People need freedom to act. Motivated, trained, and well-inculturated people don’t need to be “controlled.” Adults don’t need to be treated like children. People tend not to do their best work with someone looking over their shoulders.

Do people in your company—all people—have the authority (i.e., without approval from anyone) to make decisions that cost money? They ought to. Whoa! We bet that got your attention. Are we serious?

Yes. We’re very serious. Of course, we don’t mean that all people should have the authority to commit the company to million-dollar contracts, or that front-line clerks should be able to authorize the purchase of a new building. But people should have wide discretionary power to take responsibility to make sure something gets done fast, and done right.

How is it that in their personal lives, employees can be trusted to buy houses and cars, but at work can’t requisition a $300 office chair without a manager’s approval? If we thought about it for a minute, we’d realize this is stupid. Autonomy correlates with initiative and innovation. Shrink an individual’s freedom and you shrink their enthusiasm and creativity.

If you build an organization made up of high performers, you can eliminate most controls. The denser the talent, the greater the freedom you can offer.

Once you have a workforce made up nearly exclusively of high performers, you can count on people to behave responsibly. Once you have developed a culture of candor, employees will watch out for one another and ensure their teammates’ actions are in line with the good of the company. Then you can begin to remove controls and give your staff more freedom. Great places to start are the lifting of your vacation, travel, and expense policies. These elements give people more control over their own lives and convey a loud message that you trust your employees to do what’s right. The trust you offer will in turn instill feelings of responsibility in your workforce, leading everyone in the company to have a greater sense of ownership.

• “When removing travel and expense policies, encourage managers to set context about how to spend money up front and to check employee receipts at the back end. If people overspend, set more context.

• With no expense controls, you’ll need your finance department to audit a portion of receipts annually.

• When you find people abusing the system, fire them and speak about the abuse openly—even when they are star performers in other ways. This is necessary so that others understand the ramifications of behaving irresponsibly.

• Some expenses may increase with freedom. But the costs from overspending are not nearly as high as the gains that freedom provides.

• With expense freedom, employees will be able to make quick decisions to spend money in ways that help the business.

• Without the time and administrative costs associated with purchase orders and procurement processes, you will waste fewer resources.

• Many employees will respond to their new freedom by spending less than they would in a system with rules. When you tell people you trust them, they will show you how trustworthy they are.