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Das Semco System: Management Ohne Manager ; Das Neue Revolutionäre Führungsmodell
The international bestseller that tells how Semler tore up the rule books - and defied inflation running at up to 900% per year!- Workers make decisions previously made by their bosses- Managerial staff set their own salaries and bonuses- Everyone has access to the company books- No formality - a minimum of meetings, memos and approvals- Internal walls torn down- Shopfloor workers set their own productivity targets and schedulesResult - Semco is one of Latin America's fastest-growing companies, acknowledged to be the best in Brazil to work for, and with a waiting list of thousands of applicants waiting to join it. Learn Ricardo's secrets and let some of the Semco magic rub off on you and your company.
427 pages, Perfect Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 261 reviews
April 10, 2013
Published first in 1993, this books depicts the changes happening at Semco, the company Ricardo Semler took over from his father in 1980 to turn it in a much studied place to work at.
Here is the chronology of what happened and if you want to know more then you should read the book as it is both highly stimulating as well as amusing.
* 1980 Ricardo took over the company and fired most of the (old) executive staff
* he hired a new CEO who worked at different companies like Sharp and Xerox. The company was transformed in a highly managed entity with tight controls, reports and manuals.
* he hired a new sales manager and they spent a lot of time trying to get their hands on cash to save the company.
* 1983 they went out to buy a company for $500000 at the end doubling their workforce
in comes Clovis Bojikian, ex school teacher and idealist who was to be crucial to the changes about to happen at Semco
* more controls come, tougher management and a lot of people start becoming unhappy
* Ricardo continuously faints and has other health problems and after a visit to a special clinic is diagnosed with the highest level of stress the doctor has ever seen at a 25 year old. He needed to change.
* he starts leaving at 7 no matter what, delegates a lot and tries to remove corporate oppressions. first by removing the security checks with the idea of treating people as adults, which was not easy.
* dress codes are removed
* factory committes are started (members cannot be sacked while on the committee and one year afterwards) and decisions deferred to workers/committees
* weekly meetings are started where decisions are taken that a “manager” does not feel comfortable to do alone
* threw the operational manual out in exchange of common sense (if you need a hotel on a business trip, take whichever you think is right)
* had workers decide on a new plant location
* had top people set their own salaries and have them public
* had profit sharing across everyone
* started having a rule that memos can only be one page with the conclusion as the subject
and this list goes on and on. A very insightful read.
“As I tell our people constantly: we’ve all learned how to answer email on Sundays, but none of us has learned to go to the movies on Monday afternoon. Until we learn that, we are email slaves harnessed to the wicked ways of the Profit and Loss Master.” – Ricardo Semler, Maverick
Here is the chronology of what happened and if you want to know more then you should read the book as it is both highly stimulating as well as amusing.
* 1980 Ricardo took over the company and fired most of the (old) executive staff
* he hired a new CEO who worked at different companies like Sharp and Xerox. The company was transformed in a highly managed entity with tight controls, reports and manuals.
* he hired a new sales manager and they spent a lot of time trying to get their hands on cash to save the company.
* 1983 they went out to buy a company for $500000 at the end doubling their workforce
in comes Clovis Bojikian, ex school teacher and idealist who was to be crucial to the changes about to happen at Semco
* more controls come, tougher management and a lot of people start becoming unhappy
* Ricardo continuously faints and has other health problems and after a visit to a special clinic is diagnosed with the highest level of stress the doctor has ever seen at a 25 year old. He needed to change.
* he starts leaving at 7 no matter what, delegates a lot and tries to remove corporate oppressions. first by removing the security checks with the idea of treating people as adults, which was not easy.
* dress codes are removed
* factory committes are started (members cannot be sacked while on the committee and one year afterwards) and decisions deferred to workers/committees
* weekly meetings are started where decisions are taken that a “manager” does not feel comfortable to do alone
* threw the operational manual out in exchange of common sense (if you need a hotel on a business trip, take whichever you think is right)
* had workers decide on a new plant location
* had top people set their own salaries and have them public
* had profit sharing across everyone
* started having a rule that memos can only be one page with the conclusion as the subject
and this list goes on and on. A very insightful read.
“As I tell our people constantly: we’ve all learned how to answer email on Sundays, but none of us has learned to go to the movies on Monday afternoon. Until we learn that, we are email slaves harnessed to the wicked ways of the Profit and Loss Master.” – Ricardo Semler, Maverick
December 4, 2013
one of the most influential books i've read.
original review posted here:
http://www.reemer.com/archives/2004/0...
I first heard of Maverick author Ricardo Semler when I came across a blurb for his new book called The Seven-Day Weekend in a copy of Inc Magazine a few months back. Semler's counter-intuitive approach to running a business immediately intruiged me, because it seemed to solve many of the employee satisfaction problems that plague most North American companies these days.
Semler's company, Semco, has eliminated org charts, made vacation time mandatory, allows employees to set their own salaries, and requires employees to evaluate their bosses. I'm quite excited to dig into this book because I believe most of what Semler preaches makes sense if running a business with a long-term outlook: he encourages employee growth, trusts them to take responsibility and holds them accountable, holds performance above all else when evaluating employees, and treats them like people who are motivated by different different types of incentives.
Semler has lectured on his "unorthodox" methods at HBS, and I've found a fascinating article on Semco at CIOInsight.com. I think this is going to be a terribly insightful read.
original review posted here:
http://www.reemer.com/archives/2004/0...
I first heard of Maverick author Ricardo Semler when I came across a blurb for his new book called The Seven-Day Weekend in a copy of Inc Magazine a few months back. Semler's counter-intuitive approach to running a business immediately intruiged me, because it seemed to solve many of the employee satisfaction problems that plague most North American companies these days.
Semler's company, Semco, has eliminated org charts, made vacation time mandatory, allows employees to set their own salaries, and requires employees to evaluate their bosses. I'm quite excited to dig into this book because I believe most of what Semler preaches makes sense if running a business with a long-term outlook: he encourages employee growth, trusts them to take responsibility and holds them accountable, holds performance above all else when evaluating employees, and treats them like people who are motivated by different different types of incentives.
Semler has lectured on his "unorthodox" methods at HBS, and I've found a fascinating article on Semco at CIOInsight.com. I think this is going to be a terribly insightful read.
March 19, 2013
great book..The book should be a part of any B-school's curriculum. It teaches a great deal. And something phenomenal about the learning is that it can be applied to all walks of life,be it professional or personal.Example: It tells you to do away with the unncessary clutter in the organisation. He goes on to illustrate how effective it turns out.And the extent is mind boggling.And there are other such examples eg. How he does away with the conventional pyramidal structure of an organisation and supplants it with a simple concentric circle approach.He tells you how emphatic the exrecise of devolving the power is in an organisation. He even goes to the exyent of drawing a line about how big is big for an organisation. The book is must read for anyone who loves to question the convention, dares to experiment with the uncharted domains and loves to see it happen right out there. The most important leaning I found was: Life is not a point function, it is a path function. One needs to enjoy the means i.e. the process as much as the ends
June 22, 2015
Книга просто обескураживает и невероятно поражает!!! Читая её кажется, что автор решил выдать сказку за действительность. Но сказки не существует здесь никакой! Только реальность!
Рикардо Семлер своего рода революционер, который невероятно кардинально преобразовал компанию созданную ещё его отцом. Но до этого он успел сделать компанию довольно эффективную в рамках той же старой бюрократичной модели, которая царила в организации при Семлере старшем. Но однажды всё стало меняться...
И меняться всё стало не просто для изменений, а для благосостояния всей компании и всех её сотрудников в частности. Возможно в мире существует немало похожих компаний и "Семко" далеко не первая из них. Но что я зная точно, что доля таких компаниях невероятно мизерная в сравнении с обычными организациями. И Семлер во главе "Семко" один из лучших их примеров как преобразовать качественно глубоко бюрократичную компанию в компанию с лучшими традициями делократии (система управления людьми, альтернативная бюрократии).
Перечислять все многочисленные нововведения руководства компании не буду. Укажу только те, которые удивили больше всего. Например, как вам такой факт? В "Семко" почти каждый сотрудник, кроме редких и разумных исключений имеет право определить свой график работы самостоятельно. А вот этот? В "Семко" почти каждый сотрудник имеет также право назначить себе желаемую заработную плату и конечно же получать таковую!!! Именно так! Вам не померещилось! Это правда!
Одним словом, если продолжать и продолжать рассказывать о конкретных фактах то вы убедитесь, что в компании царит почти что абсолютная демократия. И как это вижу я, в основе всего, главным пунктом, то есть первым в уставе компании стоит пункт который говорит, что главный в компании её сотрудник, и не зависимо какая у него должность или роль. Пусть даже это уборщица, сварщик, системный администратор или заместитель головы правления и он сам. Все в "Семко" и её сателлитах действительно равны. И поверьте, здесь не на словах, как обычно это делается в других компаниях, а на сотнях делах эти слова доказаны! Факты всего этого вы найдёте в этой замечательной книге.
Компания Рикардо Семлера "Семко" существует как один единый хорошо слаженный механизм, один орган которой по своей природе не способен навредить другому органу компании, так же как одна рука не способна покалечить другую. А когда есть такая слаженность наступает невиданный прогресс!
Уверен, что это одна из лучших бизнес книг мира с принципами как добиться больших и выдающихся результатов в бизнесе при этом не используя принципов жадной эксплуатации сотрудников и персонала компании в целях её руководства. Отношения к людям весьма уважительное и порядочное. И если вы хотите сказать что это не будет работать в пост советском пространстве, значить вам не известна десятилетняя коррумпирована история Бразилии и её преступная среда.
