This was a good post and an interesting idea with some nice conclusions. One of the commenters, however, nailed it and got to the heart of the difficulty: getting people to do what they say they will do . Period. Full stop. You can wrap excuses, or culture, or other corporate vocabulary around the matter, but it boils down to that fundamental thing of people doing what they are asked and delivering what they say they…
Maybe I'm missing something, but why is that essay "wonderful"? The way I read it, it's a manager who fails, and blames it on the incompetence of his inferiors. It's wishful thinking. A manager's fantasy. It puts the entire blame on the employee. Its bemoaning of lack of accountability is exactly that, lack of accountability.
I realize this entire thread is filled with confirmation bias. What I see is that this essay has its own Wikipedia entry, made it into popular culture, and survived for 117 year, which is quite remarkable. So I would be very interested in reading what makes this essay great, because I fail to understand it.