Mindful that he was challenging a century of bureaucratic orthodoxy, Ballarin urged his audience to think big. “Why,” he asked, “couldn’t Michelin be the Toyota of the twenty-first century—a company that brought the world a new management model by enlarging the freedom and accountability of every employee?

Wresting authority from central functions was a challenge, yet several plants made progress—none more than Olsztyn. The key, local managers realized, was to win permission for a targeted experiment and then use the results to gain further autonomy.

In every respect, Ballarin’s approach to responsibilization met the critical tests that face any attempt to upend the bureaucratic status quo:

1. It was anchored in timeless human values

1. It provided ample space for improvisation

1. It routed around points of resistance

1. It invited, rather than demanded, leaders to reimagine their roles

1. It minimized risk and disruption

For all these reasons, responsibilization gained enough runway to reach takeoff speed.

Like Michelin, every company must chart its own path to humanocracy. Nonetheless, it’s reassuring to know that you don’t need a legion of consultants, or a massive corporate change program, to get started. In fact, as we’ll see, those may be the last things you need.

If the greatest rewards are given for behavior contrary to that which the new course of action requires, then everyone will conclude that this contrary behavior is what the people at the top really want and are going to reward.

Not everyone can do what Vail did and build the execution of his decisions into the decision itself. But everyone can think what action commitments a specific decision requires, what work assignments follow from it, and what people are available to carry it out.

If the greatest rewards are given for behavior contrary to that which the new course of action requires, then everyone will conclude that this contrary behavior is what the people at the top really want and are going to reward.

Not everyone can do what Vail did and build the execution of his decisions into the decision itself. But everyone can think what action commitments a specific decision requires, what work assignments follow from it, and what people are available to carry it out.