A manager cannot extract the best performance from employees by threatening them with termination or offering financial rewards for high productivity. Rather, employees must come to want to do a good job for its own sake. One of the best ways for a manager to achieve this is to delegate responsibility to them, especially for decisions that previously had to be made by the manager.
Business works best by harnessing the self-interest of individuals to benefit the company as a whole is the proposition best illustrated by the situation described in the passage.