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Giving Responsibility vs. Giving Tasks

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How to get people on board

I just finished a whirlwind trip to Ireland, California, Ohio and Virginia. In each of those places I had discussions with business owners around how to get people to take initiative. One thing that came out was that a lot of us think we’re giving people responsibility when we’re really just giving tasks. The results are very different from one to the other.

The Main Difference
When we give people responsibility, they will take ownership.
When we give them a task, they will feel used.

Responsibility Leads to Ownership
The difference matters because giving people ownership creates Stakeholders, while making them feel used creates employees. Too often we give tasks when we think we’re giving responsibility and are inadvertently making people into employees when what we really want are Stakeholders.

The Difference Between a Task and a Responsibility?
Responsibility always includes the ability to make decisions at multiple levels:
1) Am I free to come up with a better way to do it?
2) Can I question the validity of the task altogether (ask why)?
3) Am I responsible to get it done without someone checking up on me?, and others.

Tasks usually involve one decision:
“Am I going to do what they told me, or not?” Someone else has figured out all the other “hard” questions” (especially why). I just need to decide whether I will obey. Pretty much what we expect of a five-year old.

Children are given tasks. Adults are given responsibility. Stakeholders are Adults. Employees are children. Which do you want?

The Participation Age Company – Is Yours?

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Day 13 of 21 days with Chuck’s new book, Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea

The Participation Age isn’t futuristic. Companies in all industries have escaped the core business diseases of the Industrial Age to Make Meaning, not just money. And they make a lot more of both. Can you?

A Big That Figured It Out Decades Ago
Some people are pioneers. Bill Gore was just that. In 1958, at the height of the Industrial Age Factory System, he created a company that foretold the Participation Age. It is a magnificent example of a big manufacturing company ($3billion 10,000 employees) that gets it and ignored the Industrial Age altogether. They are named one of the best places to work every year. Following are reasons for their success.

What Is Gore’s Secret Sauce?
Leaders as Servants; No Managers – “Eschewing hierarchy and bosses, W. L. Gore encourages a team-based environment— and there are no executive perks. “At Gore, we don’t manage people,” wrote founder Bill Gore. “We expect people to manage themselves.”

In 1967, Bill Gore described their culture in a paper as a “Lattice Structure”. This wasn’t a paper he wrote; it was a life he lived out through his company. Here are some quotes from that paper that show how W. L. Gore lives as a Participation Age company:

“A lattice organization involves self-commitment and natural leadership, and lacks assigned or assumed authority… It is through these lattice organizations that things get done, and most of us delight in going around the formal procedures and doing things the straight forward and easy way.” Bill Gore

Attributes of the Lattice
• No fixed or assigned authority
• Sponsors (mentors) not bosses
• Natural leadership defined by followership [Not titles]
• Objectives set by those who must make things happen
• Tasks and functions organized through commitments – Each person in the Lattice interacts directly with every other person with no intermediary. [Not through managers]

Leader Different leaders guide associates in different activities. The title “leader” is earned only by gaining followers. No managers.

Sponsors [mentor newer associates]
• Engage in a one-on-one relationship
• Focus on the development and growth of the associate

Work Teams and Leadership
Leadership evolves based on knowledge, skill, experience or capability in the particular activity in which a team is involved. Leaders are associates who have developed followers. Teams or groups formulate their own plans of action rather than having them dictated to them. Each associate self-commits to projects or responsibilities.

Communications – Direct, Not Through Managers
There is no hierarchy of communication, no need to go through one associate to reach another. Associates are free to go directly to whomever they believe has an answer.

Salaries Set By Peers
Associates rank each other twice a year on contribution to the success of the enterprise, and functional teams assign pay according to the rankings.

A Traditional Manufacturer Escapes the Industrial Age
Semco has 3,000 employees and makes things like washing machines, meat slicers, and heavy industrial machinery. They practice everything W. L. Gore practices, and more. The message here is if the most traditional of manufacturing companies can escape the Industrial Age, it leaves the rest of us without an excuse.

At Semco, the two ruling assumptions are the opposite of Fredrick Taylor’s two “stupid and lazy” assumptions:

– “trust in adult behavior” — assume that the basic human drive is to be productive, to build something lasting, and to contribute to something bigger than themselves, and

– as adults, every person’s rhythm is different when it comes to when, where, and how they do their best work.

