When you’re constantly empowering employees to make or suggest improvements, you never know what might come of it. For Ryan Wibberley, founder and CEO of CIC Wealth in Rockville, Maryland, this mindset led to a huge and happy surprise.

Last summer, three of the younger team members secretly read the management book, “Traction,” and using its suggestions for success, clandestinely put together a 20-step plan for CIC to follow. After weeks of preparation, they made their presentation to the firm’s three partners, who enthusiastically embraced the initiative and agreed to partner with the presenters to implement the changes.

One aspect of the plan sought to reevaluate the support team’s job descriptions, so that each person was working according to his or her strengths. Other parts of the plan focused on keeping people accountable and running more organized and structured meetings.

“[The day of the presentation] was one of the best days of my career. It completely blew me away that they cared that much to improve our firm, our team,” Wibberley said.