In the early years of my first company, I noticed a line forming outside my office door.  It was not a line of customers, but employees.  Each and every employee had a question that they needed me to provide an answer.  My day merely consisted of dispensing answers.  “Pay that bill”. “Fire that employee”.  “Buy that copier”.  “Call him, don’t email.”  All day, I would give hundreds of answers to questions my employees should have been answering themselves.  The madness had to stop.

I remember driving into the office one Monday morning and promising to myself that henceforth I would only give one answer, “I don’t know, what do you think we should do?”  This change in my management style had a big impact on my staff.

Employees no longer could abdicate their responsibility to me.  Before the change my employees reasoned that if my answer was incorrect they were off the hook.  I quickly was able to determine who on my staff were rock stars and who were clock punchers.  The rock stars on staff took ownership of their specific lines of business and had a serious increase in their sense of ownership.  The clock punchers simply left my employment…which was a good thing.

Drive decision making down into your company.  If you think this a dangerous course of action, perhaps you should look at who you have hired, how you have trained them and how you reward them. Also, you will personally get more accomplished by not having to babysit your staff.