It’s possible to make everyone who works with you a literal partner, with a share of your company and all the commensurate benefits and dangers. But not only does that likely sound unappealing to you, it’s probably not appealing to most of the people who would work with you.
What most people want isn’t literal ownership. Most people don’t care for the risk and the inconsistency. What they want is actually fairly straight-forward.
- Trust. When you are working with a partner, you trust her. Yet in so many environments, employees are treated with suspicion. It’s easy to find reasons to worry that your employees are stealing from you, or wasting time you’re paying them for. The sad irony is that treating your employees with suspicion not only undermines your relationship with them, it actually encourages them to do the very things you’re trying to guard against. Start with trust–which is a form of dependence–and you will be rewarded with a healthier business.
- Humanity. The average person wants to be treated like a human being, equal in substance to everyone else. The fact that one person is the employer and another the employee isn’t a matter of quality or even of mastery. It’s a matter of role. If you are suited to be a leader, it’s better for you to lead; if you aren’t suited to be a leader, you have something equally valuable to contribute that your leader can’t. Leadership requires the humility and courage to be equal even to interns and entry-level employees, and to hold their investment in your firm as dearly as you hold your own.
- Community. I may use this interchangeably with another word: context. But for now I want to emphasize that the community of co-workers, leaders, and in the larger sphere suppliers and customers, is critical to the ability of each individual to work toward the good of the whole. A business is not just a place of employment, it is a clan, a tribe, a nation. You must be bound not just by function but by myth and identity and culture, or you will not hold together.
- Mastery. Each person wants to be a part of that community not just in the abstract, but by bringing mastery to it. This means each individual is the best at something, is constantly challenged to expand her ability, and is poised to contribute in a way that no one else in the company–perhaps no one else in the world–is able. Perhaps just as importantly, it means each individual’s contribution and domain is recognized, respected, and rewarded.
Throughout all these, there is a common undercurrent: respect. At each stage, you are establishing and building respect for the people working with you. And they in turn are growing in their respect for you.
It’s not difficult to understand, but it’s more difficult than you might think to accomplish. Fortunately, I’ve put these in a specific order to help you work toward each. Start at the top and work your way down. Once you get to the bottom, start over again. Make it a regular exercise, and let me know if you don’t see improvement.