“Who is going to own this process?”

It’s a question I’m sure is asked quite frequently, and more than likely in response to a thorny problem, the kind of problem many managers react to by kidnapping twelve people and calling it a meeting.

I think it’s the wrong question.

Do you really want someone to own the process?

The danger in creating ownership of a process is that it makes everyone — surprise — focus on the process. Success, and the value of everyone’s time and attention, is then measured by how good the process is. Or, by some perverse sense of how complicated and impenetrable the process is, or how many spreadsheet tabs it consumes, or how many work teams it sucked into its gravitational pull. You’ve created an organization where people get rewarded for process creation.

That's not good.

Words matter. Words create a culture in an organization. They reflect people’s thinking. They influence people’s behavior.

“Process” is the wrong word.

The right word — the right question — is “who is going to own the solution?”

Everyone’s focus needs to be on problem solving. Reward people for the quality of their solutions to an organization’s problems. Because we should come to work to solve problems, not design processes.

Maybe it’s nit-picky to focus on one simple word uttered by overwhelmed managers in the heat of a moment. I don’t think so. Like signposts, words direct people to what an organization values. Words create a culture.

And more than anything, you need a solution culture, not a process culture. After all, what do your customers want you to do for them — create a process, or solve a problem?