independent of the leader. The Three Practices of the Investor 1. Define Ownership Name the lead Give ownership for the end goal Stretch the role 2. Invest Resources Teach and coach Provide backup 3. Hold People Accountable Give it back Expect complete work Respect natural consequences Make the scoreboard visible Becoming an Investor 1. Let them know who is boss 2. Let nature take its course 3. Ask for the F-I-X 4. Hand back the pen Unexpected Findings 1. Multipliers do get involved in the operational details, but they keep the ownership with other people. 2. Multipliers are rated 42% higher at delivering world-class results than their Diminisher counterparts.3
Liz Wiseman (Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter)
Jae reflected on the leader’s role: “You can jump in and teach and coach, but then you have to give the pen back. When you give that pen back, your people know they are still in charge.” When something is off the rails, do you take over or do you invest? When you take the pen to add your ideas, do you give it back? Or does it stay in your pocket? Multipliers invest in the success of others. They may jump in to teach and share their ideas, but they always return to accountability. When leaders fail to return ownership, they create dependent organizations. This is the way of the Diminisher. They jump in, save the day, and drive results through their personal involvement. When leaders return the pen, they cement the accountability for action where it should be. This creates organizations that are free from the nagging need of the leader’s rescue.
Liz Wiseman (Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter)
Accountability is not consequences, but ownership. It is a character trait, a life stance, a willingness to own your actions and results regardless of the circumstances.
Brian P. Moran (The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months)
R.A. was conceived in 2006 by a Swede named Andie Nordgren, and its adherents believed that because love is not a limited resource, traditional hierarchical relationships that treat it as such are not just unnecessary but harmful, perpetuating toxic, retrograde attitudes that equate love with ownership. One should allow space in one’s life for the kind of intimacy that can be cut off when one designates a single person as special and reserved, and therefore owed and owing. Even designating a category of relationship as special and reserved was poison. Romantic relationships are not better than platonic or familial ones. The ingrained belief that romantic love should be life’s organizing principle is inextricably linked to patriarchy and the oppression of minorities, the poor, and immigrants, among other populations. The resulting expectations kill love at the root. When care-taking duties are foisted onto individuals and families, rather than supplied and paid for by the state, as they should be, the state must make it seem like this is the natural and noble situation. Propaganda. Marriage is obviously propaganda, but so are all conventional relationships because all conventional relationships cannot help but situate themselves in relation to marriage. Whether they are like marriage, or on track to marriage, or on track to being like marriage or not. Marriage is all-encompassing and cannot but enforce hierarchy. Thus, ritualized domestic exclusion begets systemic exclusion via our admiration and craving for exclusivity.
Lauren Oyler (Fake Accounts)
When you guide and don’t tell, people may fail a bit more, but they will also grow more, learn more, have more ownership, and bring more results to the company table.” Give
Roger Connors (Fix It: Getting Accountability Right)
Developing a Culture of Accountability where people take ownership for achieving key organizational results requires a willingness to make the link between where you are and what you have done with where you want to be and what you are going to do to get there.
Roger Connors (Fix It: Getting Accountability Right)
Accountability is a personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving Key Results: See It, Own It, Solve It, and Do It.
Roger Connors (Fix It: Getting Accountability Right)
In my previous book, The CIO Paradox, I called this phenomenon the "accountability vs. ownership" paradox, where CIOs are responsible for the outcomes of technology implementations but do not have the power to change the business process.
Martha Heller (Be the Business: CIOs in the New Eras of IT)
true accountability is about choice and taking ownership of your choices,
Brian P. Moran (The 12 Week Year: Get More Done in 12 Weeks than Others Do in 12 Months)
To reset the accountability dynamic internally, Friends should have a level-setting conversation with each member of their team, to clarify goals, roles, and responsibilities. And, crucially for all leaders who are learning about themselves, Friends must take 100 percent ownership for the dynamic they’ve created up to this point. You earn the right to ask people to adapt to a new agreement by acknowledging your role in creating and perpetuating the old one. The
Jonathan Raymond (Good Authority: How to Become the Leader Your Team Is Waiting For)
We all have within ourselves the inclination to try to pass the blame to others when things don’t work in our favour. The ultimate challenge comes from suppressing this innate desire and replacing it with accountability and ownership for all things, good or bad.
Mensah Oteh (The Best Chance: A Guide to discovering your Purpose, reaching your Potential, experiencing Fulfilment and achieving Success in any area of life)
When leaders define clear ownership and invest in others, they have sown the seeds of success and earned the right to hold people accountable.
Liz Wiseman (Multipliers, Revised and Updated: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter)
5. INSTILL OWNERSHIP AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Multipliers deliver and sustain superior results by inculcating high expectations across the organization. By serving as Investors, Multipliers provide necessary resources for success. In addition, they hold people accountable for their commitments.
