A man walks into the hotel lobby and the clerk checks him in.
The guest sees a cute little dog near the reception desk and asks, “Does your dog bite?”
“No”, the clerk replies.
The guest bends down to pet the dog and the dog snaps fiercely at the man’s hand.
The guest, now frightened out of his wits, screams, “I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!”
The clerk looks up, and nonchalantly says, “It’s not my dog.”
You may not have biting dogs in your company lobby, but how often in meetings, projects or in the hallways do you hear people say, in different ways
“It’s not my dog.”
The costs associated with, “It’s not my dog”, run in the millions, maybe more. It is the terrible (and avoidable) cost of what happens when you do not have a culture of ownership throughout your organization.
If you hear and see “It’s not my dog” in your meetings, projects, or cross-functional collaborations, pick up a copy of my recent book, Executive Ownershift, Creating Highly Effective Leadership Teams, and learn how you can create a culture of ownership and “own the dog” throughout your business.
®Own the Dog is a registered trademark.