Здесь, без преувеличения, раскрыты все фундаментальные принципы компании третьего тысячелетия! Похожие компании пока в диковинку и на них многие смотрят скептически, не понимают их, или же просто не готовы и скорее нет той смелости, чтобы преобразоваться на новый лад. Но время скоро наступит... И выиграет только тот кто медлить не будет. Остальным суждено будет закрыться или в лучшем случае увянуть. И я почему-то чертовски в этом уверен!
И если есть такие кого я ещё не убедил прочитать данную книгу - значит вам к сожалению не понять принципов создания компании где каждый сотрудник "строитель собора". А этого, поверьте, дорогого стоит. А кто такие те "строители собора" сказано в книге. Кстати, а вам интересно кем вы являетесь? Узнайте хотя бы это для себя самого.
Рикардо Семлер своего рода революционер, который невероятно кардинально преобразовал компанию созданную ещё его отцом. Но до этого он успел сделать компанию довольно эффективную в рамках той же старой бюрократичной модели, которая царила в организации при Семлере старшем. Но однажды всё стало меняться...
И меняться всё стало не просто для изменений, а для благосостояния всей компании и всех её сотрудников в частности. Возможно в мире существует немало похожих компаний и "Семко" далеко не первая из них. Но что я зная точно, что доля таких компаниях невероятно мизерная в сравнении с обычными организациями. И Семлер во главе "Семко" один из лучших их примеров как преобразовать качественно глубоко бюрократичную компанию в компанию с лучшими традициями делократии (система управления людьми, альтернативная бюрократии).
Перечислять все многочисленные нововведения руководства компании не буду. Укажу только те, которые удивили больше всего. Например, как вам такой факт? В "Семко" почти каждый сотрудник, кроме редких и разумных исключений имеет право определить свой график работы самостоятельно. А вот этот? В "Семко" почти каждый сотрудник имеет также право назначить себе желаемую заработную плату и конечно же получать таковую!!! Именно так! Вам не померещилось! Это правда!
Одним словом, если продолжать и продолжать рассказывать о конкретных фактах то вы убедитесь, что в компании царит почти что абсолютная демократия. И как это вижу я, в основе всего, главным пунктом, то есть первым в уставе компании стоит пункт который говорит, что главный в компании её сотрудник, и не зависимо какая у него должность или роль. Пусть даже это уборщица, сварщик, системный администратор или заместитель головы правления и он сам. Все в "Семко" и её сателлитах действительно равны. И поверьте, здесь не на словах, как обычно это делается в других компаниях, а на сотнях делах эти слова доказаны! Факты всего этого вы найдёте в этой замечательной книге.
Компания Рикардо Семлера "Семко" существует как один единый хорошо слаженный механизм, один орган которой по своей природе не способен навредить другому органу компании, так же как одна рука не способна покалечить другую. А когда есть такая слаженность наступает невиданный прогресс!
Уверен, что это одна из лучших бизнес книг мира с принципами как добиться больших и выдающихся результатов в бизнесе при этом не используя принципов жадной эксплуатации сотрудников и персонала компании в целях её руководства. Отношения к людям весьма уважительное и порядочное. И если вы хотите сказать что это не будет работать в пост советском пространстве, значить вам не известна десятилетняя коррумпирована история Бразилии и её преступная среда.
Здесь, без преувеличения, раскрыты все фундаментальные принципы компании третьего тысячелетия! Похожие компании пока в диковинку и на них многие смотрят скептически, не понимают их, или же просто не готовы и скорее нет той смелости, чтобы преобразоваться на новый лад. Но время скоро наступит... И выиграет только тот кто медлить не будет. Остальным суждено будет закрыться или в лучшем случае увянуть. И я почему-то чертовски в этом уверен!
И если есть такие кого я ещё не убедил прочитать данную книгу - значит вам к сожалению не понять принципов создания компании где каждый сотрудник "строитель собора". А этого, поверьте, дорогого стоит. А кто такие те "строители собора" сказано в книге. Кстати, а вам интересно кем вы являетесь? Узнайте хотя бы это для себя самого.
March 9, 2015
I saw a TED talk by Ricardo Semler and I wondered how his ideas really worked in practical terms. It seems they worked because he put so much effort into making them work. He was prepared to take risks and have a consultative workplace and he obviously has a great deal of energy and patience. The book does read like a novel - I found it enthralling.
I've been very fortunate to have had a series of bosses who, like Ricardo, wouldn't solve my problems - they'd keep throwing the ball back in my court. I've thrived on this, and I think most people do.
The main messages in the book:
Be consultative: let employees make decisions about how to run their areas - the ones closest to it know it best.
Pare back the layers of management. While you do need someone to manage the big picture, don't alienate upper management through multiple layers of middle management.
Allow flexibility of work hours. Let people manage their own start/stop times, as long as they get the work done.
Keep the bureaucracy down - make everything as simple as possible.
Don't sweat the small stuff. You may find some people betray your trust, but most people will perform amazingly well and be extremely loyal if you trust them.
Take time out to do the fun things and the important things, like spending time with family and friends. Don't let work take over your life.
The book was published a few years back and I've seen evidence of some of these practices spreading. Ricardo has done the hard grind to get these ideas started. Very impressive!
I've been very fortunate to have had a series of bosses who, like Ricardo, wouldn't solve my problems - they'd keep throwing the ball back in my court. I've thrived on this, and I think most people do.
The main messages in the book:
Be consultative: let employees make decisions about how to run their areas - the ones closest to it know it best.
Pare back the layers of management. While you do need someone to manage the big picture, don't alienate upper management through multiple layers of middle management.
Allow flexibility of work hours. Let people manage their own start/stop times, as long as they get the work done.
Keep the bureaucracy down - make everything as simple as possible.
Don't sweat the small stuff. You may find some people betray your trust, but most people will perform amazingly well and be extremely loyal if you trust them.
Take time out to do the fun things and the important things, like spending time with family and friends. Don't let work take over your life.
The book was published a few years back and I've seen evidence of some of these practices spreading. Ricardo has done the hard grind to get these ideas started. Very impressive!
January 7, 2010
This is an engrossing story about how Semler turned his father's company from an antiquated, authoritarian business to one based on democracy, fairness, transparency and trust, where change is the only constant. It's full of anecdotes about how conflict and pressure (both internal and external) drove him to abandon most of the received wisdom about how companies should be run.
While I was reading the book I made a list of the changes Semler instigated - forty-three altogether. They range from the simple, but still significant such as allowing workers to vote on uniform colours, and the one-page memo limit; to the profound, such as circular organisation (as opposed to pyramidal) and managers setting their own salary.
Two of the subtler themes raised throughout that caught my eye are attuning organisations to our nature, and letting go of leadership ego. Semler mentions more than once the organisation of hunter-gatherer communities (including the human limits of working in teams of 5-20, and in tribes of 150). From this he derives the phrase "diseconomy of scale". He also shows a slow letting go of growth-for-the-sake-of-being-big, and the desire to have dictatorial power over Semco.
Priceless reading for anyone with even a passing interest in organisations.
While I was reading the book I made a list of the changes Semler instigated - forty-three altogether. They range from the simple, but still significant such as allowing workers to vote on uniform colours, and the one-page memo limit; to the profound, such as circular organisation (as opposed to pyramidal) and managers setting their own salary.
Two of the subtler themes raised throughout that caught my eye are attuning organisations to our nature, and letting go of leadership ego. Semler mentions more than once the organisation of hunter-gatherer communities (including the human limits of working in teams of 5-20, and in tribes of 150). From this he derives the phrase "diseconomy of scale". He also shows a slow letting go of growth-for-the-sake-of-being-big, and the desire to have dictatorial power over Semco.
Priceless reading for anyone with even a passing interest in organisations.
Read
October 8, 2025It's amazing to reading and imagine how a transformation can impact so deeply people and a comunity. Bearing in mind an organization without people doesn't exist. Give the purpose for those who share with you the same life path. If you read this book you will understand the meaning of my words.
And what is more shocking is the amount of excuses we give to not transform our organization.
Thank you Ricardo to share with me your purpose of life!
And what is more shocking is the amount of excuses we give to not transform our organization.
Thank you Ricardo to share with me your purpose of life!
April 24, 2022
This Auto-biographical book details the various transformational initiatives by a second generation Brazilian entrepreneur Ricardo Semler. This helped Semco become a Great Place to Work and of course employee happiness and profits multiplied.
If you are a leader in an organisation, you will find this book thought provoking. This book is more than 20 years old and was probably much ahead of it's time, but is relevant event today.
This company
- Reduced hierarchy
- Shared profits with it's employees
- Allowed flexible work times even in a factory setting, (imagine the reasons you have heard or thought for not allowing this in your workplace!)
- Resiliently weathered many national inflationary phases and economic downturns
- Allowed employees to democratically decide almost everything from production goals to office architecture to even salaries and hiring their bosses
- Employees gave feedback on their bosses twice a year and their managers had to meet a certain level
- Enabled their employees to become entrepreneurs by setting up 'satellite' companies that then supplied to the parent company
- The author also shares how he transformed from a workaholic to almost completely working from home and spent lesser time 'directing' his company
If you are a leader in an organisation, you will find this book thought provoking. This book is more than 20 years old and was probably much ahead of it's time, but is relevant event today.
This company
- Reduced hierarchy
- Shared profits with it's employees
- Allowed flexible work times even in a factory setting, (imagine the reasons you have heard or thought for not allowing this in your workplace!)
- Resiliently weathered many national inflationary phases and economic downturns
- Allowed employees to democratically decide almost everything from production goals to office architecture to even salaries and hiring their bosses
- Employees gave feedback on their bosses twice a year and their managers had to meet a certain level
- Enabled their employees to become entrepreneurs by setting up 'satellite' companies that then supplied to the parent company
- The author also shares how he transformed from a workaholic to almost completely working from home and spent lesser time 'directing' his company
July 21, 2019
Maverick is an international bestseller which was first published in 1993. This is a review of the edition from 1999. Ricardo Semler writes in the new introduction that Maverick is “a reminder that age-old truths about human nature, respect and integrity can be powerful allies of success”. Here’s a summary of the book together with my impressions.