Liz Wiseman (Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter)
Accountability and cancellation are not the same thing. ... Cancel culture does not leave space for people to make mistakes, disagree, change, and transform their behavior. It simply asks that they be canceled, as if they never existed. While canceling someone may feel good or may feel like a form of justice, it leaves us with an uncompassionate world where change can never happen. ... Accountability is not about blame, shame, or punishment, toward ourselves or others. It's about taking ownership of and responsibility for our actions and the impact of our actions and asking others to do the same for themselves too. ... Cancel culture cancels the person. Accountability culture asks the person to be accountable for their behaviors.
Layla F. Saad (Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor)
Cancel culture uses bullying and personal attacks as a way to find justice. Accountability culture uses ownership and compassion as a way to find justice. It's not just that cancel culture is about being "mean" and accountability culture is about being "nice." Rather, it's that cancel culture asks us to treat each other as disposable, whereas accountability culture asks us to treat each other as redeemable. We do not need to practice antiracism by throwing ourselves or each other away. We can practice antiracism by calling out/in the harmful behaviors and then throwing ourselves and each other a life raft to find our way back to doing better.
Layla F. Saad (Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor)
When leaders who epitomize Extreme Ownership drive their teams to achieve a higher standard of performance, they must recognize that when it comes to standards, as a leader, it’s not what you preach, it’s what you tolerate. When setting expectations, no matter what has been said or written, if substandard performance is accepted and no one is held accountable—if there are no consequences—that poor performance becomes the new standard.
Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
Mutual funds are pools of money that typically are invested in stocks or bonds. If you have a retirement account, there’s a very good chance that you are an investor in one or more mutual funds. When investors buy shares in a mutual fund, they are actually buying an ownership stake in all the stocks or bonds (or both) that the fund owns. The value of the mutual fund shares rises and falls every day with the value of the stocks and bonds in the fund.
Jacob Goldstein (Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing)
No one can post a false transaction without ownership of the corresponding account due to the asymmetric key cryptography protecting the accounts. You have one “public” key representing an address to receive tokens and a “private” key used to unlock and spend tokens over which you have custody. This same type of cryptography is used to protect your credit card information and data when using the Internet. A single account cannot “double spend” its tokens because the ledger keeps an audit of the balance at any given time and the faulty transaction would not clear. The ability to prevent a double spend without a central authority illustrates the primary advantage of using a blockchain to maintain the underlying ledger.
Campbell R. Harvey (DeFi and the Future of Finance)
Ultimately an investment is an instrument of trust as much as it is of belief. Every single part of your strategy is showing you're accountable and understand your responsibility with that. Take ownership.
Henry Joseph-Grant
Meanwhile, Facebook censors Palestinian groups so often that they have created their own hashtag, #FBCensorsPalestine. That the groups have become prominent matters little: in 2016, Facebook blocked accounts belonging to editors at the Quds News Network and Shehab News Agency in the West Bank; it later apologized and restored the accounts.30 The following year, it did the same to the official account of Fatah, the ruling party in the West Bank.31 A year after Facebook’s relationship with the Israelis was formalized, the Guardian released a set of leaked documents exposing the ways the company’s moderation policy discriminates against Palestinians and other groups. Published in a series called “The Facebook Files,” the documents contained slides from manuals used to train content moderators. On the whole, the leaks paint a picture of a disjointed and disorganized company where the community standards are expanded piecemeal, and little attention is given to their consequences. Anna, the former Facebook operations specialist I spoke with, agrees: “There’s no ownership of processes from beginning to end.” One set of documents demonstrate with precision the imbalance on the platform between Palestinians and Israelis (and the supporters of both). In a slide deck entitled “Credible Violence: Abuse Standards,” one slide lists global and local “vulnerable” groups; alongside “foreigners” and “homeless people” is “Zionists.”32 Interestingly, while Zionists are protected as a special category, “migrants,” as ProPublica has reported, are only “quasi-protected” and “Black children” aren’t protected at all.33 In trying to understand how such a decision came about, I reached out to numerous contacts, but only one spoke about it on the record. Maria, who worked in community operations until 2017, told me that she spoke up against the categorization when it was proposed. “We’d say, ‘Being a Zionist isn’t like being a Hindu or Muslim or white or Black—it’s like being a revolutionary socialist, it’s an ideology,’” she told me. “And now, almost everything related to Palestine is getting deleted.