Some of the practical out workings of these two ruling assumption:

1) No HR department – the leaders at Semco do not abdicate their responsibility to the Stakeholders so they could focus on operations and making more money in the short term. They see operations and people in an integrated way, and not a function to be segmented out to HR professionals.

2) No policy documents – none anywhere in the company. Adults will figure out together what matters.

3) No headquarters – There are various facilities in many locations. None of them reports to a flagpole at some “most important” location.

4) Six or more leaders take on the function of “CEO” – and pass it around every six months

5) No job titles – everyone is just an associate – no senior, junior or part-time labels.

6) Stakeholders all decide their own working hours, including all manufacturing associates, and find teams of people to work with that share those life rhythms. Ricardo Semler says, “We want people to work on a structure of their own,” says Semler. “The day that we measured people by time clocked is long gone. We don’t want to know when or how you’re working, but only if you’re fulfilling your commitment.”

7) All 3,000+ regularly receive the company’s financial statements – There are classes to help them understand how to make senses of them.

8) Each small team is fully self-governing and has to figure out how to best contribute to the larger picture at Semco. You can be voted out of Semco every six months by the people who work with you. In my opinion, this is one of the key reasons Semco’s model works – no one can brown-nose or BS their way to safety. W. L. Gore uses this same model.

9) All meetings are voluntary and the first two people there become “board members” with a bigger say during the meeting.

10) The responsibility for reviewing and setting targets falls squarely on every employee for themselves – No one else sets their targets or reviews them.
As you can see, there is a remarkable level of independence, inter-dependence and responsibility placed on each person. People can even start their own businesses using company resources, and many have.

Others Are Already Doing It
We have mentioned many times that size, age of company or type of industry has no bearing on whether a company can escape the Industrial Age and become a Participation Age company. The above are only two examples. We have found dozens of companies in almost any industry and all sizes that are building Participation Age companies in which the hallmark of the company is “sharing”, including TD Industries, Whole Foods, Wegmans, Zappos, 37Signals, Trader Joes, Container Store, Stonyfield Yogurt and hundreds of others.

Making It Work For You
Building a post-Industrial front office isn’t easy, but it isn’t complex either. If you love the idea of building a company that will last for generations and leave a fabulous legacy, this process will be a joy for you, even if you still find it hard. This is not a size-based model, it’s the model that companies of any size who want escape the gravitational pull of the Industrial Age will have to employ in order to be successful in the 21st century.

As the Industrial Age fades and the Participation Age grows, there are more Stakeholders than ever out there looking for you, just as much as you are looking for them. For the next decade you will do a lot of weeding out of “employees”. But more and more you will find people coming in prepared to be Stakeholders who will hit the ground running with you to build a lasting business with a great legacy.

This is a summary of a chapter from Chuck’s new book, “Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea (And Other Business Diseases of the Industrial Age)”. Click here to pre-order this new ground breaking book at a discount on IndieGoGo.com until July 28.

Why Employees are Always a Bad Idea

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Day 5 of 21 days with Chuck’s new book, Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea

This Industrial Age concept was never a good idea for companies, and was worse for the “employees”. Today, companies that move forward without employees will thrive. Those that don’t will fall behind.

Children or Adults
The Industrial Age gave us cool toys and a cushy life, but it also came with some Business Diseases. One of the most rabid of the Business Diseases is the concept of an employee, which is a very new idea in the history of man, and one that needs to go away.

When machines took over most production, they couldn’t run themselves, and so the Industrial Age re-created people in the image of machines in order to run them.

Employees are “Silent”

Over time companies made it clear they only wanted the productive part of the person to show up. They required people to leave the human being (the messy part) at home. As a result, the generation which entered the work force at the very peak of the Industrial Age (1945-1960-ish) was given the worst generational label ever – The Silent Generation. If you had a “Silent” as a parent, you learned to live life the way they had been taught – “Be loyal to the company. Do what you’re told. Show up early, leave late. Shut up, sit down, don’t make waves, live invisibly, go out quietly. The company will take care of you.”

Employees are Children
This view of work (and life) turned adults back into children. You were taught that the most mature person was one who obediently took orders, did what they were told, didn’t question authority, was blindly loyal to those in charge, and lived passively as others directed their lives. Pretty much what we want a four year old to do.

