When I was a kid, I used to wonder if police officers thought everyone drives the speed limit. Because whenever police officers are around, everyone does drive the speed limit. But as soon as they turn off, traffic lurches forward.

That’s the problem with the concept of management. Employees step up their performance when the boss is around, but often slack off when on they’re on their own. It’s easy to assume, therefore, that supervision is necessary. We look to leadership and management to make people comply.

I currently have 12 employees and I want more than compliance from them.  I want engagement. I want drive. I want a self-motivating staff that works just as hard when I’m not around as when I am. As their boss, I want to be unnecessary.

With an autonomous group, leaders should have little to do.

This may be possible. In his articulate TED presentation, author Daniel Pink suggests that management is a manmade institution that may not be as essential as we think. Autonomy, the act of directing one’s own life and controlling one’s work, may be enough of a motivation. (He also discusses “Mastery” and “Purpose” as two other motivations.) Management is useful for compliance, he says, but self-direction is more useful for engagement. The new model for effective work environments de-emphasizes leadership and focuses more on employees’ self-reliance.

The extreme version of this model would be a “ROWE”, or “Results Only Work Environment.” In this setting, employees are compensated purely by the work that they produce, not by the time they put in. This means the can choose to come into the office or not. They can work 40 hours or four hours. They can wear a suit or their pajamas. They direct how they get their results, as long as they get results.

This sounds fantastic. Who wouldn’t want a world that balances freedom and function?  There’s evidence that, at least in some instances, this can yield increased function.

For several years now, Dutch engineers have seen interesting results with what they call “shared space.” In many communities, they have removed stoplights and signs that direct cars, bikes and pedestrians, requiring people be more engaged as they travel the city. Unlike traditional roadways where citizens mindlessly rely on traffic laws, lights and police enforcement, residents in shared space are forced to work together to keep things moving safely. According to The Times, this change at a major intersection in the town of Drachten reduced traffic accidents from 36 in four years to just two in two years, while speeding up the time it takes for a car to pass through the intersection from 50 seconds to 30 seconds. No one is there to tell commuters what to do or how to do it. The community self-manages. The result is a successful, organic collaboration.

It would seem a key component to this self-governance is personal stakes. That doesn’t necessarily mean a reward or compensation. It means the situation must matter to all participants. In the case of shared space, people want to avoid injury. Safety is something commuters value.

As a motivational business speaker, I’ve identified other non-monetary values that matter to employees. My surveys of work environments consistently reveal that people want praise. They want interesting work. They want personal growth. And they want to be part of something that has social significance. (This ties in with Pink’s thoughts on “purpose.”) And once people’s basic needs are met, they’re willing to forgo additional compensation in order to honor these higher values.

We can all think of jobs that don’t pay well, but still attract dedicated, intelligent people. Teachers, social workers and countless other underpaid professionals work very hard – often without a lot of direct supervision. They do this by choice because there’s a cause to which they feel connected. Their jobs allow them to work on something that matters to them.  Those inspired by their work don’t need a lot of management. They don’t need help with compliance. They need the freedom to follow their passion.

When people become ineffective in these fields, often it’s because they’ve lost that meaningful connection to their work; it no longer matters. They’re just plodding along and not yielding results. Traditionally, management then steps in to force compliance.

But “forcing” requires time, energy and reliance on management. I’m too busy to “force” anyone to do something. I don’t’ want to push and shove. Even though I’m a motivational speaker, I don’t want to motivate. I want to employ people who motivate themselves. I’m happy to train them. I’ll answer questions and provide resources. I’ll support them. But I shouldn’t have to compel them.

Instead of redirecting an uninspired employee, reconnect them to a work-related cause that matters to them. Relight their fire. Get them to a place of actually caring about their results. That will help them function in a more autonomous environment and free up management’s time.

The best employees are independent. The best leaders are unnecessary. If the employee can’t function without management, then perhaps it’s time to make them available to another workplace.

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