When people say they want ownership, they generally mean ownership of inputs, when in reality the truly magnificient, fulfilling work comes from ownership of outputs.

A dev I was talking to said he wants to leave his job because there is no ownership. After probing further, he said he wants to use some new framework but others in the team didn’t want to learn it, or change the stack for that matter. He said he tried to explain to them how better this new framework is and all.

What he wanted was the ownership of inputs. What goes into building the product. Even though it hardly ends up making a difference.

Looking at ownership from output’s lens would make him see that he is not focusing on the right thing. Stability, maintainability, speed of iterations, these are the outcomes expected from devs. Ownership of these metrics or outcomes will yield a better career path over ownership of inputs, as obsessing about these means that you will have a better chance of making your team successful.

All the highly paid people are paid handsomely to own the output, and not just worry about input. CEOs, Athletes, Movie Stars, Big name consultants, all are paid handsomely because the expectation is that adding them to the team increases the output, and they’re judged solely on the output, not the input.

So when you ask for ownership, remember what it really means. Ownership of output over input.