Taking Ownership by Dean Gotcher

"Taking Ownership."

by
Dean Gotcher

"Taking ownership" (or "take ownership") is a phrase you will hear in the TQM (Total Quality Management) workplace. It means the company you are working for has owners who hold employees accountable to their established standards (or at least did so in the past—the objective being to prevent it from happening again). Through the use of dialogue, doing right and not wrong according to the owners established commands, rules, facts, and truth is replace with the "diversity of opinions" of the workers. Dialogue is informal, i.e., based upon "feelings" or opinions, making all who participate "equal." Traditional standards on the other hand are formal, i.e., are initiated and sustained by a "top-down," "right-wrong," "do as I say or else," Patriarchal way of feeling, thinking, and acting, relating with "self" and others, and responding to authority—which is initiated and sustained through preaching, teaching, discussion (at the owners discretion, i.e., providing the owner has time, the employee can understand, and is not questioning or challenging the owners authority), rewarding, chastening, and firing according to the owners will. By getting workers to "take ownership," group psychotherapists, facilitators of 'change,' "human resource personnel" are able to take control of the business, establishing standards of conduct which negate the authority and standards of the original (traditional minded) owner. This is the method by which socialist (acting as management) take control ("ownership") of traditional businesses. Through the workers becoming one through dialogue, bypassing traditional "top-down," "right-wrong," "Do what I say or else" standards, everyone, including the owner becomes subject to the "human resource personnel" only, instead. The method is not new. The woman and Adam, with the "help" of the master "human resource personnel," "took ownership" of the garden in Eden—that is until the owner showed up and "kicked them out," i.e., "fired them."

Take a gander at Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov's (Vladimir Lenin's) speech and see where "taking ownership" is taking us.

"...a more powerful enemy, the bourgeoisie [those in authority, who expect their children to honor (submit their "self" to) their authority, as man is expected to honor (submit his "self" to) God's authority, expect the workers to honor (submit their "self" to) the property and business owner's authority], whose resistance ... and whose power lies in ... the force of habit, in the strength of small-scale production [in private business, where workers/children must submit to their bosses/parents authority]. Unfortunately, small-scale production [local control where family, property, and business under the father's authority] is still widespread in the world, and small-scale production engenders capitalism [capitulating to the father's authority] and the bourgeoisie [the middle class which initiates and sustains, i.e., engenders and supports the father's authority in order to "get ahead"] continuously, daily, hourly, spontaneously, and on a mass scale. Capitalism and the bourgeois environment … disappears very slowly even after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, (since the peasantry constantly regenerates the bourgeoisie) give rise to what is essentially the same bourgeois careerism, national chauvinism, petty-bourgeois vulgarity [belief or faith in a higher authority than themselves], etc. —merely varying insignificantly in form—in positively every sphere of activity and life. … until small-scale economy and small commodity production [private property and business under the father's authority] have entirely disappeared, the bourgeois atmosphere, proprietary habits and petty-bourgeois traditions will hamper proletarian work both outside and within the working-class movement, … in every field of social activity, in all cultural and political spheres without exception. We must learn how to master every sphere of work and activity without exception, to overcome all difficulties and eradicate all bourgeois habits, customs and traditions everywhere." (Vladimir Lenin, Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder; An Essential Condition of the Bolsheviks' Success, May 12, 1920)

Karl Marx came up with the solution to private convictions, property, and business, i.e., the father's/Father's authority (ownership), negate it.

"Once the earthly family [with the children having to submit to their father's authority, i.e., having to humble and deny their "self" in order to do their father's will] is discovered to be the secret of the holy family [with the Son, and all following Him having to submit to His Heavenly Father's authority, i.e., having to humble and deny their "self" in order to do His will], the former [the earthly father's authority system, with children having to trust in and obey the father] must then itself be destroyed [vernichtet, i.e., annihilated, i.e., negated] in theory and in practice [in the children's personal thoughts and social actions]." (Karl Marx, Feuerbach Thesis #4)

Dialogue does the trick—resulting in everyone no longer fellowshipping with one another based upon the father's/Father's established commands, rules, facts, and truth but, through dialogue, "building relationship" with one another upon common "self interests" instead

"In the dialogic relation of recognizing oneself in the other, they experience the common ground of their existence." (Jürgen Habermas, Knowledge & Human Interest, Chapter Three: The Idea of the Theory of Knowledge as Social Theory)

Carl Rogers had the same idea in mind.

"Experience is, for me, the highest authority." "Neither the Bible nor the prophets, neither the revelations of God can take precedence over my own direct experience." "The words 'seem to' are significant; it is the perception which functions in guiding behavior." (Carl Rogers, on becoming a person: A Therapist View of Psychotherapy)

"Taking ownership" might "seem" nice at first but it will cost you everything in the end.

"There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." Proverbs 16:25

You do not "own" your life. God does. He will judge you for taking "ownership" of it after your last breath.

"It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps." Jeremiah 10:23

"Every one of us shall give account of himself to God." Romans 14:12