In order to keep the children from ruining the house, and to make them extensions of machines, the Industrial Age required they come to the office Day Care Center every day, boxed them in with extremely clear and narrow limitations on what they could do, the hours in which they could do them, and endless limitations on being human and “adult” at work. It stripped them of their need to think, create and solve because the machine didn’t need them to think, create and solve. It just needed them to do.

Employees Are a Disease, not a Cure
We reject the business culture of the Industrial Age as a bad idea that needs to be corrected. Employees are one of those Business Diseases that should be eradicated. Because of the Industrial Age, the word “employee” has become synonymous with “child”. We can’t even use the word anymore. We don’t want to hire children who need to be told what to do and managed closely so they don’t run into the street.

Employees are Replaced by Stakeholders

In the Participation Age, we don’t hire employees, but have replaced them with Stakeholders. Our Stakeholders are sold out to living well by doing good, and are not employees who punch clocks. Stakeholders are first and foremost adults who can think, take initiative and make decisions, carry responsibility, take ownership, be creative and solve problems.

Stakeholders are Adults

Our Stakeholders are all adults. “Employee” is a four-letter word for us. Adults don’t need someone to keep them from running into the streets or ruining the carpets. Adults ask questions. They don’t live passively but are self-directed, creative, and solve problems. They don’t shut up; they make waves, they are highly visible and they don’t expect the company or other adults to take care of them. Adults own stuff, and they own their work as a natural part of being an adult. And the whole messy person comes to work, not just the extension of the machine.

Stakeholders Require Leadership, Not Adult Supervision
If you hire Stakeholders (adults) instead of employees (children), it changes the way you direct people. We don’t have office hours, vacation time or personal days. We’re not interested in whose car was in the parking lot first or who left last. We believe office politics is a waste of time, so no one will ever be promoted.

Stakeholders Focus on Work, Not Promotion to the Next Title

Every adult who works with us (over 20 full and part-time and growing) has a title that includes the word Chief; Chief Results Officer, Chief Connecting Officer, Chief Transformation Officer, Chief Operations Officer, Chief Development Officer, Chief of MIH (Making it Happen).

We don’t have supervisors or managers or directors or VPs – just Chiefs. None of us will ever need to be promoted, we’re already all at the top. We’ll just grow into more responsibilities as we become better at things. As we do them, they will be recognized and somebody might change our title (there is no centralized title giver).

Stakeholders Create Better Teams
We believe in working together as Committed Community (adults live in community) to get results for each other and for other business owners. Every full-time Stakeholder will take part in profit-sharing. Why wouldn’t they? They’re all adults who own their work, they should own profits from their work as well. That’s what adults do.

Stakeholders are Self-Motivated and Self-Managed
Although we lease 1,500sf of office space for training and rent other spaces around the city, none of us have an office there – we all work from our homes and places like breakfast joints and coffee shops. If it helps somebody to get things done better, we’ll get them an office.

Stakeholders Make You and Themselves More Money
Our business grew 61% in 2010, 41% in 2011, 66% in 2012 and projected at 150% in 2013. Why? Because every Stakeholder is an adult, taking responsibility, creating, problem solving, making it happen, and taking ownership of whatever needs to be done to bring our clients the best experience and the most tangible results possible. And everyone is a lot happier because they all work with adults who pull their own weight.

Employees are a alway bad idea. Stakeholders will replace them.

This is a summary of a chapter from Chuck’s new book, “Why Employees Are ALWAYS a Bad Idea (And Other Business Diseases of the Industrial Age)”. Click here to pre-order this new ground breaking book at a discount on IndieGoGo.com until July 28.

Manage Stuff. Lead People.

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The end of management.

Management is good. Managers are bad. There is no room for them in a Participation Age business. People don’t need to be managed; they need to be led. The difference is not semantic, it is gigantic.

The Industrialists did their dead level best to re-make people into simple extensions of machines. When people are extensions of machines, they are “stuff” to be managed. But if they are fully human, they require leadership, not management.

In our business, we only manage stuff; processes, systems, delivery of goods and services, accounting, marketing, sales, etc. These are all “things” to be managed. Everyone in the business manages stuff of some sort or another. But none of us needs someone with the title of “manager” to hover over us to ensure the stuff will get managed.

