There’s more to the story than engagement.

Engagement tells you who showed up. Ownership tells you who’ll carry the load when the pressure hits.

Most surveys measure who shows up. The OwnIt Index™ measures who leans in and who pulls back… when it matters most.

Built for healthcare, corporate, and mission-driven teams · Confidential by design · Grounded in decades of research.

From Dan Diamond, MD — a physician who’s led disaster medical teams into some of the worst days people ever live through, like the Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina. That’s where you learn fast who carries the load, and who runs away.

A real problem

Engagement just hit a ten-year low. It’s still the only thing most tools measure.

A better question

Not “are people engaged?” but “do they own it when the pressure spikes?”

A stronger organization

When more people own the work, the whole place holds under pressure instead of shrinking.

1 The problem

The number everyone chases just hit a ten-year low.

In 2024, U.S. engagement fell to its lowest in a decade. The headline number hides worse news underneath.

31%

of employees are engaged. The lowest in ten years.

17%

are actively disengaged. Not just checked out, but working against the goal.

~69%

sit at or below the tipping point. That’s most of the workforce.

Source: Gallup, U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low(2025, reporting 2024 data). “At or below the tipping point” combines the 52% not engaged with the 17% actively disengaged.

Most tools stop at that number and call it a strategy. But it’s hard to change what you can’t see.

2 The insight

Engagement is the tipping point, not the destination.

Picture a ladder. Engaged sits dead center: I’m doing my job. Below it, people take from the work. Above it, they give to it. The OwnIt Index™ shows who’s climbing and who’s sliding, especially under pressure.

The OwnIt Index™ model: a five-rung ladder from Saboteur up to Committed, with the tipping point at Engaged. Below the line people take from the work; above it they give.

Givers and Takers

Below the line, people take from the work, from quiet minimum-effort to open sabotage. Above it, they give: first investing, then owning the outcome. Simon Sinek says it well: financially invested people want a return; emotionally invested people want to contribute. The whole game is who climbs into ownership, and who slides back.

3 The framework

A 3D tool for seeing with greater depth perception.

The Index reads work life through three lenses, and asks each one twice: on a calm day and under pressure. The difference between those two readings matters.

How I show up

Where do I sit on the ladder, and which way do I move when it’s hard?

How my team shows up

Does the team pull together under load, or fracture and self-protect?

How the whole place shows up

Does the organization lead from shared ownership, or retreat into fear?

A sample reading: Me, We and Us plotted against the ladder. Black dots show a typical day. Red dots show what happens under pressure. Here Me and We hold just above the tipping point, while Us slides below it.

Illustrative example. Black dots show a typical day. Red dots show what happens under pressure.

The shift matters

Anyone can own the work on a calm week. Hold or climb when it’s hard, and that’s the giver mindset.

Seeing with new eyes

Depth perception comes from two eyes viewing the same scene from slightly different places. When people score as givers but see the organization as a taker, that difference isn’t a flaw in the data. It’s the third dimension a single-lens survey can never show you, and it’s exactly what a “From Me to We” conversation is built to move.

4 The evidence underneath

A fresh map over familiar ground.

The OwnIt Index™ is new. But every rung and lens maps to a construct psychology has studied for decades.

I didn’t learn this from a journal. I learned it in disaster zones, watching ordinary people either step toward the work or step back when it mattered most. The research below supports what I learned in the trenches.

Psychological ownership

The top of the ladder

The work feels like an extension of yourself, so you steward it. Decades of research tie it to responsibility and stewardship.

Pierce, Kostova & Dirks (2001, 2003)

Meaningful work & engagement

The climb toward ownership

Purpose, calling, and work engagement predict satisfaction, commitment, and performance.

Steger, Dik & Duffy (2012); Bakker & Demerouti (2007)

Resilience & stress mindset

The under-pressure shift

Psychological capital and how you read stress are both developable. They shape whether you hold or slide when the load comes on.

Luthans et al. (2007); Crum, Salovey & Achor (2013)

Moral injury

Draining the joy out of medicine

Much of what gets labeled “burnout” is really the wound of being kept from doing right by the people you serve. A systemic problem, not a personal failing.

Dean, Talbot & Dean (2019); Litz et al. (2009)

The Index measures ownership, meaning, and belonging, plus the forces that move them. Then each private report turns those results into specific next steps, every one backed by research: recovery habits, psychological safety, self-compassion, and more.

The Index itself is new, so we won’t wave a banner of 250,000 evaluations it hasn’t earned. The science is proven today. And because you can re-administer it, your own before-and-after becomes the proof, measured on your team, not borrowed from someone else’s.

5 What people actually receive

A private mirror for each person. A clear signal for every leader.

Data is only as good as the action it unlocks. The OwnIt Index™ gives each audience what it needs, without breaking the confidence that keeps the data honest.

For the individual · confidential

Your personal report

Where you stand on all three lenses, and which way you move under pressure.
Your primary lift and primary load: what’s holding you up, what’s wearing you down.
Strategies matched to your own results, each with the research behind it.
One high-leverage move to start. A door, not a to-do list.

For the team leader · team-level only

The team brief

The team’s three lenses at a glance, with the shift between calm and pressure.
Where the lenses differ most, named, with a plain read of what’s driving it.
Whether the load comes from inside the team or down from above.
A baseline you can re-measure, so change becomes visible over time.

For senior leadership · across teams

The organization view

Every team side by side on all three lenses, so you can see where ownership runs strong and where it’s draining.
What’s lifting ownership across the organization, and what’s dragging it down.
A company-wide baseline you can re-measure, so change shows up in the numbers over time.

Confidential by design. Individual results stay in each person’s private vault. Leaders see team and organization patterns, never a single person’s answers. That’s why people answer honestly, and why the signal is worth trusting.

See who carries the load before you find out the hard way.

Whether you lead a hospital floor, a company, or a mission, it starts with one conversation about what measuring ownership could look like on your team.