We believe in ownership. We even like ownership. We promote ownership. Why? Because when people own things they tend to extract more value from them, for themselves and others.
A friend of ours, Imelda Havers (of Bluefish), pointed me to an article by the Guardian on this very subject. The perspective was rural community ownership, but the message was clear – TRUST PEOPLE. This is a difficult thing to do, especially when you fill a room full of experts and start pontificating about what is right/wrong.
I am not promoting a laissez-fare attitude to asset or concept development. To be sure, most people (including myself) could use a bit of training, help, perspective. But, give them this and then let them loose….otherwise, you are headed for mediocrity as the only participants only feel mildly strong about doing/helping/fixing/etc.
Carnegie’s instinct is the opposite to government’s. It is to trust
people, both to come up with their own ideas and to develop their own
plans. Instead of telling people what to do, they say they should be
helped to achieve what they want. They reject the top-down development
models, which governments have mostly pursued and which have been shown
to fail. Above all, they say that the contribution of local communities
to rural development has gone unrecognised for too long.
Might be dangerous to read this excerpt and think that government never gets it right. But, what it does point to is that programs that aren’t customer centric, will inevitably fail –unless money or some other compulsory is involved.
Will there be mistakes? Will some fail? YES! But, I really want to know what is for sure in this world. Also, do private sector businesses fail? Does that have ramifications? YES.
Power to the people.
Related posts:
Yes, with all the but’s and however’s in place, these concepts are valuable to look at.
In a similar fshion, you could have a look at the post on 4 February here: http://woutersinnovationspace.web-log.nl/sharing_thoughts/2007/02/index.html, amongst other interesting thoughts.