The way you currently manage your business today is most likely detrimental to your success. There’s much scientific evidence to support this. Researchers have documented that traditional management control is harmful to the development and progress of modern businesses. Yet, the management approach used by most companies to this day has remained largely unchanged over the last century. Traditional management methods are great if

Finding a Competitive Edge

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what you want is compliance from your employees. If you want real employee engagement you need to look at management in a very different way.

 

One way to look at this is by giving your employees more autonomy. As managers you can set the goals and let the employees decide how to achieve these goals. This is very different than the traditional approach to management. In fact, a study from Cornell University on the effect of worker autonomy at 320 small businesses found that the ones offering autonomy grew four times faster than traditionally-managed companies. Furthermore, these companies had one-third of the turnover of their counterparts.

 

So if you aren’t getting all the results you’re looking for, start by looking in the mirror and ask yourself: Am I giving my employees the opportunity to operate to their full potential.

 

What type of company would you rather run?