Ricardo Semler sees his role primarily as a catalyst. Success, for him, is to “create an environment where others make decisions”. It’s about having absolute trust in the workers, or partners, as he prefers to call them.
Ricardo Semler was “shocked by the oppression” he found when he first started working at Semco. His father was a “traditionalist”, who treated employees “paternalistically”, and often induced “fear”. Ricardo Semler couldn’t help but think that the company could be run differently without “counting everything” and “regulating everyone”, without “all those numbers and all those rules”. The first thing he did when he took over the company from his father was to “strip away the blind, irrational authoritarianism”. It gave the workers the possibility to govern and manage themselves.
The partners typically work in teams, or clusters, with responsibility for a complete product. This gives them more control and makes the products better. Everyone is encouraged to mix with everyone else. Nearly all have mastered several jobs. Twelve layers of management were replaced by a new structure based on three concentric circles.
There was a deep split between those who believed in law and order above all else, and those who felt that people can overcome any obstacles if they are “motivated by a sense of involvement”. Ricardo Semler tried all “prepackaged ideas” and “techniques” that he could find, but he couldn’t make them work. After a while, he realized that the company’s problems went deeper than he had realized. There was “a lifelessness, a lack of enthusiasm, a malaise” that had to change.
Ricardo Semler started by eliminating the “most visible symbols of corporate oppression”. He didn’t want to have “a company at which you don’t trust the people with whom you work”. Democracy needs to be exercised with “conviction” and without “exception”, and it begins with “little things”. “Small changes eventually led to larger ones”. Teams “formed spontaneously” as the “winds of democracy swept through”. The strength of these teams were their diversity. They didn’t have a “formal head”. People who showed the greatest capacity to lead got the job. The groups were held together by mutual respect instead of “boxes on an organizational chart that guaranteed power”. Once a team had made a decision, it stayed decided. No approval was required. It was a spontaneous process. People participated only if they wanted to.
Ricardo Semler believes 20 percent of the managers were sympathetic to his efforts to make the workplace more democratic, and that another 20 percent laughed heartily at it, considering him a rebel with an inheritance. Ricardo Semler wants people to “think, innovate, and act as human beings whenever possible”. His experience is that people perform best when they know almost everyone around them.
Participation is infinitely more complex to practice than conventional management. Most managers prefer traditional methods, but no one can expect involvement and partnership to flourish without openness and truthfulness. Companies must clearly and consistently demonstrate fairness. Fairness is like quality, “it takes years to build up but collapses over a single incident”. People must always be able to say what’s on their minds. And all company communications must be absolutely honest. Power and respect cannot be imposed.
Ricardo Semler thinks that too many are too quick to jump on the latest managerial fads and fashions. He is flattered by all the companies that have tried to imitate Semco, but it also makes him nervous. Semco still has a long way to go. And even if Semco was perfect, no one should set out to copy it. People must have the freedom to determine their own ways.
Ricardo Semler mentions at the end of the book that most businesses today still are organized in much the same way as they were 400 years ago, with stultifying results. No company can be successful, in the long run, if profit is its primary goal. Successful companies will be those that put quality of all life first. "Do this and the rest—quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all—will follow." At the heart of it all is trust!
Maverick doesn’t provide a model to be copied. Maverick is an invitation to put quality of all life first—and in so doing, create a more humane, trusting, and life-affirming workplace. This is an excellent book!
Ricardo Semler sees his role primarily as a catalyst. Success, for him, is to “create an environment where others make decisions”. It’s about having absolute trust in the workers, or partners, as he prefers to call them.
Ricardo Semler was “shocked by the oppression” he found when he first started working at Semco. His father was a “traditionalist”, who treated employees “paternalistically”, and often induced “fear”. Ricardo Semler couldn’t help but think that the company could be run differently without “counting everything” and “regulating everyone”, without “all those numbers and all those rules”. The first thing he did when he took over the company from his father was to “strip away the blind, irrational authoritarianism”. It gave the workers the possibility to govern and manage themselves.
The partners typically work in teams, or clusters, with responsibility for a complete product. This gives them more control and makes the products better. Everyone is encouraged to mix with everyone else. Nearly all have mastered several jobs. Twelve layers of management were replaced by a new structure based on three concentric circles.
There was a deep split between those who believed in law and order above all else, and those who felt that people can overcome any obstacles if they are “motivated by a sense of involvement”. Ricardo Semler tried all “prepackaged ideas” and “techniques” that he could find, but he couldn’t make them work. After a while, he realized that the company’s problems went deeper than he had realized. There was “a lifelessness, a lack of enthusiasm, a malaise” that had to change.
Ricardo Semler started by eliminating the “most visible symbols of corporate oppression”. He didn’t want to have “a company at which you don’t trust the people with whom you work”. Democracy needs to be exercised with “conviction” and without “exception”, and it begins with “little things”. “Small changes eventually led to larger ones”. Teams “formed spontaneously” as the “winds of democracy swept through”. The strength of these teams were their diversity. They didn’t have a “formal head”. People who showed the greatest capacity to lead got the job. The groups were held together by mutual respect instead of “boxes on an organizational chart that guaranteed power”. Once a team had made a decision, it stayed decided. No approval was required. It was a spontaneous process. People participated only if they wanted to.
Ricardo Semler believes 20 percent of the managers were sympathetic to his efforts to make the workplace more democratic, and that another 20 percent laughed heartily at it, considering him a rebel with an inheritance. Ricardo Semler wants people to “think, innovate, and act as human beings whenever possible”. His experience is that people perform best when they know almost everyone around them.
Participation is infinitely more complex to practice than conventional management. Most managers prefer traditional methods, but no one can expect involvement and partnership to flourish without openness and truthfulness. Companies must clearly and consistently demonstrate fairness. Fairness is like quality, “it takes years to build up but collapses over a single incident”. People must always be able to say what’s on their minds. And all company communications must be absolutely honest. Power and respect cannot be imposed.
Ricardo Semler thinks that too many are too quick to jump on the latest managerial fads and fashions. He is flattered by all the companies that have tried to imitate Semco, but it also makes him nervous. Semco still has a long way to go. And even if Semco was perfect, no one should set out to copy it. People must have the freedom to determine their own ways.
Ricardo Semler mentions at the end of the book that most businesses today still are organized in much the same way as they were 400 years ago, with stultifying results. No company can be successful, in the long run, if profit is its primary goal. Successful companies will be those that put quality of all life first. "Do this and the rest—quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all—will follow." At the heart of it all is trust!
Maverick doesn’t provide a model to be copied. Maverick is an invitation to put quality of all life first—and in so doing, create a more humane, trusting, and life-affirming workplace. This is an excellent book!
January 4, 2011
One of Cambridge Sustainability's Top 50 Books for Sustainability, as voted for by our alumni network of over 3,000 senior leaders from around the world. To find out more, click here.
Maverick is essentially Ricardo Semler's autobiography, about how he transformed the business of Semco, a Brazilian ship-building supplies manufacturer, into a diversified and highly innovative manufacturing and services company. Semler took over as chief execuitve of the company from his father at the beginning of the 1980s, when he was only just out of Harvard.
To begin with, Semler ran the company with tight disciplines and controls, but was forced to rethink his approach after being struck down by a stress-reduced illness. The changes he implemented challenge much of the recieved wisdom on business and management.
Maverick is essentially Ricardo Semler's autobiography, about how he transformed the business of Semco, a Brazilian ship-building supplies manufacturer, into a diversified and highly innovative manufacturing and services company. Semler took over as chief execuitve of the company from his father at the beginning of the 1980s, when he was only just out of Harvard.
To begin with, Semler ran the company with tight disciplines and controls, but was forced to rethink his approach after being struck down by a stress-reduced illness. The changes he implemented challenge much of the recieved wisdom on business and management.
June 9, 2012
Prachtig boek. Semler beschrijft zelf hoe hij zijn bedrijf getransformeerd heeft van een autoritair piramide model naar een democratisch bedrijf. Het gevolg van die transformatie was dat het bedrijf veel succesvoller was (gemiddelde jaarlijkse groei van 28%, dat na 20jaar nog steeds voort duurt), waarbij hijzelf, als eigenaar en CEO, minder moest werken (daarvoor viel hij dikwijls gewoon neer van overwerk) en waar iedereen zou willen werken. Het bedrijf heeft minder dan 1% verloop en voor elke vacature hebben ze meer dan 300 kandidaten.
Als je een leidinggevende functie hebt moet je dit boek zeker lezen!
Als je een leidinggevende functie hebt moet je dit boek zeker lezen!
September 1, 2019
Simply, WOW! Unbelievable and very thought provoking. Despite the age of this book, and experiences written about a Brazilian company in the 1980s/1990s, Ricardo Semler's philosophy is probably more needed today than ever.
One of the best business/leadership books I've read in a while.
Highly recommend to anyone in a leadership/management position.
If you're a CEO or business owner, then it's a "must read"!
One of the best business/leadership books I've read in a while.
Highly recommend to anyone in a leadership/management position.
If you're a CEO or business owner, then it's a "must read"!
October 28, 2020
SEMCO was the original Netflix, Google, FB in terms of office culture. Excellent insights.
February 4, 2023
Yes yes yes
December 26, 2025
Absolutely revolutionary CEO of a Brazilian company that manufactures various industrial products. The amazing thing about the company is all the innovative ideas they implemented. The one that stood out most to me was how they allowed everyone to choose their own salary, demonstrating the incredible trust Ricardo built within the organization.
I’m deeply interested in language and how it can shape concepts that previously didn’t exist—and how those concepts can, in turn, shape an organization. Before any creation is possible, there is first a linguistic creation, most famously exemplified by God: “Kun” in Arabic, or “Let there be light” in English.
