Expertise and functional authority

If your organisation is going to learn fast and be flexible and responsive to new developments, you have to give your staff functional authority over their areas of expertise. Some organisations do this better than others already. The idea is to put each member of a team in charge of something meaningful to their role. Not even the managing director should be able to interfere with their particular area of expertise and authority. (This interview with Mark Pincus describes the importance of putting people in charge of something.)

You’re going to depend on your staff to gather information about the ebook industry, production best practices, new products that could save you time and money, new services from innovative companies, and so on. If you give them authority over these areas, you encourage them and get the benefit of their eyes and ears on the ebook ground.