Manage Stuff
Stuff definitely needs to be managed. Unlike people, stuff is inherently stupid and lazy. It needs to be told what to do; it doesn’t have a brain of its own or any motivation to assemble itself. The packaging material and the product just sit on the counter until someone picks both of them up and puts them in the box. Someone who is smarter and more motivated than the stuff needs to manage that process, but the smart and motivated person doing the packing does not need managing – they need to be led.

Accounting numbers are also stupid and lazy. They just sit on spreadsheets until a smart and motivated person comes along to update, organize and report on them. That process needs to be managed, but not the person doing the accounting – they need to be led.

Every process, system, product, and service in a business is inherently stupid and lazy and needs to be managed. Unfortunately, managers don’t see much difference between the people, and the stuff or processes in the business. To a manager, people are extensions of machines or processes, and both of them need the hovering involvement of a third party to force them to work. That other person, called “manager”, doesn’t actually pack the box.

The manager assumes the person is as inert as the packing materials, and must be “managed” to ensure they will actually pick up the packing materials and put them in the box. The manager exists to ensure the person doesn’t just sit there like the packing materials. It’s a waste of two good lives; the life of the manager who does nothing, and the packer, who is treated like a nine-year old incapable of being responsible.

Lead People
A leader will do it quite differently. They will not hover over or manage the adult Stakeholders. They will impart vision and guidance, including why we do what we do, metrics for success and metrics for exceeding the objective. A leader will train and provide the necessary infrastructure, and they will create a process that requires the packing person or the process itself to proactively report to the leader regularly how things are going.

Then the leader will do something extraordinary that the manager would rarely do – they will GO AWAY AND BE PRODUCTIVE, TOO. Instead of hovering over the children in the day care center, they will go somewhere and do something themselves that adds to the bottom line. Or they might just be one of the packers or one of the accountants, and join right in being productive; leading and motivating by example, not by threat, persuasion, cajoling or hovering.

A manager justifies their existence by making other people productive more than by being productive themselves. Managers “feel” productive – they have tons of monitoring on their plate. But a leader will lead by example, get in the trenches and be one of the productive people.

Leaders can afford to do this because they hire Stakeholders, not employees, and don’t need to live in a day care center where they are watched like nine year olds. Most of the work of the manager disappears or gets dispersed among all the adult Stakeholders.

Everyone is a Leader
Stakeholders are adult leaders, too, and understand that if they have all the training and equipment they need, and clearly understand the objective required, they will gladly take the bull by the horns and “own” their tasks, job, process and result. Why? Because they also know they own part of the compensation (profit-sharing) that will come from that level of ownership. Taking on the former tasks of the manager is one more way for them to Make Meaning, not just money.

Adults Without Managers – An Old Idea
The idea of managing stuff but leading people is not a new concept. A store owner prior to the Industrial Age hired someone else to stock shelves, trained them and gave them the tools they needed to do it. Then that leader went back to being productive themselves. If the stocker wasn’t productive, they were let go and the leader got someone who could self-manage. After training the new person, the leader went back to being productive again. Managers hang on to employees who need to be managed because it justifies their existence. A leader fires them and finds a Stakeholder.

In a great modern business, as before the Industrial Age, everyone produces something, whether it is maintenance, accounting, packing, new product development, or vision and leadership. No one stagnates around watching other people do the work. Stakeholders are all leaders, and all of the manage stuff.

Fire All The Managers – All of Them (Including Yourself)
You can replace five or ten managers with one leader, easily. It’s a great money saver and you’ll find out real fast who are the chidren (employees) who need to be moved along, and who are your adult Stakeholders who will take over the very few things the manager was doing that were of any value.

Keep Only The Stakeholders
Are you managing employees/children? If you are, my guess is you’re really tired of it. Stop it. Tell the nine-year olds it’s time to grow up and be adult Stakeholders. Show them the stuff that needs to be managed, then tell them everyone is responsible to lead in their area of expertise. Then go get a job and be productive yourself. If you have employees who don’t want to grow up and at least lead themselves, find someone who will. There are plenty of Stakeholders out there.

Managers – A Business Disease of the Industrial Age
Managing people (not stuff) is a disease of the Industrial Age. It’s a recently invented construct and is a dead end process that maintains people at the nine year old level. And it dehumanizes them as if they were an extension of a stupid and lazy machine.

Leaders – What People Have Always Needed
Leading has been around since the dawn of man. It was not invented, and is the time proven method for motivating people. Everyone in your business should do it in their area of expertise. It’s rewarding and humanizing.

