"The great intellectual error of bureaucrats everywhere is to assume that because something is called a rule, it's preferable to a less formal arrangement. And yet most of those rules are not only great morale-sappers, they're preventing the vast majority of your employees from doing the right thing," according to authors Brian Carney and Isaac Getz in the PDF article Freedom, Inc. "The rules become so stifling that the only way for people to do a good job is to go around them--sometimes at great cost. At the same time, they are, as likely as not, failing to prevent the tiny minority of potential malefactors from doing your business harm."
Carney and Getz's research shows that "...firms without traditional command-and-control structures, rules and policies could outperform their rivals in a number of fiercely competitive sectors, often by wide margins." They say the 4 lessons for unleashing freedom to perform consist of the following:
- Stop telling and start listening. Then, remove all the other symbols and practices that prevent your people from feeling intrinsically equal.
- Start openly and actively sharing your vision of the company so people will "own" it. But don't do this before step 1 because people who are not treated as equals will leave you alone with your vision.
- Stop trying to motivate people. That's right. Instead, build an environment that allows people to grow and self-direct--and let them motivate themselves. If they understand the vision from Step 2, they'll take care of the rest if only you let them.
- Stay alert. To keep your company free, become the culture-keeper. In this role, as liberating leader Bob Davids says, "one drop of urine in the soup is too much--and you can't get it out." The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
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