Give Your Employees Specific Goals and the Freedom to Figure Out How to Reach Them

As more aspects of work become automated, it is increasingly important for people to focus on building skills that support creative and innovative tasks only human beings can perform. Efficiency is turning into the watchword of machines, and the opportunity for humans is work that addresses unseen problems and opportunities. If we give people more freedom and responsibility, how do we know they will use it well? Our answer is paradoxical: we need to specify more, and also, specify less. This means we need to be very explicit with employees about how we measure success and the metrics that drive it (specify more). Then, having stated clearly how success is measured, we need to allow employees to freely, creatively pursue ways to reach it (specify less).