Opportunities pop up all the time both in your personal life and your professional one. They may be small or they may be big, but they are critical to your overall success just the same. With business opportunities in particular, the details often get overlooked and the outcome isn’t what you might want or need it to be. The key to making the most out of opportunities that come your way is to always assign ownership.

When Things Don’t Get Done

It may simple. but in fact, this is a very important lesson that although most leaders say they understand, they aren’t putting ownership into practice. Here’s why not assigning ownership is a big problem for business:

You have two team members you believe are working on a task. Each one thinks the other is responsible for completing the task. In this general scenario, nothing is getting done and the same will happen to an even larger degree when the group in questions is a longer one. This is how stellar opportunities become missed opportunities—and your business will suffer as a result.

Assigning Task Ownership

You as the leader are responsible for ensuring that opportunities don’t get missed. This doesn’t mean that you need to lead every project and work on everything yourself, it’s just the opposite in fact. It’s your job to identify the opportunities and assign ownership to each one. From there, your staff should be properly trained so the individual who is now in charge can build teams and lead others along the way to seeking the fulfillment of this opportunity.

The person who owns the opportunity doesn’t have to have the team work for them, but rather with them in a shared experience aimed at achieving a common goal. The success rate will be much higher in this kind of environment and with ownership assigned and expectations clear, the chances of the ball getting dropped are much less likely.

Setting Up For Success

What it really comes down to is setting up your business for success and having processes in place to keep everyone accountable. Without this kind of strategy being implemented on the regular, it’s all too easy for opportunities to pass you by. Don’t let that happen.

Work with other executive team members to identify team members who you can trust with owning opportunities that present themselves for your business. Talk to those team members and let them know the role they are taking on and what you expect of them while they hold that role. Give them tactics for guiding their fellow team members instead of dictating to them. Lastly, set up stage gates so the executive leadership team will continue to be aware of the actions being taken and progress for each opportunity.

Carpe diem my friends! It’s time to seize the day. When you commit to giving every opportunity an owner, you commit to reaching goals and building business through accountability and skill. Giving your team members the chance to step up and own different opportunities gives them the opportunity to shine as well.