Definitely worth a read if you’re looking for something innovative to try in your organization. Here are some of the crazy, wacky, and inventive ideas from the book:
That's the first clue that we are different. We don't have receptionists. We don't think they are necessary, despite all our visitors. We don't have secretaries either, or personal assistants. We don't believe in cluttering the payroll with ungratifying, dead-end jobs.
I never leave a number where I can be reached when I'm away and I don't call in. I want everyone at Semco to be self-sufficient. The company is organized - well, maybe that's not quite the right word for us - not to depend too much on any individual, especially me. I take it as a point of pride that twice on my return from long trips my office had been moved - and each time it got smaller. My role is that of a catalyst. I try to create an environment in which others make decisions. Success means not making them myself.
During this time I often thought of a business parable I had heard. Three stone cutters were asked about their jobs. The first said he was paid to cut stones. The second replied that he used special techniques to shape stones in an exceptional way, and proceeded to demonstrate his skills. The third stone cutter just smiled and said: 'I build cathedrals.' As I walked around Semco, I sensed that we had far more stone cutters than craftsmen. What I wanted, of course, was a company filled with cathedral-builders, and there were hardly any of them at all.
Early in the century Max Weber recognized that the Protestant ethic of hard work had permeated the business world, It is even more of a factor today. Executives feel pressure from their bosses to outwork colleagues and build their image and career. By this reasoning, having a heart attack because of work leads to true glory and keeling over at the office is even better - a sign, a Calvinist might say, of being among The Elect.
I'li have more thoughts about time sickness and how to cure it later, in Appendix B. For now, let me say that I have recovered so completely that I no longer wear a wristwatch. I gave it up soon after attending a concert by Brazil's most famous pianist, Madalena Tagliaferro. As I listened to her play Sibelius, I realized that she had been born when Brazil was a monarchy, witnessed the invention of the automobile and the aircraft, lived through two World Wars, and was still performing. It struck me that time should be measured in years and decades, not minutes and hours. It is impossible to understand life in all its hugeness and complexity if one is constantly consulting a minute-counter.
*They make us feel unimportant, as if the managers are so busy they can barely fit us into their schedules,' Walter said. 'We become impatient and irritated, and are less attentive when the negotiations begin.' 'Ah,' said Fernando, looking over at me. 'We must learn to do that, Dickie.' I squirmed a bit in my chair. Fernando was half-kidding, of course, but it was that other half that bothered me. I had been thinking about softening our hard line towards the union. Fernando clearly wasn't with me. 'That's just the beginning,' Walter went on. 'They make us sit across from the window, so the light shines in our faces. But they are in shadow, so it's hard to see their reactions. And sometimes the chairs we sit on have one leg shorter than the others, so we don't feel secure,' another union man said. And our chairs are shorter than theirs, so we have to look up at them,' Walter added. looked over at Fernando. He was smiling.
When plants faced hard times, their factory committees would take the initiative and lower wages or increase hours, saving money and protecting jobs. When layoffs were unavoidable, the committees got involved in the sensitive and unfortunate task of deciding who would go. Together we tried to be socially just, taking into consideration such factors as a worker's history with the company, loyalty, ability to find a new job, and family responsibilities. A person with seven children or a spouse in the hospital, for example, would have an edge over someone fresh out of school with no responsibilities.
That didn't end the problems at the cafeteria, though. Semco's policy was to subsidize 70 per cent of the cost of the meals we served. But after consulting with Clovis and some others the factory workers instituted a Robin Hood Meal Plan' under which employees paid on a sliding scale based on income. Managers and engineers were asked to pay 95 per cent of the cost of their food, for example, while floor sweepers paid just 5 per cent.
We all know the usual ways of combating a strike:
1. Take a stand. Show the flag. Don't back down.
2. Guarantee that anyone who wants to work can, even if that means calling in the police.
3. Protect company property, with force if necessary.
4. Make it hard for the workers by closing the plant and suspending benefits.
5. Try to divide and conquer the strikers.
6. After it's over, fire the instigators and anyone else you want to get rid of, intimidating others in the process.
Human nature demands recognition. Without it, people lose their sense of purpose and become dissatisfied, restless, and unproductive. Stalin understood this. Prisoners in his gulags were obliged to dig enormous holes in the snow, then fill them in. It broke their spirits.
Instead of a series of lathes and then a series of welding operations and so on, all in a long line Henry Ford-style, the workers formed small groups of different machines. The idea was to have, at each of these clusters, a team whose members would fashion a product from beginning to end, giving them accountability for the product's quality and the enormous satisfaction that comes with completing a task. What's more, these workers would know how to operate all the machines in their cluster, not just one, and do whatever else was needed, too, even drive forklifts to and from the storeroom. This type of organization, which had first been adopted by the workers on the dishwasher line at the Ipiranga plant, was known as a manufacturing cell. Frederick Winslow Taylor wouldn't have approved. Before there was a Henry Ford, there was a Frederick Winslow Taylor. In fact, there might not have been a Henry Ford without a Frederick Winslow Taylor. He more than anyone was the Godfather of the modern factory, in which thousands of nameless, faceless drones carry out unrelentingly repetitious tasks under ever-vigilant supervision.
In the terms Taylor is familiar with, probably yes. He would never condone a system in which, depending on what needed to be done, a person could be a lathe operator or a grinder, assemble the final product, maintain the machinery, drive a forklift loaded with supplies, help clean the work area or even paint the walls of his corner of the plant. Taylor would be appalled if workers started to make thingamajigs and screw together whatnots entirely on their own. Or if they discovered that making suggestions, innovating and whistling at work are not forbidden
NO ONE CAN EXPECT THE SPIRIT of involvement and partnership to flourish without an abundance of information available even to the most humble employee. I know all the arguments against a policy of full dis-closure. Employees will use the numbers to argue for raises in good times, or be frightened by the numbers in bad time. Even worse, trade secrets will be leaked to the competition. Maybe. But the advantages of openness and truthfulness far outweigh the disadvantages. And a company that doesn't share information when times are good loses the right to request solidarity and concessions when they are not.
We began with Semco's total profits, the revenues minus expenses. Then we agreed that 40 per cent would be deducted for taxes, 25 per cent for dividends to shareholders, and another 12 per cent for reinvestment - the minimum the company needed to continue to prosper. That left 23 per cent.
we would end those neurotic little telephone wars in which the caller seeks to prove how important he is by refusing to come on the line until the callee is already hanging on.) I remember meeting with a group of about 30 secretaries. I told them we wanted to eliminate their jobs in a year or two and asked them to start thinking about what they would like to be doing at Semco in five years. Then we tried to push them in the appropriate direction, matching them with openings and sometimes creating new jobs for them …. But then we created a job sharing program which two people split a single position and we all hoped would have the best of both world's.
Semco now pays all day-care costs in a child's first year, a little less in the second year, still less in the third, and so on until the sixth year, when children are in school full time.
The pyramid, the chief organizational principal of the modern corporation, turns a business into a traffic jam. A company starts out like an eight-lane superhighway - the bottom of the pyramid - drops to six lanes, then four, then two, then becomes a country road and eventually a dirt path, before abruptly coming to a stop. Thousands of drivers start off on the highway, but as it narrows more and more are forced to slow and stop. There are smash-ups and cars are pushed off on to the shoulder. Some drivers give up and take side roads to other destinations. A few - the most aggressive - keep charging ahead, swerving and accelerating and bending fenders all about them. Remember, objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.
Bureaucracies are built by and for people who busy themselves proving they are necessary, especially when they suspect they aren't. All these bosses have to keep themselves occupied, and so they constantly complicate everything.
We had long ago let our office employees decide when they would start and end their working day, becoming one of perhaps half a dozen companies in Brazil offering this freedom.
It's all about persistence, isn't it? But where does persistence end and obsession begin? How high is too high? How big is too big? Of course, some growth is necessary for any business to keep up with competitors and provide new opportunities for its people. But so often it is power and greed and just plain stubbornness that makes bigger automatically seem better.
Any alley cat can stay lean when food is scarce; the trick is to stay lean during the good times.
Pedro had heard the phrase horizontalization. We were constantly discussing and debating what functions Semco should continue to perform and what activities it should farm out to others. As we thought more about it, we became convinced we no longer wanted to do anything that could be done just as well elsewhere. But at Semco there is always a wrinkle, isn't there? Instead of contracting out business to strangers, we decided we wanted to contract it out to the people we knew best: our workers. We would help them to start their own companies, transforming themselves from employees to partners. And so the Satellite Programme was born.
Henry Ford was so fond of verticalization he raised trees to make the sideboards of his Model T's, bought iron mines and cargo ships, even searched the Amazon for a site for a rubber plant for tyres. The company's official history doesn't play it up, but Ford had to fire 60,000 workers because of rampant do-it-yourselfism.
Persistence is a virtue only when it is pointed in the right direction.
If only minds were as easy to change as machines. I'll wager that it's easier to invent a new generation of microchips than to get a generation of middle managers to alter the routes they drive to work every day. Technology is transformed overnight; mentality takes generations to alter.
There's no doubt in my mind: technology has gone through the roof since 1633, but quality of life has gone down the drain. All we have done is accelerate our malfunctions and increase the intensity of our mis-communication. Let me propose a new definition: the truly modern company avoids an obsession with technology and puts quality of life first.
IF MONEY ISN'T ALL it's made out to be, information is, I believe, a most under-valued commodity. There is power in knowing something someone else doesn't, which explains why executives are so often loath to share information with employees.
IN THE 19205, AN ENGINEER named DeForest went to see Harry Warner, of Hollywood's famous Warner Brothers. DeForest had managed to synchronize sound and image and could, he said, transform silent movies into talking pictures. Warner listened to him, then replied: Are you crazy? Who wants to hear an actor talk?'
