I'm pretty certain this article is a ripoff of Ricardo Semler's "3 Whys" technique he described in his book from 1995 (http://www.amazon.com/Maverick-Success-Behind-Unusual-Workpl...). Not that this is a bad thing, but there are many more, better articles describing this using more clinical language and providing guidance for real management application.

Here are a couple of top Google results: http://www.managementexchange.com/blog/forget-empowerment-ai...

http://www.ict.swin.edu.au/personal/ebihari/

and even a version of The Art of War: http://www.worldmarkacademy.com/moodle/file.php/1/3.pdf