Get out of the Industrial Age into the Participation Age. Manage stuff. Lead people.

Take the Test; Are you an Employee or a Stakeholder?

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(hint: employees drool)

We believe employees are always a bad idea, and that people at work should all be Stakeholders instead. Read through the side by side comparisons and see how see how you stack up as a Stakeholder or as an employee.

If you look at the above and say, “I can’t trust my company to compensate me like a stakeholder”, you’re in the wrong company. Leave and find one that rewards performance and results, not growing mold sitting in your chair. You’ll have a lot more fun.

If you’re an employer and you think it would be great to do have Stakeholders but most people aren’t like that, take a look at your own leadership style and/or your belief system. Most people actually want to make a contribution to the world around them and be adults. Are you letting them be, or are you assuming they can’t be adults? If you believe people are most likely to be employees, you’ll treat them that way and they will respond that way.

The Industrial Age is over. Stakeholders rule. Employees drool.

How to Stop Managing & Be Productive Instead

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Toddlers, teens or adults?

We’ve already said WHY Management Is a Bad Idea. Here we identify HOW to stop managing so you and everyone else is more productive.

The art of leadership is to know how few times the leader should actually make the decision.

Managers make decisions. Leaders get others to do it as often as they can because none of us is as smart as all of us.

We could virtually do away with managers if they would just lead instead. I believe we could replace at least every five managers with one leader, and possibly ten to one in many businesses. 15 of the top 20 reasons people leave their job involves middle managers. Think how much more profitable (and fun) it would be to eliminate middle management all together.

Modern management is traced back to Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Scientific Management Principle from 1903 and 1911, that assumes employees are a) stupid and b) lazy, and therefore we need smart and motivated people to manage the stupid and lazy ones. In a good business you don’t need managers because the leader doesn’t believe people are stupid and lazy.

Leaders get out of the way. Here’s how to move from managing to leading. As you are having a conversation with a Stakeholder, ask yourself these questions, which move from Problem through Question to Solution:

Chasing Three Years Olds Around the Store – Did I have to come find out they had a PROBLEM? That’s the lowest level of management – running around finding out other people’s problems. If you do that, you have a bunch of toddlers working for you, and you’re the one who made them that way by chasing them around. Stop it.

Managing Eight Year Olds – Did they come find me with a PROBLEM? Not much better. Children come whining to their parents that Johnny hit them. You’ve trained them to do it. Stop it.

Managing 13 Year Olds – Did I have to figure out the right QUESTION? Asking the right question is 90% of getting the right answer. Anybody can identify problems, but if they aren’t asking the right questions to fix them, they aren’t adding much value. If you have to form the right questions, you’re not leading, you’re managing. Stop it and get others to form the questions.

Manager High Schoolers – Did they bring me the right QUESTION with no solution? You’ve taught others to not think; you’re the only one bright enough to solve things. Require that they come up with solutions.

Managing College Kids – Did they bring some possible SOLUTIONS for me to pick from? We’re getting there, but still you’ve taught them to not take risks and actually solve things. They’re afraid to fix things because you’ve taught them only you can do it, because you’re more experienced and less likely to do something stupid. You forget that you had to make mistakes. If you are ever going to have someone else in your business that can lighten the load, they need to take risks and make mistakes, too. Stop being a control freak and teach others to lead by letting them solve problems WITHOUT YOU.

Managing Adults – Did they bring me a report on how they SOLVED something? Guess what, you’re a leader. You can now focus on the business of building a great business instead of creating stupid and lazy people by all your managing.

Moving From Manager to Leader
You should be asking these questions every time you talk to someone, with the objective of getting to “Managing Adults” as quickly as possible (might take a year or more, depending on how long you’ve been chasing the toddlers).

If you want to run a day care center, it’s your option. People aren’t stupid and lazy and they aren’t children. You make them that way by managing them. Stop it. And if some of them decide to not grow up, kick them out of the house and get others who will be adults. You’ll all have a lot more fun, and make a lot more money – with no managers.

You should lead no matter what the size of your business.

Industrialists Are Not Capitalists

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but they’re all over the place, even today.

People love to throw stones at Capitalists, but it’s the Industrialists who are the problem. And they are a very different animal. I’m a fire-breathing Capitalist, and I don’t relate to these guys. Let’s throw stones in the right direction.