Items you think would be good to look at, but never quite get around to. These include newspapers and magazines, lengthy reports, copies of memos - you get the idea. We've all grown accustomed to receiving vast quantities of information. As a defence, we tend to read a little of everything. This is among the most serious causes of time illness.
CIRCULAR ORGANIZATION: We slashed Semco's bureaucracy from twelve layers of management to three and devised a new organization structure based on fluid concentric circles instead of a rigidly hierarchical pyramid. All employees have one of only four titles: Counsellors, who are like vice presidents and higher in conventional companies and co-ordinate our general policies and strategies; Partners, who run our business units; Coordinators, who comprise that first, crucial level of management, such as marketing, sales, and production supervisors or engineering and assembly-area foremen; and Associates, which is what we call everyone else.
Semco is more than novel programmes or procedures. What is important is our open-mindedness, our trust in our employees and distrust of dogma. We are neither socialist nor purely capitalist, but we take the best of these failed systems and others to re-organize work so that collective thinking does not overpower individualistic flights of grandeur; that leadership does not get lost in an endless search for consensus; that people are free to work as they like, when they like; that bosses don't have to be parents and workers don't act like children. At the heart of our bold experiment is a truth so simple it would be silly if it wasn't so rarely recognized: A company should trust its destiny to its employees. No, Semco isn't a model, with programmes to be followed with precision, so many recipes for participation, productivity, and profits. Semco is an invitation. I hope our story will cause other companies to reconsider themselves, and their employees. To forget socialism, capital-ism, just-in-time deliveries, salary surveys, and the rest of it, and to concentrate on building organizations that accomplish that most difficult of all challenges: to make people look forward to coming to work in the morning.
We tried all the cost-slashing measures we could think of - coffee breaks were cut to once a day, copying machines were locked away, electricity consumption was monitored, new uniform purchases were suspended, and all expenses were looked at by many sets of eagle eyes. But I didn't hold out much hope. I'm not a big proponent of cost-cutting programmes. I like to think we don't spend money unnecessarily even in good times. And how do you measure how many sales were lost because the reps had their gasoline allowance cut, or what the cash flow might have been if the clerks in billing had not been saddled with a cut in telephone expenses, or even how many little mistakes and miscalculations could have been avoided if engineers hadn't cut back on photocopies of blueprints? When the foolish penny-pinching is over, everyone goes back to business as usual - until someone thinks expenses are excessive again and begins a new round of cuts, starting with the expenditure needed to make up for the short-sightedness of the previous cost-cutting campaign.
While Paulo and the Counsellors were stewing about this, I called in Irene Tubertini, the last of my three secretaries. 'How much money do you need to earn to live comfortably,' I asked her, watching her face flush and her brown eyes cloud over with bewilderment. 'How much money do you need so that you will leave for work in the morning with the feeling that you are fairly paid; so that you won't be tempted to look for another job? She sat there, not quite believing what she was hearing, wondering what I could possibly be up to. I told her to think about it for a day or two, then give me a number. That would be her salary for the next year. Yes, I was serious, I told her. We intended to ask others the same question, and hold them to their answers.
NOW THAT OUR LEADERS WERE HAPPY with their salaries - or at least responsible for them - Paulo had another, even more daring proposal. He called it (risk salary' 'Each of you now has the correct salary, according to your own estimate of your worth,' he told managers at a meeting of company leaders in 1989. I propose to pay you a little less, but in return will give you the possibility of earning more.' Then he explained his new wrinkle. If Semco did well, an employee who agreed to risk a 25 per cent salary cut - the limit - would receive up to 50 per cent more. Then again, if Semco did poorly, he would suffer the 25 per cent cut. Employees who didn't have high fixed expenses have taken Paulo up on his offer and risked more; those with non-working spouses and children have risked less. The results, so far, have been rewarding to the players and the company, since with this programme part of our labour costs fluctuates with profits or losses. When business is good, people in the programme make a lot more money. When it isn't, they are helping us cut expenses and lowering their profile in case cost-cutters are called out.
I’m deeply interested in language and how it can shape concepts that previously didn’t exist—and how those concepts can, in turn, shape an organization. Before any creation is possible, there is first a linguistic creation, most famously exemplified by God: “Kun” in Arabic, or “Let there be light” in English.
Definitely worth a read if you’re looking for something innovative to try in your organization. Here are some of the crazy, wacky, and inventive ideas from the book:
That's the first clue that we are different. We don't have receptionists. We don't think they are necessary, despite all our visitors. We don't have secretaries either, or personal assistants. We don't believe in cluttering the payroll with ungratifying, dead-end jobs.
I never leave a number where I can be reached when I'm away and I don't call in. I want everyone at Semco to be self-sufficient. The company is organized - well, maybe that's not quite the right word for us - not to depend too much on any individual, especially me. I take it as a point of pride that twice on my return from long trips my office had been moved - and each time it got smaller. My role is that of a catalyst. I try to create an environment in which others make decisions. Success means not making them myself.
During this time I often thought of a business parable I had heard. Three stone cutters were asked about their jobs. The first said he was paid to cut stones. The second replied that he used special techniques to shape stones in an exceptional way, and proceeded to demonstrate his skills. The third stone cutter just smiled and said: 'I build cathedrals.' As I walked around Semco, I sensed that we had far more stone cutters than craftsmen. What I wanted, of course, was a company filled with cathedral-builders, and there were hardly any of them at all.
Early in the century Max Weber recognized that the Protestant ethic of hard work had permeated the business world, It is even more of a factor today. Executives feel pressure from their bosses to outwork colleagues and build their image and career. By this reasoning, having a heart attack because of work leads to true glory and keeling over at the office is even better - a sign, a Calvinist might say, of being among The Elect.
I'li have more thoughts about time sickness and how to cure it later, in Appendix B. For now, let me say that I have recovered so completely that I no longer wear a wristwatch. I gave it up soon after attending a concert by Brazil's most famous pianist, Madalena Tagliaferro. As I listened to her play Sibelius, I realized that she had been born when Brazil was a monarchy, witnessed the invention of the automobile and the aircraft, lived through two World Wars, and was still performing. It struck me that time should be measured in years and decades, not minutes and hours. It is impossible to understand life in all its hugeness and complexity if one is constantly consulting a minute-counter.
*They make us feel unimportant, as if the managers are so busy they can barely fit us into their schedules,' Walter said. 'We become impatient and irritated, and are less attentive when the negotiations begin.' 'Ah,' said Fernando, looking over at me. 'We must learn to do that, Dickie.' I squirmed a bit in my chair. Fernando was half-kidding, of course, but it was that other half that bothered me. I had been thinking about softening our hard line towards the union. Fernando clearly wasn't with me. 'That's just the beginning,' Walter went on. 'They make us sit across from the window, so the light shines in our faces. But they are in shadow, so it's hard to see their reactions. And sometimes the chairs we sit on have one leg shorter than the others, so we don't feel secure,' another union man said. And our chairs are shorter than theirs, so we have to look up at them,' Walter added. looked over at Fernando. He was smiling.
When plants faced hard times, their factory committees would take the initiative and lower wages or increase hours, saving money and protecting jobs. When layoffs were unavoidable, the committees got involved in the sensitive and unfortunate task of deciding who would go. Together we tried to be socially just, taking into consideration such factors as a worker's history with the company, loyalty, ability to find a new job, and family responsibilities. A person with seven children or a spouse in the hospital, for example, would have an edge over someone fresh out of school with no responsibilities.
That didn't end the problems at the cafeteria, though. Semco's policy was to subsidize 70 per cent of the cost of the meals we served. But after consulting with Clovis and some others the factory workers instituted a Robin Hood Meal Plan' under which employees paid on a sliding scale based on income. Managers and engineers were asked to pay 95 per cent of the cost of their food, for example, while floor sweepers paid just 5 per cent.
We all know the usual ways of combating a strike:
1. Take a stand. Show the flag. Don't back down.
2. Guarantee that anyone who wants to work can, even if that means calling in the police.
3. Protect company property, with force if necessary.
4. Make it hard for the workers by closing the plant and suspending benefits.
5. Try to divide and conquer the strikers.
6. After it's over, fire the instigators and anyone else you want to get rid of, intimidating others in the process.
Human nature demands recognition. Without it, people lose their sense of purpose and become dissatisfied, restless, and unproductive. Stalin understood this. Prisoners in his gulags were obliged to dig enormous holes in the snow, then fill them in. It broke their spirits.
Instead of a series of lathes and then a series of welding operations and so on, all in a long line Henry Ford-style, the workers formed small groups of different machines. The idea was to have, at each of these clusters, a team whose members would fashion a product from beginning to end, giving them accountability for the product's quality and the enormous satisfaction that comes with completing a task. What's more, these workers would know how to operate all the machines in their cluster, not just one, and do whatever else was needed, too, even drive forklifts to and from the storeroom. This type of organization, which had first been adopted by the workers on the dishwasher line at the Ipiranga plant, was known as a manufacturing cell. Frederick Winslow Taylor wouldn't have approved. Before there was a Henry Ford, there was a Frederick Winslow Taylor. In fact, there might not have been a Henry Ford without a Frederick Winslow Taylor. He more than anyone was the Godfather of the modern factory, in which thousands of nameless, faceless drones carry out unrelentingly repetitious tasks under ever-vigilant supervision.
In the terms Taylor is familiar with, probably yes. He would never condone a system in which, depending on what needed to be done, a person could be a lathe operator or a grinder, assemble the final product, maintain the machinery, drive a forklift loaded with supplies, help clean the work area or even paint the walls of his corner of the plant. Taylor would be appalled if workers started to make thingamajigs and screw together whatnots entirely on their own. Or if they discovered that making suggestions, innovating and whistling at work are not forbidden
NO ONE CAN EXPECT THE SPIRIT of involvement and partnership to flourish without an abundance of information available even to the most humble employee. I know all the arguments against a policy of full dis-closure. Employees will use the numbers to argue for raises in good times, or be frightened by the numbers in bad time. Even worse, trade secrets will be leaked to the competition. Maybe. But the advantages of openness and truthfulness far outweigh the disadvantages. And a company that doesn't share information when times are good loses the right to request solidarity and concessions when they are not.
