17 July 2003

Ricardo Semler: a company should trust its destiny to its employees From Ricardo Semler's Maverick!, the story of his anti-Taylorist experiment at Semco. To survive in modern times, a company must have an organizational structure that accepts changes as its basic premise, lets tribal customs thrive, and fosters a power that is derived from respect, not rules. In other words, the successful companies will be the ones that put quality of life first. Do this and the rest - quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all - will follow. At Semco we did away with strictures that dictate the 'hows' and created fertile soil for differences. We gave people an opportunity to test, question and disagree. We let them determine their own training and their own futures. We let them come or go as they wanted, work at home if they wanted, set their own salaries, choose their own bosses. [...] At the heart of our bold experiment is a truth so simple it would be silly if wasn't so rarely recognized: A company should trust its destiny to its employees. [...] Semco is an invitation [to] forget socialism, capitalism, just-in-time deliveries, salary surveys, and the rest of it, and to concentrate on building organizations that accomplish that most difficult of challenges: to make people look forward to coming to work in the morning. It's an invitation many companies could usefully consider. Semler books: Maverick: google, Allconsuming, Amazon.co.uk The Seven-Day Weekend: google, Amazon.co.uk 2:05:46 PM     comments