Ownership, Outcomes and Brilliance
The Only Staff Playbook That Works.
Every company claims that people are its greatest asset. They are. They are also your most expensive asset. But if we’re honest, most companies don’t mean it. Sure, they say it in investor decks, in recruitment ads, in speeches, but behind closed doors, they hire slow, fire slower, tolerate mediocrity, and confuse effort with results.
If don’t know this already, then you need your head read: Staff can make you, or they can break you.
The wrong people will stall momentum, create drama, and suck the oxygen out of your company. The right people will multiply value, lift culture, and make brilliance look effortless. I love the term “force multiplier”, because thats what the right people are. They project power (being capability, competence and certainty - all things customers love) outward. They amplify your brand.
This is my doctrine. The philosophy I live by in building teams at Audalize and UpscalarAI. It’s simple, but it’s not soft. It’s sharp, uncompromising, and built on three pillars:
Ownership: Own your shit. No blame. No drama.
Outcomes: Results matter, not optics or hours. Expect.
Brilliance: Demand brilliance. Build with the best.
Pillar One: Ownership
Ownership isn’t about titles, it’s about accountability. In a culture of ownership, staff don’t hide behind excuses, they don’t point fingers, and they don’t drown you in drama. They stand in the mess, they own their part, and they fix it. It also means the mindset towards mistakes when they do happen aren’t treated with punitive action.
Own Your Shit, or Move On
Excuses are easy. Ownership is rare.
I once had a staff member who was always blaming someone else. If a project stalled, it was because “so-and-so didn’t send the file.” If a deadline slipped, it was because “the process wasn’t clear.” If something broke, it was “because someone else dropped the ball.”
And here’s the pattern: the blamers are always the ones with the most drama. They stir it, feed it, and then use it as cover for why they aren’t delivering. I’ve never sacked someone for making a mistake. Mistakes are growth. You own it, you learn, you get better. Mistakes are brilliant, they are a KPI, they offer a window into reality, mistakes, like wins, should be celebrated. But I’ve sacked plenty for blaming others.
Because blame is poison. It kills trust. It corrodes accountability. It infects culture. If something’s blocked, escalate it. If you dropped the ball, own it. If you failed, admit it and fix it. That’s leadership at every level.
The rule is simple: own your shit, or move on.
The Ops Manager Story: Roles Aren’t Sacred
One day, my ops manager resigned.
Most companies would panic. They’d launch a six-month recruitment drive, stall the business, and inflate the drama. We didn’t.
Within two hours, we redistributed his entire workload across the team. Each person took a slice. They got a bump in pay, some extra stock options, and we kept moving. No drama. No sacred titles. No wasted time.
The lesson? Roles are not sacred. Outcomes are. When you build a culture of ownership, staff don’t wait around. They step up. They want the responsibility.
Ownership isn’t about position. It’s about accountability. And when staff have that, hierarchy becomes lighter, faster, more flexible.
Pillar Two: Outcomes
If ownership is the foundation, outcomes are the measure. Because in the end, only one thing matters: did you deliver?
Outcomes cut through optics, hours, and excuses. They’re measurable and quantifiable. They turn the game from looking busy to being effective.
Hire Fast, Fire Faster
Hiring is always a gamble. Resumes are marketing, interviews are theatre, references are biased. You don’t really know someone until they’re in the seat, under pressure, in your culture.
That’s why you hire fast. Don’t waste months chasing the “perfect” candidate. Put them in the chair and test the only thing that matters: can they deliver here?
Some of the best hires come from instinct. I once hired a stranger at a cafe I got talking to in a queue. Today, he’s one of our best.
And when it’s wrong? You’ll know fast, often in a week. Because the right people dive in. They swim. They engage the team, find their way, take ownership. The wrong ones hesitate, wait to be told, make excuses, and sink.
Deadweight isn’t neutral. It corrodes culture, slows decisions, drags your best people down. Keeping them isn’t kindness, it’s cruelty to them and to your team.
So act. Quickly. Cleanly. Decisively. Because if you hire fast but fire slow, you teach your team you’ll tolerate mediocrity. Fire faster, and you set the opposite tone: this is a place of clarity, accountability, and momentum.
Kill the Gunna Guys
Every founder knows them:
“I’m gunna finish that tomorrow.”
“I’m gunna call that client.”
“I’m gunna start next week.”
But gunna never comes. It’s procrastination disguised as intent. Thats putting it politely. Laziness or outright uselessness is also words that could be used.
The difference between the right people and the wrong ones is simple: the right ones dive straight in. They find a way, make a start, deliver something. The gunna guys linger at the edge, waiting for perfect conditions that never arrive.
You can build a company on mistakes, experiments, even failed bets, because at least those move you forward and you have this layer of data you took away from it. But you can’t build anything on promises that never leave the person’s mouth.
Worsestill, deadweight talkers don’t just waste their own time. They slow everyone else down, train the culture to accept delay, and poison momentum.