We began with Semco's total profits, the revenues minus expenses. Then we agreed that 40 per cent would be deducted for taxes, 25 per cent for dividends to shareholders, and another 12 per cent for reinvestment - the minimum the company needed to continue to prosper. That left 23 per cent.
we would end those neurotic little telephone wars in which the caller seeks to prove how important he is by refusing to come on the line until the callee is already hanging on.) I remember meeting with a group of about 30 secretaries. I told them we wanted to eliminate their jobs in a year or two and asked them to start thinking about what they would like to be doing at Semco in five years. Then we tried to push them in the appropriate direction, matching them with openings and sometimes creating new jobs for them …. But then we created a job sharing program which two people split a single position and we all hoped would have the best of both world's.
Semco now pays all day-care costs in a child's first year, a little less in the second year, still less in the third, and so on until the sixth year, when children are in school full time.
The pyramid, the chief organizational principal of the modern corporation, turns a business into a traffic jam. A company starts out like an eight-lane superhighway - the bottom of the pyramid - drops to six lanes, then four, then two, then becomes a country road and eventually a dirt path, before abruptly coming to a stop. Thousands of drivers start off on the highway, but as it narrows more and more are forced to slow and stop. There are smash-ups and cars are pushed off on to the shoulder. Some drivers give up and take side roads to other destinations. A few - the most aggressive - keep charging ahead, swerving and accelerating and bending fenders all about them. Remember, objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.
Bureaucracies are built by and for people who busy themselves proving they are necessary, especially when they suspect they aren't. All these bosses have to keep themselves occupied, and so they constantly complicate everything.
We had long ago let our office employees decide when they would start and end their working day, becoming one of perhaps half a dozen companies in Brazil offering this freedom.
It's all about persistence, isn't it? But where does persistence end and obsession begin? How high is too high? How big is too big? Of course, some growth is necessary for any business to keep up with competitors and provide new opportunities for its people. But so often it is power and greed and just plain stubbornness that makes bigger automatically seem better.
Any alley cat can stay lean when food is scarce; the trick is to stay lean during the good times.
Pedro had heard the phrase horizontalization. We were constantly discussing and debating what functions Semco should continue to perform and what activities it should farm out to others. As we thought more about it, we became convinced we no longer wanted to do anything that could be done just as well elsewhere. But at Semco there is always a wrinkle, isn't there? Instead of contracting out business to strangers, we decided we wanted to contract it out to the people we knew best: our workers. We would help them to start their own companies, transforming themselves from employees to partners. And so the Satellite Programme was born.
Henry Ford was so fond of verticalization he raised trees to make the sideboards of his Model T's, bought iron mines and cargo ships, even searched the Amazon for a site for a rubber plant for tyres. The company's official history doesn't play it up, but Ford had to fire 60,000 workers because of rampant do-it-yourselfism.
Persistence is a virtue only when it is pointed in the right direction.
If only minds were as easy to change as machines. I'll wager that it's easier to invent a new generation of microchips than to get a generation of middle managers to alter the routes they drive to work every day. Technology is transformed overnight; mentality takes generations to alter.
There's no doubt in my mind: technology has gone through the roof since 1633, but quality of life has gone down the drain. All we have done is accelerate our malfunctions and increase the intensity of our mis-communication. Let me propose a new definition: the truly modern company avoids an obsession with technology and puts quality of life first.
IF MONEY ISN'T ALL it's made out to be, information is, I believe, a most under-valued commodity. There is power in knowing something someone else doesn't, which explains why executives are so often loath to share information with employees.
IN THE 19205, AN ENGINEER named DeForest went to see Harry Warner, of Hollywood's famous Warner Brothers. DeForest had managed to synchronize sound and image and could, he said, transform silent movies into talking pictures. Warner listened to him, then replied: Are you crazy? Who wants to hear an actor talk?'
Items you think would be good to look at, but never quite get around to. These include newspapers and magazines, lengthy reports, copies of memos - you get the idea. We've all grown accustomed to receiving vast quantities of information. As a defence, we tend to read a little of everything. This is among the most serious causes of time illness.
CIRCULAR ORGANIZATION: We slashed Semco's bureaucracy from twelve layers of management to three and devised a new organization structure based on fluid concentric circles instead of a rigidly hierarchical pyramid. All employees have one of only four titles: Counsellors, who are like vice presidents and higher in conventional companies and co-ordinate our general policies and strategies; Partners, who run our business units; Coordinators, who comprise that first, crucial level of management, such as marketing, sales, and production supervisors or engineering and assembly-area foremen; and Associates, which is what we call everyone else.
Semco is more than novel programmes or procedures. What is important is our open-mindedness, our trust in our employees and distrust of dogma. We are neither socialist nor purely capitalist, but we take the best of these failed systems and others to re-organize work so that collective thinking does not overpower individualistic flights of grandeur; that leadership does not get lost in an endless search for consensus; that people are free to work as they like, when they like; that bosses don't have to be parents and workers don't act like children. At the heart of our bold experiment is a truth so simple it would be silly if it wasn't so rarely recognized: A company should trust its destiny to its employees. No, Semco isn't a model, with programmes to be followed with precision, so many recipes for participation, productivity, and profits. Semco is an invitation. I hope our story will cause other companies to reconsider themselves, and their employees. To forget socialism, capital-ism, just-in-time deliveries, salary surveys, and the rest of it, and to concentrate on building organizations that accomplish that most difficult of all challenges: to make people look forward to coming to work in the morning.
We tried all the cost-slashing measures we could think of - coffee breaks were cut to once a day, copying machines were locked away, electricity consumption was monitored, new uniform purchases were suspended, and all expenses were looked at by many sets of eagle eyes. But I didn't hold out much hope. I'm not a big proponent of cost-cutting programmes. I like to think we don't spend money unnecessarily even in good times. And how do you measure how many sales were lost because the reps had their gasoline allowance cut, or what the cash flow might have been if the clerks in billing had not been saddled with a cut in telephone expenses, or even how many little mistakes and miscalculations could have been avoided if engineers hadn't cut back on photocopies of blueprints? When the foolish penny-pinching is over, everyone goes back to business as usual - until someone thinks expenses are excessive again and begins a new round of cuts, starting with the expenditure needed to make up for the short-sightedness of the previous cost-cutting campaign.
While Paulo and the Counsellors were stewing about this, I called in Irene Tubertini, the last of my three secretaries. 'How much money do you need to earn to live comfortably,' I asked her, watching her face flush and her brown eyes cloud over with bewilderment. 'How much money do you need so that you will leave for work in the morning with the feeling that you are fairly paid; so that you won't be tempted to look for another job? She sat there, not quite believing what she was hearing, wondering what I could possibly be up to. I told her to think about it for a day or two, then give me a number. That would be her salary for the next year. Yes, I was serious, I told her. We intended to ask others the same question, and hold them to their answers.
NOW THAT OUR LEADERS WERE HAPPY with their salaries - or at least responsible for them - Paulo had another, even more daring proposal. He called it (risk salary' 'Each of you now has the correct salary, according to your own estimate of your worth,' he told managers at a meeting of company leaders in 1989. I propose to pay you a little less, but in return will give you the possibility of earning more.' Then he explained his new wrinkle. If Semco did well, an employee who agreed to risk a 25 per cent salary cut - the limit - would receive up to 50 per cent more. Then again, if Semco did poorly, he would suffer the 25 per cent cut. Employees who didn't have high fixed expenses have taken Paulo up on his offer and risked more; those with non-working spouses and children have risked less. The results, so far, have been rewarding to the players and the company, since with this programme part of our labour costs fluctuates with profits or losses. When business is good, people in the programme make a lot more money. When it isn't, they are helping us cut expenses and lowering their profile in case cost-cutters are called out.
October 11, 2018
One of the best business books I've read, on a company I've never even heard of before.
February 4, 2020
Definitely the best book on building corporate culture that will scare the shit out of the majority of companies and their bosses all around the world. Sorry, Tony, your “Delivering Happiness” lags behind.
June 5, 2019
This is a must read book for all leaders and managers. The management style followed by Ricardo Semler is of complete novelty. The fact that every employee of his company be it CEO or a sweeper has a say on major decisions of the company shows how each employee of the company is being valued. Even a sweeper has a right to evaluate the performance and incentives of the CEO and top level managers. This is in complete contradiction to top-down style of management which is so pervasive. It's good to know that the company has been successful so far.
July 14, 2017
This is a must read for every entrepreneur! It describes the end to end story of Semco and how Ricardo revolutionised the entire organisational structure within the company.
June 13, 2020
My review of “Maverick!: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace” by Ricardo Semler. Ricardo is a successful Brazilian entrepreneur and experienced keynote speaker. The book was published in 1993.
Maverick is the story of Semco, a manufacturing company that was started by Ricardo’s father. The book detailed the unorthodox and sometimes seemingly counterproductive management decisions of the company as it became one of Brazil’s biggest companies.
Prepared to be befuddled by this book. Ricardo’s management ethos is that no company can be successful, in the long run, if profits are its principal goal. He even posits that from his observation, money isn’t the only goal of workers, either. So he goes about running Semco using these two personal principles.
One of the things that jolted me was how forward-looking the management of Semco were in the 1980s. Some of the worker-centric decisions made in the 1980s, at a time when almost no company elsewhere in the world thought about them, are still a struggle for a lot of companies today.
