Jobs: Home Owner vs. Renter?

I'm currently renting a two-story, three bedroom, one bathroom house with four other guys. Living here and reading The Seven-Day Weekend (a fantastic book and a must read) has spurred my thoughts into the realm of renting versus owning a house. Think about the differences:

*an owner invests in his home vs. the renter maintains existence in the house
*an owner feels freedom to improve his property vs. the renter simply leaves the house in whatever state he found it
*an owner is spurred towards improvement by their ownership vs. the renter works to do the least amount to the house - damage or improvement, walking on invisible eggshells
*an owner does not ask for permission to make changes/improvements to the home vs. the renter must ask his landlord to make even small changes to the property

The contrast continues on in other areas - responsibility, long-term commitment, changes, profit margin when leaving, etc.

A job possesses a strong parallel to this owner vs. renter contrast. A manager, owner, or vice president of a company "owns" the company and thus has a vested interest in it's growth, development, improvement - and has the power and authority to make these changes or improvements. Most often, employees underneath higher management level positions are simply asked to fulfill their duties. They aren't given any opportunity to significantly change or develop the business.

Therefore, it's no surprise that "great ideas from the little man" are highlighted as novelties in the news, as if they were that rare diamond that's found among coal. I believe that the truth is that every employee has talents, intuitions, ideas, creativity, and thoughts that create the potential to significantly benefit the company they work for. However, most businesses treat their employees as renters - simply requiring them to show up, pay their dues, and leave - not as owners, empowering them as movers and changers, but simply renters.

It's a mentality like this that drove Gillette to spend $600 million dollars to decide to make the Mach 3 - simply an addition of one blade to their previous model. An idea that perhaps two dozen floor workers might have suggested on their own. It's the reason that floor employees observe machines that are beginning to fail, but without the "ownership" to do anything about it, the company suffers production loss and possible injury to the employee when something finally goes wrong.

So, what about you? Does your employer treat you as an owner or a renter? Do you have the freedom to leave your job better than you found it? Investing in it and passionately pursuing the things you love about the business? Or, like the majority of people, are you simply a "renter" - showing up to put your 40 hours in a week and do what the company asks of you, without ever being given the power, expected, or asked to enact change, growth, or development?

Ricardo Semler, owner of the $212 million Semco company in Brazil and author of The Seven-Day Weekend, argues that for the sake of control, businesses and employers fail to serve their employees and fail to tap significant resources and ideas in them by keeping their employees as renters.

Here's some questions to think about:
Are you currently in a job? Are you a renter or an owner? Which would make you more likely to get up in the morning excited about work?

Managing people? Are they simply renting from you, the "landlord" who makes all the decisions, or are you empowering them to be owners and thus bring added benefits to your team and projects?

Looking for a job? Unless you enjoy working at what I call a "McDonald's" job (meaning, you simply show up, do your checklist and leave, never having an opportunity to change things), what would it look like to choose and pursue a job that you could be an owner in?

In a job that keeps you as a renter? Can you stir the water and see if ownership might be a possibility? If you're paid more than to be a "machine" that processes what is input and provides output, it means your paid for your contribution to the company. If the company values you as something more than replaceable, I hope they give you ownership.