Ownership And Accountability Quotes

you don't have to worry about burning bridges, if you're building your own

Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.

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.

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.

Ownership: 'A commitment of the head, heart, and hands to fix the problem and never again affix the blame.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Leaders create leaders by passing on responsibility, creating ownership, accountability and trust.

There is no ownership. There is only stewardship.

The Diminisher is a Micromanager who jumps in and out. The Multiplier is an Investor who gives others ownership and full accountability.

Continuously lying to yourself is just as fatal as suicide; only slower. Take ownership of your life, be accountable to you.

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.

Don’t complain, remain and sustain

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.

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.

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

true accountability is about choice and taking ownership of your choices,

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

You’ll blame your conditions, others will blame your decisions.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Own your life.

America didn’t want war. Both major political parties still supported neutrality. The aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh argued in popular radio speeches that it would be foolish and hypocritical to fight Germany. He said America had no standing to accuse the Nazis of aggression and barbarism because America had sometimes been aggressive and barbaric itself . Later he argued that American Jews were a “danger to this country” on account of their “ownership and influence in our motion pictures , our press, our radio and our government .” Lindbergh became the public face and champion of an antiwar group called the America First Committee. “America First,” a campaign slogan of Woodrow Wilson, had been adopted by the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. Within a year the America First Committee was holding rallies at Madison Square Garden.

Underlying this book is the assumption that governing a company and managing it are different activities requiring different job designs. We maintain that governance is best seen as existing outside the phenomenon of management and inside the phenomenon of ownership. Governance operates at a level that transcends current issues and specific company traditions and elevates people to a higher conceptual plane, one from which accountability can be seen more clearly. Governance requires and engenders a passion for leadership, leadership that is not just over others but on others' behalf.

The aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh argued in popular radio speeches that it would be foolish and hypocritical to fight Germany. He said America had no standing to accuse the Nazis of aggression and barbarism because America had sometimes been aggressive and barbaric itself. Later he argued that American Jews were a “danger to this country” on account of their “ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.

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.

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. Therefore, leaders must enforce standards. Consequences for failing need not be immediately severe, but leaders must ensure that tasks are repeated until the higher expected standard is achieved. Leaders must push the standards in a way that encourages and enables the team to utilize Extreme Ownership.

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.

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—lhat poor performance becomes the new standard.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Public ownership does not mean there is no ownership; we have to be accountable to small and great, seen and unseen, now and thereafter.

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.

There are three key financial statements that are made up of 5 main elements. These elements include: 1. Assets: Assets are items of value that are owned by the company. Items that can be listed under assets include cash, equipment, real estate, etc. 2. Liabilities: These are items that decrease the net worth of the business. In other words, liabilities are what the company owes other companies, individuals, or investors. Liabilities include items such as accounts payable, long term and short term loans, etc. 3. Equities: These refer to cash or cash equivalents that are used to represent the ownership of the company. The term equity, as used in accounting, determines the value of the company and its ownership. 4. Revenues: Revenue is one component of financial statements that mainly appears on the income sheet and the cash flow statement. Revenue represents all the money that is earned by a business over a given trading period. The revenue of a business can vary from one accounting period to another. The revenue of a business determines the net income of business after expenses have subtracted. 5. Expenses: The expenses of a business are usually used in preparing the income sheet and the cash flow statement. Expenses represent the ways a company uses its funds. Among the expenses include direct expenses such as the cost of goods sold and indirect expenses such as rent and taxes.

How can you empower people? Whether you’re talking with two people or speaking to a large audience, do these five things: Embrace people’s potential. I see everyone as a ten out of ten, and I tell them that. You can too. Give people permission to succeed. I try to “open the gate” for them to walk in new territory. You can too. Invite collaboration. This means working together aggressively, as opposed to cooperation, which is merely working together agreeably. People are more likely to reach their potential when working with others. I encourage collaboration. You can too. Encourage ownership. As much as I want people to succeed, only they can make themselves successful by taking action. I encourage them to do that. You can too. Ask them to hold themselves accountable. People realize their possibilities when they are accountable for results. I help them understand that achieving results fuels a cycle of encouragement. You can too.

It was on that call that he introduced me to the concept of restaurant-smart vs. corporate-smart. He described the distinction between the two. In the simplest terms: Where do the highest-paid people in the company work? In the restaurants themselves, or in the corporate offices? That says a lot about how the company is run. In restaurant-smart companies, members of the team have more autonomy and creative latitude. Because they tend to feel a greater sense of ownership, they give more of themselves to the job. They can often offer better hospitality because they’re nimble; there aren’t a lot of rules and systems getting in the way of human connection. But those restaurants tend not to have a lot of corporate support or oversight—the systems that make great businesses. Corporate-smart companies, on the other hand, have all the back-end systems and controls in areas like accounting, purchasing, and human resources that are needed to make them great businesses, and they’re often more profitable as a result. But systems are, by definition, controls—and the more control you take away from the people on the ground, the less creative they can be, and guests can feel that. Restaurant-smart companies can be great businesses, and corporate-smart companies can deliver great hospitality. But their priorities are different, in ways that fundamentally affect the guests’ experience.

