If your people don’t know what the direction is, they won’t know where to go. The result: Energy dissipates, momentum slows, morale plummets, and the company drifts. It’s not a pretty picture. Making sure everyone sees the same picture and then understands what that picture means, Parson says, requires “more contact with people, more opportunities to meet them, and more communication.

Former navy captain David Marquet says that in too many organizations, the people at the top have all the authority and none of the information, while the people on the front line have all the information and none of the authority. I was learning that, taken too far, corporate-smart could be restaurant-dumb.

What’s incredible is how he didn’t do it. He didn’t fire or demote anyone. He didn’t change the hierarchy. He didn’t change any technology. The only real change was within himself. He started to identify his potential blind spots, and to look at the world from the crew’s perspective.

Abrashoff observed one of the ship’s usual Sunday afternoon cookouts shortly after assuming command, and noticed a long line of sailors waiting to get their lunch while officers cut to the head of the line to get their food. Not only that, but after getting their food, the officers went to a private deck to eat apart from the sailors.

Show me an organisation in which employees take ownership, and I will show you one that beats its competitors,” says Abrashoff. “Captains need to see the ship from the crew’s perspective. They need to make it easy and rewarding for crew members to express themselves and their ideas.

I once had a coworker who was also a friend. One day he walked into my office with some news. “I figured out what I’m doing wrong,” he said. "I’m so busy trying to prove to everyone I’m right that I can’t see the world from their point of view.