When I ask you if you have the eye of the owner what do you think I’m referring to? You might say: “it’s like you treat the business as if you own it”. You might say: “you are passionate about your role”…
I agree, you would have passion, you would have a sense of ownership. You would have confidence, in yourself, in the team, the manager, the owner, the processes, and so on. You would have trust. You would have a clear vision of your role and how your work fits into everything else. You would have knowledge, experience and skills! You would take responsibility.
If we look at it as a sliding scale from 1 – 10. 5 is the half way mark. Anything above 5 is engaged in the business. Anything below 5 is dis-engaged in the business.
Below 5 is the fat cat mentality. The fat cat mentality is, “Doesn’t matter what I do, I get paid on Friday”.
We’ve all worked with people like that. The fat cat mentality is like cancer in a business. They are great at recruiting others into the fat cat club. Once they have gathered inside your company, they change the culture into a fat cat culture. Then, once that has happened, the culture becomes one of, reasons why we can’t do something, instead of finding a way we can. Fat cats think a certain way. They tend to be negative and once down around 1 or 2, start to actively sabotage the business and its success. Everything below 5 is essentially stealing. Adding no value.
There are millions of people around the world that go into their businesses every day with this energy and go into the wallet of the business and take money out, not giving any value in return.
Whereas people above an 8 or 9 give you twice the value, three times the value, ten times the value, than what they receive in wages.
So what I want you to do is think about where you are on the scale of “eye of the owner”? How passionate, how enthusiastic, have you got a vision for your role and your business, what level are you on? How engaged are you in the business?
You might have started your job at a 9, and after three years you are now a 6. You might be a 4 and thinking of leaving. The trick is to get out before you get to a 5 and start causing damage. You could think about what would it take to move you back up and reengage yourself in the business? What could you do personally for your own professional development to reengage you in the business?
This is Part 1 of the 17-part series Refresh Your Career. Keep an eye out for the rest of the series being published weekly, and find them here.
