You can bet that some motivational speaker—or maybe your boss—will soon go into a lengthy discourse about how business is just like sports. There’s competition. There’s teamwork. Let’s get out there and give it our all!

But most employees feel a sharp disconnect with this analogy-- in sports it's the players who matter most. In business, it’s just the opposite. There, it’s the bosses who see themselves as most important and who make all the big decisions. The front-line employees’ job is to do as they’re told.

To fix this analogy, Bain & Company Partner Rob Markey says you have to let the players play the game. If front-line people get the information they need—and if they can see the effects of their actions on the key metrics—they will learn to make better and better decisions. The manager’s job then becomes just what it is in sports: to pick the players, to give them advice and support that will help them improve their performance, and to remove any obstacles that get in their way.