Liberate the Workforce

WSJ had a review of a new book Freedom, Inc.: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth.

One thesis of the book is that "...a rigid, top-down management style too often makes workers miserable, stifles innovation and, not least, leads to economic distress for employees and stockholders alike."

We have a silly, assembly-line culture of work in this country. BusinessWeek critiques this well in Smashing The Clock, an article about Best Buy, which has a "'results-only work environment,' [that] seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity."

Freedom, Inc. explains that this results in "judging employees by everything except what counts, which is whether the job gets done."