Do any of you remember that Vitamin C song, Graduation? Anyway, I’ll never forget it.

It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school. I had just been bestowed with a “new to me” 1996 F-150 short cab with an eight-foot bed that officially became my work truck for the summer. It had the stereotypical RIDGID Tools toolbox strapped up against the back of the cab with heavy-duty bungee cords, and like every teenager who suddenly had keys in his pocket, I was convinced this was the summer I was going to start figuring life out.

A few weeks later, my dad—”Cajun Joe,” as many of you know him—and my mom left town for a vacation. Before they pulled out of the driveway, Dad left me in charge of keeping one of our commercial projects on schedule. Looking back now, I can’t decide whether it was a tremendous vote of confidence or just another one of his opportunities to teach me a lesson.

We were installing ten commercial gas packs on a large assembly building—five down each side if memory serves me right, six 7.5-ton units and four 10-ton units. My responsibility was simple on paper: get the entire gas line run and tied in for the east side of the building over the next three days, then start making progress on the west side if time allowed.

I can still picture pulling onto that jobsite the first morning. The old RIDGID Tools tripod pipe vise, a pair of sawhorses with homemade rollers so we could slide black iron back and forth, and the smell of cutting oil as I opened the manual ratchet threader. Those details have stayed with me for more than twenty years.

Like every morning, setting up also meant turning on some music. It happened to be my helper’s turn to pick. He proudly announced that he’d found a CD case the day before and wanted to see what was inside.

It was Vitamin C.

He hit play on Graduation, lit a cigarette, sat on the tailgate of the truck, and for the better part of the next three days, that’s about where he stayed. The song played on repeat while I threaded pipe, hauled fittings, measured runs, and tried to keep the project moving. He helped when I absolutely needed another set of hands, but otherwise he burned through nearly two packs of cigarettes a day while I wondered how two people could see the exact same job so differently.

At the time, I didn’t know what to do. I was a teenager trying to lead someone more than ten years older than I was. I wasn’t mature enough to ask whether something was happening in his life, and I couldn’t exactly send him home because I genuinely needed another body on the jobsite.

All I could think was:

“Why doesn’t he care!?”

I pushed myself to the limit those three days. We finished what absolutely had to get done, but nowhere near as much as I had hoped. When Dad got home that weekend, I unloaded every frustration I’d been carrying.

Instead of criticizing my helper, Dad asked me two simple questions.

“What did you learn about dealing with people?”

That was—and still is—Cajun Joe. Every frustration became an opportunity for a lesson.

Finally, he looked at me and said something I’ve carried for more than twenty years.

“You can’t always make people care as much as you do, no matter how much you want them to.”

Then he smiled and added,

“Sounds like I need to have a conversation with him Monday morning.”

At seventeen, I thought that was a lesson about my helper.

Looking back now, I think it was really a lesson about leadership.

It also made me realize there are certain phrases we repeat so often in business that we eventually stop questioning whether they actually make sense.

One of the biggest is:

“I just wish my employees would think like owners.”

I’ve heard some version of that statement from contractors, distributors, manufacturers, managers, and sales leaders throughout my career. If I’m being honest, I’ve probably thought it myself more than once. Usually it comes after someone misses a detail, leaves a problem for somebody else to solve, wastes time, mishandles a customer, or clocks out while the owner is still carrying the weight of everything left unfinished.

I understand the frustration behind those words because I’ve felt it myself. Leaders want people who care. They want employees who notice problems before they become expensive, protect the company’s reputation, treat customers well, support their teammates, and take pride in the work attached to their name. Those are reasonable expectations, and none of them should be lowered.

What I’ve started questioning isn’t whether people should care.

It’s whether expecting employees to think like owners is actually the right standard.

Employees are not owners. In most cases they don’t share the same financial risk, long-term reward, sleepless nights, or emotional burden that ownership carries. Expecting them to care deeply about their work is fair. Expecting them to feel exactly what the owner feels may not be.

What Do We Really Mean by Ownership?

When leaders say they want an ownership mentality, I don’t think they’re literally asking employees to worry about payroll, insurance renewals, debt, declining sales, or whether the business has enough cash to survive another slow quarter. What they’re really asking for is initiative, responsibility, pride, and accountability. Those are qualities every employer should expect, but they’re also very different from asking someone to emotionally carry the same weight as the person whose name is on the building.

I think we’ve unintentionally confused professional ownership with business ownership, and those are two very different things.

A technician can own the quality of a service call without owning the company. A warehouse employee can take responsibility for pulling every order accurately without carrying the financial burden of the branch. A salesperson can fiercely protect customer relationships without lying awake wondering how payroll gets made next Friday. Those people can be exceptional professionals while still going home at the end of the day to focus on lives that exist outside the business.

Business ownership is different. It means signing personal guarantees, making payroll when revenue is slow, absorbing losses, making difficult decisions with incomplete information, and accepting that every major problem eventually lands on your desk. That burden belongs to the owner because the owner also receives the greatest financial and strategic reward when the business succeeds.

I’ve never completely understood why some leaders expect employees to carry the emotional pressure of ownership while making sure they never actually share in ownership itself. If someone is expected to sacrifice like an owner, make decisions like an owner, stay late like an owner, and worry like an owner, I think it’s fair for them to eventually ask one simple question:

“What exactly do I own?”

That isn’t an argument for equity or profit sharing.

It’s simply an argument for honest expectations.

Not Everyone Defines Success the Same Way

Another assumption I’ve watched leaders make over the years is believing that every great technician should eventually become a manager, every manager should become an owner, and every ambitious employee should always want the next title.

I don’t believe that’s true.

Some people genuinely dream about building companies. Others dream about becoming masters of their craft. Some want to specialize in controls, refrigeration, hydronics, VRF, sales, or operations. Others simply want to earn a good living, do work they’re proud of, and be home in time for dinner with their family. One person may be working toward buying a bass boat. Another may be trying to pay off a mortgage. Someone else may be saving for a child’s education, while another simply wants enough flexibility to coach Little League.

None of those goals represent a lack of ambition.

They simply represent different definitions of success.

I’ve seen this throughout my own career. There have been plenty of talented salespeople who had every opportunity to move into management and intentionally chose not to. It wasn’t because they lacked capability or ambition. They simply loved selling. They enjoyed building relationships, helping customers, and competing every day without taking on the additional stress leadership often requires. They understood themselves well enough to know where they were happiest and where they brought the most value.

Every great team needs people like that. Not everyone has to become the coach. Sometimes your best player is exactly where they’re supposed to be.

The more experience I gain, the more convinced I become that we do people a disservice when we assume growth always means moving up the organizational chart. Sometimes growth simply means becoming exceptional where you already are. A technician who chooses to stay in the field while mentoring apprentices and delivering incredible workmanship may create far more long-term value than someone reluctantly promoted into management simply because leadership couldn’t imagine another path.

Maybe We’ve Been Asking the Wrong Question

Every now and then I think back to that summer job and hear my dad’s words all over again.

“You can’t always make people care as much as you do.”

Maybe we’ve spent too much time asking employees to think like owners without ever stopping to ask whether that’s a realistic—or even healthy—expectation in the first place.

I’m genuinely curious where you stand.

Should leaders expect employees to think like owners? Or have we unintentionally confused ownership with commitment?

I don’t think there’s one perfect answer.

But I do think it’s a conversation worth having.

Ramblin’ Rhyno, Out.

Peace Y’all.