Employee Autonomy Quotes

A manager should stay as far away as possible from his players. I don't know if I said ten words to Frank Robinson while he played for me.

Culture is what happens when the CEO isn't in the room.

I try to hire good people and let them do their job and don't question how they do things.

When we tell people to do their jobs, we get workers. When we trust people to get the job done, we get leaders.

You have to empower your employees to make their own choices and trust that they will make the right choices.

Companies need to have a lot more flexibility with their people... . If somebody wants to golf around the world for two months, okay, well, maybe on an unpaid basis, let them do it. That sort of flexibility I think is incredibly important because most of our time, we spend at work.

The stronger the culture, the less corporate process a company needs. When the culture is strong, you can trust everyone to do the right thing. People can be independent and autonomous. They can be entrepreneurial.

When you have trust and you get that trust in place throughout the company, people are empowered — people are free.

As a leader, you're probably not doing a good job unless your employees can do a good impression of you when you're not around.

When you hire somebody, you shouldn't have to tell them [a lot of what] to do; you hire them because you like their work and all you've got to do is tweak them a little bit.

Choose the right employees and then set them loose.

Organizations should be built and managers should be functioning so people can be naturally empowered. If someone's doing their job, if someone's working in one of your warehouses, say, they should know their job better than anybody. They don't need to be 'empowered,' but encouraged and left alone to be able to do what they know best.

It isn't effective or productive to force your employees to do anything. Choice empowers people and makes for a more content workforce.

In life, we do not give employees enough leeway. If you look around Semco's office, there are plenty of empty desks. The question is - where are these people? I do not have the slightest idea, but I am not interested.

Commitment is what your boss needs you to have. Choice is what you need to have.

A man doesn't have vacation problems: his boss tells him when to take them, and his wife tells him where.

If you're an employer, you want to hire an employee who'll do their job, not do your bidding.

It should be the right of the individual to decide whether he wants to belong to a union.

For the employee, the goal is to have full access to necessary information and as much independent decision-making ability as possible. For the entrepreneur, the goal is to grant as much information and independent decision-making ability to employees or contractors as possible.

Hire people you get along with, and then let them do what they do best.

What to an outsider will be no more than the vigorous presentation of a conviction, to an employee may be the manifestation of a determination which it is not safe to thwart.

Just because an employee does things differently doesn't mean he or she won't do the job right or as well. If you establish expectations of the goal and the standards to follow, then methodology shouldn't be an issue.

Building human-centered organizations doesn't imply a return to the paternalistic, corporate welfare practices of the 19th century. Most of us don't want to be nannied.

I always laugh at these companies that have these rules saying, 'You're only allowed to have this or that on your desk.' It's no fun to work at a place like that.

In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.