Jillian York (Silicon Values: The Future of Free Speech Under Surveillance Capitalism)
Unless you take charge of yourself in your life you will be taken charge of by people who have limited opinions about you and your things. You have to take responsibility for your life, actions, and outcomes if not, you are not in control of your life rather you are in control of life which will throw you whatever things come on to you. You can pretend, act or behave as if you are receiving everything out of life but deep down inside you know for sure things aren't right and you are not in control of your life. In order for you to become you, you need to take charge, come out of the skin which society has bought you in, shed it, become who you really are, and do what you really want. And once you come out that shell that cage without thinking what others may think, what society may think of you or any piece of sh*t may think of you. You control what you think of yourself and how you want yourself to be perceived. This is where you will shape up your real self, place yourself in a position of charge, take responsibility, having accountability and ownership of your actions. In life always in any situation see yourself, what part are you playing in your life, are you in charge of it or being charged. Am I leading or I am being led. Once you figure out these things for yourself, you will see the finest version of yourself who is real, who is authentic, and who is a person of his/her word.
Aiyaz Uddin (Science Behind A Perfect Life)
No matter what you do in this life, you cannot escape from yourself. Try to do good, and live without fear.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
During the first years of independence, the government was reluctant to give up ownership and thus control over Soviet-era industrial and agricultural enterprises that required more and more state subsidies. Once it finally decided to do so, it faced opposition in parliament, largely from the “red directors” who managed the large enterprises. In 1995, parliament exempted 6,300 state-owned enterprises from privatization. By that time, fewer than one-third of industrial enterprises had been transferred to private ownership. The first stage of privatization was carried out with vouchers issued to the entire population of the country. It benefited largely the “red directors,” who now had assets but few incentives to change anything. But privatization without new approaches and restructuring could not revive the Ukrainian economy. By 1999, when close to 85 percent of all enterprises were privately owned, they accounted for less than 65 percent of all industrial output. Half the industrial enterprises in the country were in deficit. Most of the large enterprises remained in the hands of Soviet-era managers and people close to the government. They maintained monopolies, restrained competition, and deepened the economic crisis.
Serhii Plokhy (The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine)
Public ownership does not mean there is no ownership; we have to be accountable to small and great, seen and unseen, now and thereafter.
Dr. Lucas D. Shallua
Avoid matrix structures. In an attempt to have the best of both worlds, some companies make the mistake of creating matrix organizations. Don’t do this. Matrix structures remove the fire of personal ownership, not to mention accountability.
James C. Collins (BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company)
The status quo represents a mental account that we already have open, which has sunk costs associated with it, the time, money, or effort that has already been put into the way we’ve been doing things. Closing that account by switching to a new option can make us feel like we are wasting those resources we have already spent. We also become endowed to the status quo, taking ownership of the decisions that have kept us in that groove and anything we have created along the way.
Annie Duke (Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away)
With this compromise, Morgan Stanley had satisfied the needs of the potential buyers of these bonds. However, that was only half the battle. Now the firm needed to address the seemingly impossible request from Banamex, that it be able to “sell” the Ajustabonos to the company without actually selling them. The ingenious solution to this problem depended on the unrated class of bonds Banamex would retain. Amazingly, it was based on Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, or GAAP. The basic idea was that if you own a company, you include all of the assets and liabilities of that company as part of your own assets and liabilities. If by retaining the second unrated class of bonds Banamex could be treated as the owner of the Bermuda company, it could consolidate all of that company’s assets and liabilities, including all the Ajustabonos. This ownership worked a neat trick. Because Banamex would own the company that owned the Ajustabonos, from an accounting perspective, it still would own the Ajustabonos even if it received cash for them.
Frank Partnoy (FIASCO: Blood in the Water on Wall Street)
The sale would be treated as a transfer, merely part of a complex financing. Banamex’s 20 percent ownership of the Bermuda company would allow it to avoid recognizing a sale, and Banamex could “sell” 80 percent of its Ajustabonos without generating the accounting loss it had feared.
Frank Partnoy (FIASCO: Blood in the Water on Wall Street)
Speed, or more accurately velocity, which measures both speed and direction, matters in business. With all other things being equal, the organization that moves faster will innovate more, simply because it will be able to conduct a higher number of experiments per unit of time. Yet many companies find themselves struggling against their own bureaucratic drag, which appears in the form of layer upon layer of permission, ownership, and accountability, all working against fast, decisive forward progress.
Colin Bryar (Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon)
In 2011, just four Wall Street banks—JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs—accounted for 95 percent of the financial industry’s derivatives trading in the United States.34 It is a pattern of concentration that prevails in many other industries too, from media and computing to telecoms and supermarkets. Anyone who has played the board game Monopoly is well versed in the dynamics of Success to the Successful: players who are lucky enough to land on expensive properties early in the game can buy them up, build hotels, and reap vast rents from their fellow players, thus accumulating a winning fortune as they bankrupt the rest. Fascinatingly, however, the game was originally called ‘The Landlord’s Game’ and was designed precisely to reveal the injustice arising out of such concentrated property ownership, not to celebrate it.
Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist)
Peruvian economist and anti-poverty campaigner Hernando de Soto estimates that the amount of “dead capital,” the pool of untitled property around the world, is worth about $20 trillion. If poor people could use that capital as collateral, he says, the multiplier effect from all that credit flowing through the global economy could create growth rates in excess of 10 percent in developing countries, which account for more than half of world GDP. And it’s not just land. This technology has kindled interest in how to help the poor prove ownership of a much wider array of assets, such as small business equipment and vehicles, as well as reliably show their personal good standing on questions such as creditworthiness and make sure their votes are counted.
Michael J. Casey (The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything)
If you can commit to and live with the following principles, then you are the type of person who will be successful and help our company thrive. If you feel this level of engagement is not right for you or that you’re not willing or able to participate with us at this level, we are not a good fit for you. Our expectation is that you will take the steps necessary to do what you say you are going to do and be accountable for your actions. In other words, live “Above the Line.” We understand that not every person is ready for this level of performance, and we appreciate the honesty of those who decide this is not the right place for them. On the other hand, you would make an ideal candidate to join our company if you are willing to commit to the following Above the Line principles: Accountability: See It, Own It, Solve It, Do It Become part of the solution Respect for others and their feelings Act now! Ask the question: “What else can I do?” Ask the questions: “What coaching do you have for me?” and “What can I do better?” Personal ownership and pride Reject average Show others that you care
Keith J. Cunningham (The Road Less Stupid: Advice from the Chairman of the Board)
The government also needs to implement a beneficial ownership registry, to ensure that oligarchs can’t hide behind shell companies.
Sam Cooper (Wilful Blindness: How a network of narcos, tycoons and CCP agents infiltrated the West (Holding the Chinese Communist Party to Account))
Is Threads a threat to Twitter? Threads on Twitter refer to the ability to connect multiple tweets together in a continuous conversation. By simply replying to one's own tweets, users can create a chain of related messages, providing a coherent and concise narrative. The feature was rolled out to enable users to share longer stories, thoughts, or discussions without having to break them down into individual tweets. Threads also allows longer videos and does not use hashtags, unlike Twitter. The app requires an Instagram account and has gained immense popularity, with millions of users joining within hours of its launch. As Threads continues to evolve, it remains to be seen how Twitter, under Elon Musk’s ownership, will respond to this competition.
comstat
Giving employees more freedom led them to take more ownership and behave more responsibly. That’s when Patty and I coined the term “Freedom and Responsibility.” It’s not just that you need to have them both; it’s that one leads to the other. It began to dawn on me. Freedom is not the opposite of accountability, as I’d previously considered. Instead, it is a path toward it.
Reed Hastings (No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention)
In terms of overall transformation plan ownership, we recommend a sole accountable party.
Karen Martin (Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align Leadership for Organizational Transformation)
When tech people talk about “democratizing” something, like driving directions or online banking, what they really mean is access. Access is fine, but it’s just access. It’s a drive-through window, not a door. Access is only part of what democracy has always entailed—alongside real ownership, governance, and accountability. Democracy is a process, not a product.
Nathan Schneider (Everything for Everyone: The Radical Tradition That Is Shaping the Next Economy)
Of course, “conventional wisdom” at the time held that there could never be a pickup in demand for homes. Instead, most people were convinced that the American dream of home ownership was over; demand for homes would remain depressed forever; and thus the overhang of unsold homes would be absorbed only very slowly. They cited the trend among young people — having been burnt by the collapse of the housing and mortgage bubbles — to rent rather than buy, and as usual they extrapolated it rather than question its durability. As in so many of the examples in this book, for most people, psychology-driven extrapolation took the place of an understanding of and belief in cyclicality. It was clear to me and my Oaktree colleagues, from the graph and from our knowledge of the data behind it, that because the greatest economic crash in almost eighty years had halted additions to the housing supply, home prices could recover strongly if there was any material increase in demand. And, rejecting conventional wisdom, we were convinced that housing demand would prove cyclical as usual, and thus would pick up sometime in the intermediate-term future. This conclusion — supported by other data and analysis — contributed to our decision to invest heavily in non-performing home mortgages and non-performing bank loans secured by land for residential construction, and to purchase North America’s largest private homebuilding company. These investments worked out quite well. (It’s interesting in this context to note what the Wall Street Journal said in a May 12, 2017 article headlined “Generation of Renters Now Buying”: “In all [first-time home buyers] have accounted for 42% of buyers this year, up from 38% in 2015 and 31% at the lowest point during the recent housing cycle in 2011.” So much for extrapolating widespread abandonment of home ownership.)
Howard Marks (Mastering The Market Cycle: Getting the odds on your side)