As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.
Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they have to do their jobs.
Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it´s essential that we have people with initiative, if we are to continue to grow.
William L. McKnight – American entrepreneur and philanthropist, who made 3M to a global concern with this attitude (1887-1978), Quotations book 2013