Fog breeds fear.
Read your way to clarity.

One of the questions I wrestled with most as a business owner was this: Why don't people care as much as I do? It would often surface after a customer complaint, when standards slipped, or at the end of a long day when there was still work to be done. At the time, it felt like a fair question. I was deeply invested in the success of the business and wanted the team to feel the same commitment. Looking back, however, I realise I was asking the wrong question.

What I have come to understand is that ownership is not something we can expect people to arrive with, nor is it something we can demand. Most people genuinely want to do a good job. They want to contribute, feel valued, and know they are making a difference. The challenge is that ownership rarely develops by accident. It grows when leaders create an environment where expectations are clear, standards are visible, and people understand how their contribution matters.

For a long time, I believed ownership was a personal trait. I thought some people naturally had it and others did not. Experience taught me otherwise. Most people start by doing exactly what is asked of them. They follow instructions, complete tasks, and work within the systems provided. That is not a problem. It is simply the starting point.

Over the years, I began to see a pattern emerge. People tend to progress through four stages, which I refer to as SOAR.

The first stage is Responsibility. This is where people show up, follow instructions, and complete the tasks expected of them. Responsibility is important because it forms the foundation of performance.

The second stage is Accountability. This is where consistency develops. Team members follow through on commitments, maintain standards, and deliver results reliably over time.

The third stage is Ownership. This is where people begin to act without being asked. They identify opportunities, solve problems, and focus on outcomes rather than simply completing tasks.

The final stage is Standards. Standards define what great looks like. They create clarity around expectations and help remove ambiguity.

One of the biggest lessons I learned was that many business owners have clear standards in their own minds, but those standards are not always visible to the team. We know what great customer service looks like. We know what good communication sounds like. We know what an exceptional day looks like. The team, however, can only move towards what they can clearly see.

The turning point for me came when I stopped focusing on whether people cared enough and started focusing on whether I had clearly defined success. Instead of assuming the team understood my expectations, I spent more time discussing standards, recognising great performance, and creating clarity around what good looked like in each role.

The results were significant, but the biggest shift was not in the numbers. It was in the culture.

The team did not suddenly become different people. Their potential had been there all along.

What changed was the environment around them.

As clarity increased, confidence grew. As confidence grew, initiative followed. And as initiative increased, ownership began to emerge.

Today, I see ownership differently. I no longer view it as a personality trait. I see it as a response to clarity.

As leaders, it is easy to ask why people do not care more. A more useful question might be: Have I created the conditions for ownership to thrive?

Because when people understand what is expected, why it matters, and what great looks like, ownership often follows naturally. Sometimes the capability we are looking for in our team has been there all along. It simply needed the right environment to bring it to life.

I had been running a team for two years before I realised I had no idea how to have a one to one.

I knew I was supposed to do them. I knew they mattered. But every time I sat down with a team member I felt like I was guessing. What do I say? What do I praise? How do I raise a concern without it getting personal? Nobody told me. Not my franchisor. Not a manager. Not a course. I figured most leaders just knew.

Turns out most leaders are guessing too.

The one to one is the most underused tool in a leader's kit. Not because people do not know they should do them. Because nobody ever showed them what to actually say inside one.

Here is what I eventually worked out.

Performance is not one thing. It is three things happening at the same time.

Communication. What does this person say, and how do they say it? Are they clear with customers? Constructive with the team? Do they follow through on what they commit to?

Behaviour. What do they actually do? Are they consistent? Do they follow the system when nobody is watching? Do they show up prepared?

Knowledge. What do they know, and how well do they apply it? Can they make a confident recommendation? Can they handle something unexpected without needing to find you first?

When I started structuring every one to one around those three areas, the conversations changed completely. They stopped being vague check-ins. They became real development conversations. Specific. Fair. Consistent.

No more guessing what to say. No more walking away feeling like nothing was achieved.

This is the core of The OCRE Method™. It makes performance visible at every level and turns one to ones from uncomfortable guesswork into structured conversations your team actually benefits from.

The most common thing I hear from leaders after their first proper one to one is this.

I wish someone had shown me this sooner.

So here is the question worth sitting with this week.

When was the last time you had a one to one where both you and the team member walked away knowing exactly what was discussed, what was agreed, and what happens next?

If that is not what they look like right now, it can be.

There is a leadership principle called McGregor's Hot Stove Rule.

The idea is simple. When a child touches a hot stove, the consequence is immediate, consistent, impersonal, and there was advance warning. Those four principles, applied to workplace accountability, create a fair and predictable system.

I read about it. I understood it. I applied it.

And it cost me.

There was a team member I will call Johnson. Every time he fell short of the standard I would address it straight away. Right there. In the moment. Consistent. Impersonal. Just like the theory said.

Within a few weeks something had shifted. Johnson had become quieter. A little more guarded. The rest of the team had become watchful in a way they had not been before. Every correction, however fair, was landing differently than I intended.

I was following the framework. And somewhere along the way I had stopped seeing the person inside it.

Here is what I had missed.

McGregor's rule has four principles. But there is a fifth one that nobody writes about. And without it, the other four can quietly erode the thing that makes a team work.

Trust.

The fifth principle is the compassion layer.

In the moment, when you see something that is not right, your job is not to deliver a verdict. Your job is to get curious. To understand before you conclude. To ask before you tell.

So instead of stepping in with a correction, I learned to lead with a question.

Hey Johnson, I noticed the customer was waiting there for a while. What got in the way of getting to him sooner?

That one question does something a correction never can. It invites Johnson to think rather than defend. It signals that you are interested in understanding, not just in pointing out what went wrong. And it gives you real information about what is actually happening beneath the surface.

Sometimes the answer reveals a gap in knowledge. Sometimes it reveals a systems issue. Sometimes it reveals something personal that you would never have discovered by simply correcting the behaviour.

The question opens a door. The correction closes one.

And then in the one to one, the fuller conversation happens. With structure. With context. With time to actually explore what is going on and what support looks like going forward.

The framework does not change. The standards do not drop. What changes is the delivery. And the delivery is everything.

Having the right tool and knowing how to use it with compassion are two completely different things. I learned that the hard way.

So here is the question worth sitting with this week.

When something goes wrong in your business, is your first instinct to correct or to get curious?

Because the leaders who ask better questions build teams that give better answers.