Everyone prizes ownership. We like to be owners of things, for example, property, money, luxury products and many more tangibles.
I like to be an owner too. Before talking about the commonly coveted tangibles, I would like to share something more intangible, personal and perhaps influential. I want to share about how I am taking ownership of my voice.
In my career break, I have come to realise that having a voice that I can own and freely express keeps me healthy and sane. As an example, I started to own my unique perception of what a successful career means to me. Having predecessors that taught me what success meant to them is great, but I found it important to define what success meant to me, lest I lost ownership of my voice of what success actually meant.
I remember in a small 2022 hackathon in Singapore, I formed a team using this prompt. From one-man team, we grew to become four.
What struck me, even at this time, is my focus on how every team member has an equal voice in driving ideas to real success. Why do I perceive this modus operandi as a core culture changer?
I’ve worked in big and small companies. I’ve struggled through bad ones and managed teams with cultures of varying strengths. There has been a consistent pattern that I’ve observed in these companies. Without perceiving that it’s a safe space to voice opinions, employees most likely perform badly in productivity and creativity. Constructive discourse do not happen; instead, seeds of discord and distrust are easily sown. People become guarded and stop bringing their full selves to work; they ‘mirror’ more often then ‘showing up’. We wonder, how can these companies still create this safe space where opinions are respected regardless of rank, influence or authority? We wonder how proper intellectual discourse can be conducted in the workplace. We wonder how something as simple as being taught in academic settings become so far off from the general workplace culture that we have all become so desensitised towards.
This article is a mere rant. But through this rant, I hope you can start to see what we have conventionally accepted in the workplace as normal as something that needs work to improve — that is the consequence of people disregarding ownership of their own voices, or worse, of their colleagues’ voices.
I share this point of view on the importance of owning our voice, not to empower everyone with a ticket to boast in front of everyone else that we have the right to our voice, but instead, to encourage the non-conformists in our midst to own their unique perspective, share it at the right time and in the right way, and with the right people. Owning your voice does not mean that you have to be a loudhailer. It can be as simple as giving your voice space to resonate in your life.
Maybe by getting in touch with that still small voice in you, you can make this world a better place, one voice at a time.