Take for instance, Work at Home. Semco was structured in such a way as to encourage everyone who can work at home to do so. The company stresses to the workers that working from home enhances concentration and productivity and gives them more flexibility.
Do you know that at Semco, all memos, minutes, letters, reports, even market surveys, are restricted to a single page? This has not only reduced unnecessary paperwork, but has also helped them avoid meetings that were often needed to clarify ambiguous memos. Concision is worth the investment. The longer the message, the greater the chance of misinterpretation, they concluded.
The book has a lot of ‘What Did I Just Read’ moments, but one especially profound one is how one of the workers who felt cheated because he was not promoted (after his boss left) sued the company. The judge was stunned to find out that the worker was not sacked as soon as he sued. The case dragged for 6 months, the company won, but throughout this period, not once did the company think of sacking him. At the time of writing the book, the welder was still at the company.
This attitude is at the centre of the company’s dealings with the dreaded labour unions. While other companies avoid and stifle their workers from joining unions, Semco doesn’t mind. When the unions strike, Semco doesn’t call the police to break up a picket line, doesn’t fire anyone during or after the strike, and maintains all benefits after the strike. The company does none of this not because of morality or virtue signaling, but because it found out over time that treating everyone like adults pays the greatest dividends. It even allows striking employees enter the plant and use the company’s cafeteria for meetings.
While Ricardo talks up the value of the worker, he takes a swipe at Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan who he believed made their companies lag behind their competition due to their hardheaded dictatorship and inflexibility to workers’ demands. This was fun to read.
How is this for a quote to put in your CEO’s office,
“It usually doesn’t take much to evaluate a company’s commitment to fairness. Don’t bother with records and statistics. A look around the offices is often all that’s needed. If nearly everyone is white, or attractive, you can bet a company is biased.”
Damn! Ahead of his time.
At Semco, not only does everyone knows what everyone is earning, workers get to set their salaries. Yes, you heard that right! Workers set their own salaries. In fact, a worker once set his salary below what the company thought reasonable and he was advised to up the figure, two times. For Semco, transparency and reasonableness prevail among other reasons in the setting of these salaries because everyone knew what everyone else is paid and because of self-preservation.
One of the best #TSD for me in the book is Risk Salary. You have to read it. It blew me away. A Semco employee told a magazine: “The company became a paradise to work in. Nobody wants to leave.”
#NewWordAlert Obstreperous. I don’t get to learn this kind of obnoxious word in every book I read. So this deserves a mention.
Like a lot of people, Ricardo had an epiphany after he suffered from an advanced case of stress. As he passed out on a trip to the United States, the American doctor told him he had the most advanced case of stress he’s ever seen in a person of twenty-five.
So his attitude changed. At Semco, there is no organizational chart. I can’t say I fully understand what the circles and small triangles it was replaced with meant as explained in chapter 24, but consultants marveled at how such a counterproductive measure worked. At an executive program he went for at Harvard, Ricardo’s explanation of our circular organization amused them. This kind of management is just not one they are used to.
At Semco, it’s not only the bosses who interview candidates, those who will report to the potential hire also interview him. If they disapprove of the person, that’s the end.
Even today, not many companies take care of nursing mothers like Semco. As the company opened up to more ideas from minority groups, Semco females came up with radical programs for women and nursing. The program for nursing mothers is news worthy. Semco pays all day-care costs in a child’s first year, a little less in the second year, still less in the third, and so on until the sixth year, when children are in school full-time.
Workers at Semco don’t have corporate dresses. They dress in whatever they are comfortable in. As workers arrive in the morning, they can hang any of three metal tags on pegs on the board: a green tag stood for “Good Mood,’’ a yellow tag for “Careful,” and a red tag for “Not Today — Please.” What innovation!
A lot of the innovation at Semco were brought about by a group of employees with no job descriptions. They had no bosses. They reported to no one. All they did was think for a living. They became so successful that they attracted attention from outside the company.
At a point during a particular severe economic downturn, they came up with the idea of firing some of the workers, then help them use their severance to establish their own businesses, which would supply materials or services to Semco (and any other companies they want). To clinch the deal, Semco offered to lease the workers the very machines they operated in the plants, at no cost to start with and extremely reasonable terms later on, as their companies became profitable. Semco has so far helped form more than two dozen Satellite companies.
Did I mention the unique profit sharing scheme and the CEO rotational policy every six months? Well, too many ideas in just one book. Companies from all over the world took tours at the plant to see the inner workings of a democratic corporate institution.
Little wonder, many of Semco’s key people regularly spurn lucrative employment offers elsewhere. Semco has had periods of up to fourteen months in which not one worker had left the company. At the time of the writing of the book, there was a backlog of more than 2,000 job applications, hundreds from people who say they would take any job just to be at Semco. Almost 20% of all college students in Brazil said that they would like to work for Semco when they graduated. Brazil’s fearsome Marxist Union leaders said Ricardo is “the only trustworthy boss in the country”.
Ricardo was able to grow the company to such a level that he could detach himself from the company and spend his time reading 50 books a year. Goals! Can your CEO can.
This truly fascinating business book shows that it is possible to do business with a human face. That both the company and workers can be truly satisfied with their work.
In the 1980s, Semco had perfected employee-centric systems that most companies in 2020 struggle and fight against. And Ricardo has laid them all out in this all-time best-selling nonfiction book in Brazil’s history. Really remarkable!
Maverick is the story of Semco, a manufacturing company that was started by Ricardo’s father. The book detailed the unorthodox and sometimes seemingly counterproductive management decisions of the company as it became one of Brazil’s biggest companies.
Prepared to be befuddled by this book. Ricardo’s management ethos is that no company can be successful, in the long run, if profits are its principal goal. He even posits that from his observation, money isn’t the only goal of workers, either. So he goes about running Semco using these two personal principles.
One of the things that jolted me was how forward-looking the management of Semco were in the 1980s. Some of the worker-centric decisions made in the 1980s, at a time when almost no company elsewhere in the world thought about them, are still a struggle for a lot of companies today.
Take for instance, Work at Home. Semco was structured in such a way as to encourage everyone who can work at home to do so. The company stresses to the workers that working from home enhances concentration and productivity and gives them more flexibility.
Do you know that at Semco, all memos, minutes, letters, reports, even market surveys, are restricted to a single page? This has not only reduced unnecessary paperwork, but has also helped them avoid meetings that were often needed to clarify ambiguous memos. Concision is worth the investment. The longer the message, the greater the chance of misinterpretation, they concluded.
The book has a lot of ‘What Did I Just Read’ moments, but one especially profound one is how one of the workers who felt cheated because he was not promoted (after his boss left) sued the company. The judge was stunned to find out that the worker was not sacked as soon as he sued. The case dragged for 6 months, the company won, but throughout this period, not once did the company think of sacking him. At the time of writing the book, the welder was still at the company.
This attitude is at the centre of the company’s dealings with the dreaded labour unions. While other companies avoid and stifle their workers from joining unions, Semco doesn’t mind. When the unions strike, Semco doesn’t call the police to break up a picket line, doesn’t fire anyone during or after the strike, and maintains all benefits after the strike. The company does none of this not because of morality or virtue signaling, but because it found out over time that treating everyone like adults pays the greatest dividends. It even allows striking employees enter the plant and use the company’s cafeteria for meetings.
While Ricardo talks up the value of the worker, he takes a swipe at Henry Ford and Alfred Sloan who he believed made their companies lag behind their competition due to their hardheaded dictatorship and inflexibility to workers’ demands. This was fun to read.
How is this for a quote to put in your CEO’s office,
“It usually doesn’t take much to evaluate a company’s commitment to fairness. Don’t bother with records and statistics. A look around the offices is often all that’s needed. If nearly everyone is white, or attractive, you can bet a company is biased.”
Damn! Ahead of his time.
At Semco, not only does everyone knows what everyone is earning, workers get to set their salaries. Yes, you heard that right! Workers set their own salaries. In fact, a worker once set his salary below what the company thought reasonable and he was advised to up the figure, two times. For Semco, transparency and reasonableness prevail among other reasons in the setting of these salaries because everyone knew what everyone else is paid and because of self-preservation.
One of the best #TSD for me in the book is Risk Salary. You have to read it. It blew me away. A Semco employee told a magazine: “The company became a paradise to work in. Nobody wants to leave.”
#NewWordAlert Obstreperous. I don’t get to learn this kind of obnoxious word in every book I read. So this deserves a mention.
Like a lot of people, Ricardo had an epiphany after he suffered from an advanced case of stress. As he passed out on a trip to the United States, the American doctor told him he had the most advanced case of stress he’s ever seen in a person of twenty-five.
So his attitude changed. At Semco, there is no organizational chart. I can’t say I fully understand what the circles and small triangles it was replaced with meant as explained in chapter 24, but consultants marveled at how such a counterproductive measure worked. At an executive program he went for at Harvard, Ricardo’s explanation of our circular organization amused them. This kind of management is just not one they are used to.
At Semco, it’s not only the bosses who interview candidates, those who will report to the potential hire also interview him. If they disapprove of the person, that’s the end.
Even today, not many companies take care of nursing mothers like Semco. As the company opened up to more ideas from minority groups, Semco females came up with radical programs for women and nursing. The program for nursing mothers is news worthy. Semco pays all day-care costs in a child’s first year, a little less in the second year, still less in the third, and so on until the sixth year, when children are in school full-time.
Workers at Semco don’t have corporate dresses. They dress in whatever they are comfortable in. As workers arrive in the morning, they can hang any of three metal tags on pegs on the board: a green tag stood for “Good Mood,’’ a yellow tag for “Careful,” and a red tag for “Not Today — Please.” What innovation!
A lot of the innovation at Semco were brought about by a group of employees with no job descriptions. They had no bosses. They reported to no one. All they did was think for a living. They became so successful that they attracted attention from outside the company.
