What if Martin Luther King had delivered a comprehensive twelve-point plan about achieving civil rights in America, a plan more comprehensive than any other plan for civil rights ever offered? King's message would still have reached thousands of people. But his belief would not have been clear.

The opposite of autonomy is control. Control leads to compliance; but autonomy leads to engagement. When people are compliant, they do the absolute minimum that they can get away with. But when people are engaged, they actively take responsibility and contribute more than expected. You pick which destination you like, when you decide between autonomy and control. And don’t get me started on how engagement is the silver bullet to most companies’ problems!

The existing data show that 1 in 9 Americans works in sales. But the new data reveal something more startling: So do the other 8 in 9. They, too, are spending their days moving others and depending for their livelihoods on the ability to do it well. Whether it's selling's traditional form or its non-sales varia-tion, we're all in sales now.