Originally posted on Linkedin Pulse. 

My old boss Jon Zakin used to say "You can't save your way to greatness." Too many executives try to save their way to greatness. They pinch pennies instead of inspiring their teammates to do great things.

Most employers kill their own chances at greatness by locking their employees down with stupid rules, then poking and prodding them and whipping them to greater levels of production instead of setting them free to use their brains and hearts.

We waste money supervising people like children out of our own fear that someone might have an independent thought that could upset the status quo.

Business leaders are blind to the waves of fear and trust swelling and crashing around them, but those waves are everything.

Your team members' excitement and commitment to their own paths and one another is the only fuel that can power your organization. Why would you squander that precious fuel by grading, stacking and ranking your employees, one against the other?

We trample on creativity and innovation in our organizations instead of celebrating those things. When two genius co-workers cook up a genius idea, we say "You don't have approval to work on that!" Fear gets in our way.

We lead brilliant knowledge workers the way we managed mill and factory workers a hundred and fifty years ago. That's bad business, and bad leadership.

The urge to evaluate, measure and compare people or things must be coded into our DNA because once they get the chance, business leaders can't pass up an opportunity to measure somebody's output down to the smallest grain of rice.

 We forget that there is a sweet spot where the things we measure and the "ahas!" that emerge from our measurements improve our decision-making ability enough that the measuring process pays its own way in the valuable currency of our time and attention.

Past that point of equilibrium, we are measuring simply in order to say we did.

We measure our employees' every activity primarily in order to tell them "Here's how you did on your measurements" rather than because our measurements have any significance to our businesses whatsoever.

Measurement is a control mechanism. We don't see how our addiction to yardstick hurts us and our customers.

We measure far too many human processes that don't lend themselves to tick marks and numerals. We miss the forest for the trees.

Any HR system or practice that ranks or stacks your employees against one another is a pox and a disservice to your customers and shareholders, not to mention the employees themselves. Teamwork is everything, and your employees won't form a team as long as you're evaluating them relative to one another.

People are not stackable, gradable units, like pieces of lumber. They are unique and multi-faceted.Joyce is better than John, who slightly outranked Javier this year is a nonsensical statement, but we make statements like that in corporations and institutions every day.

We love to compare people and tell them when they're Good, Fair, Excellent or Needs Improvement, although these are pointless and arbitrary designations.

It's time we stopped measuring, counting, sorting and comparing people and set them free to work their magic. Do you trust yourself enough to trust your employees that far?

If so, you can capture their brilliance and creativity to great effect for yourself, your colleagues and your customers. If your fear won't let you lead your teammates but instead compels you to hinder, hamper, restrict and shackle them, then you won't achieve anything great.

You'll get grudging compliance from your team members right up to the minute they find a better job and leave you. Which way do you want to go? Which style of management would your customers want you to employ?