Let’s take a look at the five major asset classes: Alternative assets, which are usually physical assets like fine watches, real estate, collectible cars, art, and jewelry Stocks, which represent ownership of a piece of a publicly traded company Fixed-income investments such as government bonds and deposit certificates Cash, such as dollar bills, and cash equivalents such as savings accounts, retirement accounts, and 401(k)s Futures and other derivatives, which are contracts between two parties agreeing to buy and sell assets, usually commodities like gold, corn, wheat, or cows, at a future date

DuBois used the legal record and personal accounts to create detailed maps and tables of the county, showing between 1850 and 1906 the evolution of economic, social, and political power and a chronological movement of land ownership among blacks and whites.3

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.

■ 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

I was pleasantly surprised that communication and cultural barriers were not limiting. Everyone from around the world went out of their way to communicate across time zones and language barriers, and never lost focus on winning as the key objective. Sure there was occasional friction and fear of job loss, but we found ways to put these behind us. I give special credit to the key R&D and business leaders in each region for ownership and accountability for making their groups relevant and effective.

Abraham Maslow, the man who gave us Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, once said: “The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important.

leadership is a verb, it’s not a noun, it is about taking ownership responsibility and accountability for transforming something.

Progressives needed a new idea, and Alinsky came up with one: force banks and financial institutions to loan money to unqualified applicants so that they can buy homes. Alinsky’s own idea was to terrorize the banks by having thousands of activists walk into banks and open up accounts of one dollar each, in effect paralyzing the bank’s normal operations. This became the model for a number of leftist groups that took up the cause of bank intimidation, notably an Alinskyite organization called ACORN. The ideological justification for this tactic was “social justice.” Starting in the 1970s, ACORN and other leftist groups protested that banks were “discriminating” against poor and minority home loan applicants. Even though such applicants had less wealth, less income, and less reliable credit histories, these groups insisted that banks should lower their lending standards to accommodate them. According to these activists, home ownership was a “right” and getting a mortgage to buy a home was a matter of “fairness.” In 1977, a liberal Democratic Congress obligingly passed, and President Jimmy Carter signed into law, the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). This law, aggressively promoted by liberal icons like Senator Ted Kennedy and Senator William Proxmire, imposed on banks an “affirmative obligation” to make loans in their own neighborhoods, even if those neighborhoods were poor credit risks.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Sense of ownership should not be an outcome of ones title, stock ownership or salary but readiness to take work, passion & accountability.

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

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.

When leaders define clear ownership and invest in others, they have sown the seeds of success and earned the right to hold people accountable.

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.

It can create confusion, discouragement, and resentment to insist on cultivating a feeling of “ownership” when employees are rarely empowered enough to take initiative and make decisions without being overridden or undermined by higher ups.

Just like accountability, a lack of ownership often indicates a lack of empowerment.

have wanted to collect the Deck.” I gripped the lip of my chair so tightly my knuckles ached. “But you’re not working with King Rowan. Otherwise, you would have already given him your Nightmare Card. You’re collecting the Deck on your own account…” My eyes flew to the table. “Is there going to be a rebellion? Are you going to depose the King?” Fenir’s voice was sharp. “Nothing of the sort. Rebellion would destroy Blunder.” Then why not work alongside the King to collect the Deck? the Nightmare said, coiling through my mind. They’re hiding something. I waited, the room so quiet it might have been a tomb. “With the Deck of Cards,” Fenir said, “the King will lift the mist, regaining ownership of Blunder from the Spirit of the Wood.” He took his wife’s hand, his face drawn. “And he will be able to cure the infection.” I waited, my breath fast. “But as The Old Book of Alders so loves to remind us,” Elm said from the hearth, twirling the Scythe, “nothing comes for free. Now that my father has the Nightmare Card, he needs only two things to unite the Deck: the lost Twin Alders Card and blood. Infected blood.” He looked toward the flames, his shoulders tight. “And he’s going to kill Emory to get it.” The strange boy—his erratic, fitful nature. Infected. Which meant Emory Yew was not a resident in the King’s castle as a token of hospitality. He was a captive. And they were going to commit treason to save him.

savings and time deposits, savings-and-loan-association accounts, life insurance, annuities, and real-estate mortgages or equity ownership.

As decolonization took its agonizing course and other industrial powers reconstructed from wartime damage, the US share of global wealth (GDP) continued to decline, to about 25 percent by 1970—still phenomenal but not what it had been at the peak of US power. By now it’s declined further, but these measures are becoming misleading as we enter the period of neoliberal globalization in which national accounts mean much less than they did before. There’s a different measure of power that is becoming more significant: the percentage of ownership of the world’s wealth by US-based corporations. The answer is an absolutely astounding 50 percent. Today, the statistics are good. They reveal that 50 percent of the world’s wealth is in the hands of US-based corporations, even though the national account, GDP, is not anywhere near that.