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Dennis Bakke: Yeah, not just the normal decisions that people think about, but I think that every employee should have a chance to make decisions that normally would never be able to be made. For example, a teacher in one of our schools -- I now run a company that does public charter schools and we have about 2,000 teachers in the company -- and in a school, teachers usually don't have anything to say about what the budget is for the whole school. But I've said, 'I don't want the principal making the final decision, or the superintendent.' I want them to pick one of the teachers -- and then change it every year -- to be the one that makes the final decision after getting advice from everyone else on what the final budget is for that school.

In other words, it's not just what they do in the classroom, for example, that is important, but they have to have a chance to take that last shot at the end of the game. When the game is on the line and it's the championship of the world, that is what you want to have a chance to do every once in a while. Everybody has a chance to make a significant decision, use their skills, their gifts -- the thing that is essentially human about us -- the ability to think, to reason and to make a decision, and then hold ourselves responsible for it -- that is what really makes it fun.

Bethanne Patrick: That's what brings the joy to work.

Dennis Bakke: Exactly. If you think about it, that's why we're leaders -- and I don't like managers -- we manage money, we manage systems, we manage assets -- we lead people.

Bethanne Patrick: One of things you do make a point of saying in the book is you've seen so often company statements saying 'Our employees are our best assets,' and you looked at that and said 'Gosh, assets are people?'

Dennis Bakke: I used to say that myself. But, yeah, you realize that that's just -- an asset you realize you dispose of, you buy and sell them. That's not a very good analogy for a person.

Bethanne Patrick: That's not what you do with people. Now, this really is a revolutionary approach because ultimately, for example, in the appendix at the back of the book, 'The Joy at Work Approach,' there are a few things you say that would really strike people in more traditionally managed corporations and institutions as radical. For example, a conventional approach of treatment of employees: Management and labor are paid differently, problems between labor and management will often arise -- very common. Now, 'The Joy at Work Approach' says there is only one category of employee within the organization. There are no separate management people. I think a lot of folks reading that would say, 'Well, who's leading then? Uh oh!' and of course you would say,'you are.'

Dennis Bakke: We have leaders. I'm a very big believer in leaders. I don't like managers so much if you think of that as managing people -- I think you should lead people and it's very important to have leadership. And, actually, leadership people get paid more but they don't necessarily make the decisions. I try to limit myself as CEO, co-founder of the company of 40,000 people -- I try to limit myself to one significant decision a year and asked all my leaders to do the same thing. Why? So that every person, as many people in the organization as possible, could have a chance to experience the joy of being able to make a significant decision that affected the outcome for the whole team.

Bethanne Patrick: This is fascinating, and I hope, Dennis Bakke, that we're going to be able to speak with you again, because 'Joy at Work,' your book, and I should say, your approach is something that has a lot of facets to it. So, I know today we're out of time, but thank you again for taking the time to meet with me.

Dennis Bakke: Oh, you're welcome. Very welcome.

Bethanne Patrick: Thanks. This is Bethanne Patrick for AOL Coaches.