Aaron Dignan, founder of organizational design company The Ready, shares his firm's internal financial policy illustrating constraint-based autonomy.
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“We have a constraint in our system that if you spend more than 10,000 dollars on something, you should probably seek advice first. But anything under that, it's like, you know, use your human judgment. We trust you to do what's best for the business, right? Spend the money like it was your own.”
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