"We?" or "They?"

Ever notice how fickle sports fans can be? Last Sunday, before the New England Patriots-Kansas City Chiefs game started, fans interviewed in the parking lots were saying, "We're going to win the Super Bowl this year!"

But something terrible happened during the game. In the first quarter, the Patriots’ star quarterback, Tom Brady, took a solid hit to his left knee, crumpled to the turf in pain and, as we would later learn, is out for the season with torn medial and anterior cruciate ligaments (MCL and ACL). After that, fans were heard saying, "I don't think they can win this year without Brady."

How quickly things change from “We” to “They.” It's not unique to New England, nor is it unique to sports. I guess it's just human nature to want to associate with winners but to distance ourselves from losers – even perceived losers.

The same is true within the corporate world. In a winning company, one that is on top of its game like Google or Apple, the employees typically talk about the company in the first person plural. "We own the market."

But when a company is struggling, it's often "They don't know what they're doing. They have driven this company into the ground." In those cases, employees assume no responsibility for the decline of the company. It’s someone else’s fault – namely, the CEO and/or the management team.

When clients engage me to assess their internal culture and the quality of their employee communications, I usually conduct numerous interviews and focus groups with managers and employees. I listen closely for that “we” and “they” – whether front-line employees use the first or third person plural in reference to their employers.

Frankly, in that I usually have been brought in to address perceived problems, it’s more often the latter, as in, “They tried that before and it didn’t work.” And, “they never listen to us,” etc. In cases where the companies are struggling, rarely do we hear statements like, “We’re having a tough time.”

It goes to my original point here. People, by nature like to be associated with winners, and tend to distance themselves from losers. But for a company facing difficult challenges, what is the tipping point between "We" and "They?” How can leaders create that sense of ownership that is so important through good times and bad?

While the answer to those questions is unique to each situation, the commonality to all is effective communications – which is to say, relevant information conveyed in a regular and timely manner via dialogue, discussion and debate among and between leadership, managers, supervisors and employees. Where that is the norm, the sense of ownership is far more prevalent than not. You are more likely to hear employees using “we” than “they.”

People might point to a successful organization and say that developing that sense of ownership in a winning environment is easy. But I push back and say, what’s the chicken and what’s the egg?

More likely, the organization is successful because the environment of dialogue, discussion and debate is well established. People at all levels have a voice in the operation and, at the same time, they have a clear understanding of the company’s vision and mission, as well as the strategies that are driving them in that direction. Course corrections in the face of competitive threats and a changing marketplace are communicated clearly and regularly. There is no such thing as a “fair weather” employee. There is little opportunity for disassociation to fester, even when the chips are down.

Of course, the professional football team metaphor is imperfect because the average fan is not an employee and has no personal stake in the outcome of team’s season – unless that fan bets on the team. For a going concern, the average employee indeed has a personal stake in the health and well being of his or her company: his or her livelihood.

So it behooves company leadership to assure that its employees stay engaged, fully comprehending how they contribute every day to the ongoing health of the business. Only then will they see that they share responsibility for its success or failure. Only then will they think of the company as their own, in the first person plural.