Execution is everything. That’s why you cut them. Quickly. Cleanly. Decisively.
Day Rate: Outcomes > Optics
At Audalize, we switched to a day rate. The reason is simple: I don’t care how long you sit at a desk, I care if you deliver. If you can crush a week’s work in two days and spend the rest at the beach sipping Pina coladas in a tall glass with the little umbrella and a slice of pineapple?, that’s fine. You delivered.
The old model rewards optics. People collect points for staying late, looking stressed, racking up hours. They look busy, so they’re seen as valuable. But busyness isn’t business.
It’s one of two things:
Inefficiency: They can’t focus, can’t prioritise, can’t say no.
Overloading: They’re carrying broken systems, bad hires, or other people’s slack.
Neither is good. Neither builds a sustainable business.
When you reward outcomes instead of optics, the truth surfaces quickly. The efficient thrive. The overloaded get relief because inefficiency is exposed. And the excuse makers have nowhere to hide.
That’s the point. Hours don’t matter. Optics don’t matter. Outcomes do. Always.
Pillar Three: Brilliance
Adequacy is expensive. Brilliance compounds. It is a force multiplier. I can honestly say every staff member at Audalize gets up in the morning and pisses excellence.
When you hire brilliance, it raises the bar. It attracts more brilliance. It compounds into a culture where excellence is the baseline. You don’t get competitiveness. Just sheer brilliance.
Everyone a Shareholder
The fastest way to kill apathy? Give staff skin in the game.
When people are shareholders, they stop thinking like employees and start thinking like owners. They don’t just protect their patch, they think about the whole field.
And we’re not talking token shareholding, a few crumbs thrown for optics. Real ownership means meaningful upside: 50 to 100% of their base pay, locked in and growing over time.
At Audalize and UpscalarAI, a team member starting on $150k base might get $150k in stock. They’ll vest $75k in 12 months and another $75k in 24 months. It’s locked, it’s part of the package, and it means their success is tied directly to the company’s success.
That shift changes everything. Suddenly, “that’s not my job” disappears. It becomes, “how do we win?” Because when everyone has skin in the game, the game belongs to everyone.
Ownership kills apathy. It fuels urgency. It aligns ambition.
Expect Brilliance, Not Adequacy
Too many leaders settle. They hire “good enough” and then spend years compensating for mediocrity. The government is full of it, entire departments staffed with people who tick boxes but never move the needle. Large enterprise is no different. Layers of “adequate” staff, producing adequate results, slowing everything to a crawl.
Adequacy is a tax on meh!. It drains productivity, breeds bureaucracy, and drags culture down to the lowest common denominator.
Brilliance, on the other hand, compounds. One brilliant hire changes the game. They raise standards, inspire others, and make the impossible look normal. That’s why demanding brilliance should be the baseline, not the bonus. Don’t apologise for expecting it. Don’t water down the standard to make people comfortable.
Set the bar high. Watch how the right people rise to meet it and how the wrong ones quickly self-select out.
Meritocracy Wins
Hire, reward, and promote on merit. Not on gender. Not on colour. Not on persuasion. On merit.
Because merit can be measured. Outcomes can be measured. Contribution can be measured. Woowoo can’t be measured.
Too many organisations get tangled in politics, quotas, or appearances. They promote people because they “fit the profile” or tick a box, not because they deliver. The result? Culture rots. High performers leave. Mediocrity thrives.
A true meritocracy is ruthless but fair. The only currency is results. The only question is: did you deliver?
That doesn’t mean sameness. In fact, meritocracy drives diversity, but the right kind. Not diversity by optics, but diversity by brilliance. Different backgrounds, different voices and different minds all united by one measure: contribution.
When you hire, reward, and promote on merit, you build trust. Staff know the game isn’t rigged. They know politics won’t beat performance. They know effort, skill, and outcomes are the only way forward.
Meritocracy is clarity. And clarity builds culture.
Wood, Not Diamonds
We often say this at Audalize: most business music is a diamond. Hard, polished, forgettable. It glitters, but it doesn’t glow.
Wood, on the other hand, carries scars, story, warmth. It makes you feel.
Staff are the same. Shiny CVs are diamonds, all glitter, no glow. The best people are wood. They’ve got story, resilience, and soul.
Hire wood, not diamonds.
Culture is the Invisible Architecture
Culture is to a company what music is to a venue: invisible architecture.
It shapes mood. It sets rhythm. It defines experience.
You don’t always see it, but you always feel it.
Culture isn’t built by accident. It’s curated. Like a DJ curating a vibe, you set it intentionally, relentlessly.
That’s leadership.
Closing: The Law of Three
This shit to me isnt hard. It’s self evident, which makes it a universal law.
Ownership: Own your shit. No blame. No drama.
Outcomes: Results matter, not optics or hours.
Brilliance: Expect brilliance. Build with the best.
That’s the doctrine. Not advice. Not theory. A law. Follow it, and you don’t just build staff. You build a team. And teams build companies.