Managers are handed ownership of a hard outcome without the budget, people, or decision rights to deliver it, which sets them up to fail while leadership celebrates a culture of ownership.
An example
At the annual meeting of a private-equity-backed chain of veterinary clinics, the chief executive called each clinic's medical director to the stage and announced that they now owned their clinic's profit and loss. The medical director of a busy suburban clinic was applauded by two hundred colleagues. Back at work she found that prices were still set by the central pricing team, hiring needed a regional sign-off that had been frozen since spring, and drug purchasing ran through a national contract. Her clinic's margin target rose four points. When she asked her regional director for authority to hire a second surgeon, she was told owners find a way. Two medical directors given the same title a year earlier in a pilot region had both left, one after a performance plan.
Why it works
Wrapped in career language and public recognition, the offer looks better to accept. Pushing back looks worse, recast as lacking ambition or clinging to old hierarchy, and refusing in a public moment is costly, because the person becomes known as someone who did not step up. Once they have accepted in public, the pressure to stay consistent keeps them in place after the gap becomes clear. It works best on ambitious people, in cultures where the ownership language is sacred, when the handoff happens in public, and when the missing resources are not obvious at the moment of acceptance.
The thinking behind it
Robert B. Cialdini Robert Cialdini's Influence (1984) describes commitment and consistency: once people have taken a position, especially a public one, they feel pressure to act in line with it. A manager who accepts ownership on a stage in front of two hundred colleagues is committed before the missing resources become clear. It explains why the defense is to ask for the authority in writing before accepting, or as soon after as possible.
Jeffrey Pfeffer Jeffrey Pfeffer's The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective (1978) argues that whoever controls critical, scarce resources holds power over those who depend on them. An owner whose results hang on pricing, hiring, and purchasing decisions made at the center depends entirely on the center. Listing those approvals and who holds them makes the dependence visible, the first step toward getting the authority or getting the target changed.
Warning signs
Ownership is announced publicly, often on a stage or in a meeting where renegotiating would feel awkward. No written grant of budget, headcount, or decision limits comes with it. The approvals the outcome depends on still sit at the center. Targets rise with the new title. Requests for resources are answered with remarks about what owners do. People who received the same kind of ownership earlier have left or been moved.
How to defend yourself
Ask for the authority in writing before accepting, or as soon as possible after: budget, hiring, and decision limits, with amounts.
- List the approvals your outcome depends on and who holds each one, and send the list to your manager asking them to confirm or change it.
- Talk to people who were handed the same kind of ownership before, and find out how it ended for them.
- Tie your commitment on the target to the authority you receive, in writing, and record each request that is refused.
A written request forces a choice between granting the authority and refusing it openly. Either answer gives you something to work with, and a record if the target is missed.
How a leader shuts it down
Pair every grant of ownership with a written grant of budget, people, and decision rights, and publish both. Settle the terms privately before handing out ownership in a public setting. Check whether the people given ownership in earlier rounds succeeded or left, and judge the program by that.