I’ve been working on and blogging about my next book on the Industrial Age for 18 months. The production area of the modern company has changed radically, having left the Industrial Age forty+ years ago. It’s full of clean suits and nano-technology. But the front office is still dragging its knuckles through practices developed in the 1800s for the Industrial Age.

Dilbert still reigns in the front office. And it’s largely because old-fashioned Industrialists are still in charge of the businesses.

Following is a chart from one of the chapters in the upcoming book showing the stark difference between true Capitalists, who are regularly doing great stuff, and Industrialists, who are more often up to no good. I can only find one thing they do in common (take risks), and even that is driven by entirely different motivations.

Do you work for the Industrialist on the left, or the Capitalist on the right?

If you want to work with the guy on the right, but you’re working for one on the left, get moving. Start aggressively looking for the company on the right, because they’re looking just as hard for you. They’re out there – don’t settle for less!

Management is a Bad Idea.

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Who decides what?

In the late 1990s I was courted for 11 months to join someone else’s business. The biggest red flag was that the CEO was a Harvard MBA in his early 60s. Not much could make me more cautious than working for someone with that kind of ivory tower pedigree..

I said no a number of times. My biggest concern was how he, and by extension the company he had built, would make decisions. Would they let those most affected be involved in decision-making, or would they make top-down decisions like other companies stuck in bankrupt Industrial Age thinking?

I finally said if he spent a few million to build a new operations center, and committed to investing $500k or so each year each year that the company grew, that I would join the company. To my surprise he committed the first few million to the ops center, so I joined up.

We took the company from $8.5 million to $13 million the first year, but when it came time to put just $500k more in to support the next year’s growth, the CEO decided not to do it. Later that year when I asked for workstations and employees to support more growth, he emailed me and said I hadn’t put it in the capital expenditure forecast 10 months earlier – request denied. The golden handcuffs clouded me into staying for almost three more years, but two years after I left, the company went bankrupt and was sold in a fire sale.

What happened? Exactly what I had feared up front – the people closest to the ground were not involved in the decision-making process and had to implement decisions in which they had no say. Management knew best and didn’t need any help making decisions. Classic, but broken management practices.

Management is a Bankrupt Industrial Age Idea
“Management” as a function wasn’t common before 1900. Frederick W. Taylor (1911) popularized the separation of decision-making from the worker, who he felt didn’t have the smarts to be involved in decisions. He emphasized having Management make decisions that workers then simply carried out. My Harvard MBA CEO carried that practice right through to bankruptcy.

None of us is as smart as all of us.
In the real world, none of us is as smart as all of us. If you push through 112 years of bad management practice, you find that people who are most affected by a decision are most likely to have the best input. This should be a major leadership principle followed by all business owners. It doesn’t mean everyone just makes decisions by themselves, any more than having management make it by themselves. It means the owner/implementer of a decision should have the most say.

I Got Over-ruled
We’re designing the messaging and cool stuff that goes on the walls of our new Business Transformation Center. I had specific ideas of what I thought should go on the walls. When the designer came, the other staff there that day had wildly divergent ideas, and they would live with the results every bit as much as me, in some ways more. My ideas aren’t going to be implemented, but I got a few things that I wanted, too. The Chief Results Officer will make the decision.

What do you Believe?
We don’t believe in management and workers. We believe in the Wisdom of Crowds, which says that in a team there is a better answer than any one expert can give on their own. We don’t believe in consensus, either. A giraffe is a horse designed by consensus – close, but no cigar.

Make More Money – Trust Others to Make Great Decisions
Those with the most at risk get the most say. Even if someone doesn’t own stock in the business, they should own their work and their results. In MANY cases the business owner(s) has less at risk than those who will have to carry out the decision. And they will make more money if they let others who are closer to the ground make the decision.

Leadership 101
1) Know you don’t know everything – none of us is as smart as all of us.
2) Respect the input of others
3) Whoever has to live most with the decision should have the most input.
4) There is still a Chief for each decision, but many times it should NOT be the Chief Exec. Officer. Everyone in our business has the title “Chief” of something, and the decisions get made by the Chief closest to the ground and most affected by the decision.
5) All of us should get input, aggregate information, and deeply respect the input of those most likely to have to carry out the decision.

The art of leadership is to know how few times the leader should actually make the decision.

It’s a great way to avoid bankruptcy.