At a point during a particular severe economic downturn, they came up with the idea of firing some of the workers, then help them use their severance to establish their own businesses, which would supply materials or services to Semco (and any other companies they want). To clinch the deal, Semco offered to lease the workers the very machines they operated in the plants, at no cost to start with and extremely reasonable terms later on, as their companies became profitable. Semco has so far helped form more than two dozen Satellite companies.
Did I mention the unique profit sharing scheme and the CEO rotational policy every six months? Well, too many ideas in just one book. Companies from all over the world took tours at the plant to see the inner workings of a democratic corporate institution.
Little wonder, many of Semco’s key people regularly spurn lucrative employment offers elsewhere. Semco has had periods of up to fourteen months in which not one worker had left the company. At the time of the writing of the book, there was a backlog of more than 2,000 job applications, hundreds from people who say they would take any job just to be at Semco. Almost 20% of all college students in Brazil said that they would like to work for Semco when they graduated. Brazil’s fearsome Marxist Union leaders said Ricardo is “the only trustworthy boss in the country”.
Ricardo was able to grow the company to such a level that he could detach himself from the company and spend his time reading 50 books a year. Goals! Can your CEO can.
This truly fascinating business book shows that it is possible to do business with a human face. That both the company and workers can be truly satisfied with their work.
In the 1980s, Semco had perfected employee-centric systems that most companies in 2020 struggle and fight against. And Ricardo has laid them all out in this all-time best-selling nonfiction book in Brazil’s history. Really remarkable!
April 23, 2015
I enjoy reading about the empowering Semco philosophy and path to a healthy workplace.
Democracy has yet to penetrate the workplace. Directors and despots are alive and well in offices and factories all over the world.
Most companies and employees accept this as immutable. But we didn't believe Semco had to perpetuate a system in which a person is hired who impresses his future boss but does not have the respect of his subordinates. Nor did we understand why we should keep a supervisor who wasn't well regarded by those who were supposed to follow that person. So we developed a program to insure that bosses were ratified by the people who work under them.
Some examples from the form to evaluate managers (twice a year) ~ 36 multiple-choice questions designed to measure technical ability, competence, leadership, and other aspects of being a boss:
The subject reacts to criticism:
a. Poorly, ignoring it
b. Poorly, rejecting it
c. Reasonably well
d. Well, accepting it
When the subject's department achieves a high level of productivity, s/he usually:
a. Takes credit for others' success
b. Gives credit to those who did the work
c. Gives credit to the team as a whole
The subject conveys to the team feelings of
a. Fear and insecurity
b. Indifference
c. Security and tranquility
The employee review builds on one of Semco's great strengths, our transparency. As a company, people can always say what's on their minds, even to their bosses - even when it's about their bosses. It is instilled in our corporate culture that everyone should be willing to listen, and admit it when they are wrong.
Democracy has yet to penetrate the workplace. Directors and despots are alive and well in offices and factories all over the world.
Most companies and employees accept this as immutable. But we didn't believe Semco had to perpetuate a system in which a person is hired who impresses his future boss but does not have the respect of his subordinates. Nor did we understand why we should keep a supervisor who wasn't well regarded by those who were supposed to follow that person. So we developed a program to insure that bosses were ratified by the people who work under them.
Some examples from the form to evaluate managers (twice a year) ~ 36 multiple-choice questions designed to measure technical ability, competence, leadership, and other aspects of being a boss:
The subject reacts to criticism:
a. Poorly, ignoring it
b. Poorly, rejecting it
c. Reasonably well
d. Well, accepting it
When the subject's department achieves a high level of productivity, s/he usually:
a. Takes credit for others' success
b. Gives credit to those who did the work
c. Gives credit to the team as a whole
The subject conveys to the team feelings of
a. Fear and insecurity
b. Indifference
c. Security and tranquility
The employee review builds on one of Semco's great strengths, our transparency. As a company, people can always say what's on their minds, even to their bosses - even when it's about their bosses. It is instilled in our corporate culture that everyone should be willing to listen, and admit it when they are wrong.
December 18, 2017
Interesting read that can be applicable to modern day business but is a bit long-winded. The middle-end of the book was a struggle to get through, but it picks back up in the last few chapters.
Personal Key Concepts:
- Work-life balance doesn't have to mean lower work output
- Viewing companies as family is misleading and terribly flawed; companies are businesses
- Working at home can actually work
- Ruthlessly delegate and prioritize
- Split operating units once it reaches 150 people
- Rapid growth is oftentimes about ego and bad for companies long-term
- Org chart may diverge drastically from socially-determined chart of influence and leadership
- Circular Org Structure: Counselors > Partners > Coordinators > Associates
- Flex hours are great, but make sure to leave work
Other:
- Manage survey was good
Personal Key Concepts:
- Work-life balance doesn't have to mean lower work output
- Viewing companies as family is misleading and terribly flawed; companies are businesses
- Working at home can actually work
- Ruthlessly delegate and prioritize
- Split operating units once it reaches 150 people
- Rapid growth is oftentimes about ego and bad for companies long-term
- Org chart may diverge drastically from socially-determined chart of influence and leadership
- Circular Org Structure: Counselors > Partners > Coordinators > Associates
- Flex hours are great, but make sure to leave work
Other:
- Manage survey was good
November 16, 2018
The premise of this book was intriguing in the beginning, wherein Ricardo inherits his father's manufacturing company and sets the tone by firing the senior leadership to re-establish a new kind of order.
Gradually, as each chapter dives into a specific episode with a radical idea, such as abolishing the pyramidal hierarchy with one with concentric circles, encouraging workers to start their own company and work from home, allowing employees to assess their manager's performance for routine evaluations, among others, the reader (myself) is on one hand quite impressed with how successful these democratic experiments in the workplace have gone, but also feeling like this book is almost like a company manual -- at times sounding a bit propaganda-ish ("Here at Semco, we do things differently!" kind of tone). In any case, I still find Ricardo to be a very philosophical thinker with really bold ideas. His TED Talk [1] is actually quite illustrative of his company's culture, so you can watch that first before diving into his book. Would recommend if you are interested in some corporate management.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_sem...
Gradually, as each chapter dives into a specific episode with a radical idea, such as abolishing the pyramidal hierarchy with one with concentric circles, encouraging workers to start their own company and work from home, allowing employees to assess their manager's performance for routine evaluations, among others, the reader (myself) is on one hand quite impressed with how successful these democratic experiments in the workplace have gone, but also feeling like this book is almost like a company manual -- at times sounding a bit propaganda-ish ("Here at Semco, we do things differently!" kind of tone). In any case, I still find Ricardo to be a very philosophical thinker with really bold ideas. His TED Talk [1] is actually quite illustrative of his company's culture, so you can watch that first before diving into his book. Would recommend if you are interested in some corporate management.
[1] https://www.ted.com/talks/ricardo_sem...
August 7, 2011
My rating: 3,5/5
Vybrané pasáže:
Vybrané pasáže:
Tři kameníci měli popsat svoji práci. První řekl, že ho platí za opracovávání kamenů. Druhý uvedl, že používá speciální postupy, kterými tvaruje kameny a získává neobyčejné výsledky. Zároveň předvedl ukázku své práce. Třetí kameník se jen pousmál a pronesl: "Já stavím katedrály." Když jsem tak chodil po Semcu, napadlo mě, že máme mnohem víc kameníků než umělců, kteří umí kameny proměňovat v něco neobyčejného, v katedrály.
Když tak přemýšlím o tradičním šéfovi, často si vzpomenu na svého otce. A když na něj myslím, vybaví se mi úryvek z písničky Jamese Taylora: "Tajemstvím života je užívat si plynoucí čas." Většina lidí žije buď ve vzpomínkách na minulost, nebo v naději na budoucnost. V přítomnosti žije jen málo lidí.
Odjakživa jsem otce nabádal, aby si užíval peněz, které vydělal. Nikdy to neudělal, ustavičně si s něčím dělal starosti. V pozdějším věku mu diagnostikovali rakovinu. Po radiační terapii se procházel v parku a vyprávěl mamince, že si tam vlastně nikdy nevšiml kytek a ni kachen. Stálo ho to 73 let a nevyléčitelnou chorobu, aby si konečně povšiml malinkých, ale úžasných drobností života.
January 3, 2012
A very stimulating & enjoyable book! This is the first business-related book I read and even though I expected it to be somehow tedious, it read like a novel and was pleasantly written. I'd never even heard of Semco or Ricardo Semler before joining this ring and it was very interesting to read about Semler's take on the corporate world. What I found really refreshing here is how the people at Semco reacted when faced with problems and the way they learned from their mistakes & used them to make the company better. There are so many great ideas in this book and some of them very easy to implement! I think I'll take on the filling cabinet clean up right away: "When faced with a mountain of paperwork or clutter, think back to the words of Albert Sloan of General Motors; "what is the worst thing that can happen if I throw this out?" Here I come, prepare the waste-baskets! Still, I was as surprised at how ruthless Ricardo Semler seemed to be when it came to downsizing, it somehow didn't fit into the picture... Anyway, this book should be required reading for executives everywhere!
May 16, 2011
كتاب فريد في موضوعه! قد تضعه في خانة السير الذاتية أو خانة المغامرات الواقعية ولكنه ولاشك كتاب ناجح في فن الإدارة
ولكن إذا ظننته كتاباً تتعلم منه نظريات الإدارة والأساليب المتعلقة بذلك ، فسيخيب ظنك لأنك لن تجد تنظيراً أو تقنيات بل تجد شخصاً –ريكاردو سيملر- بذل نفسه ووقته في سبيل فكرته ، وعمل من قلبه ليحقق ما يسميه الديقراطية في العمل. وبذلك خالف ما ورثه عن أبيه الذي أسس الشركة وأدارها بقدرة فنية وإدارية قوية
الديمقراطية في نظر سيملر هي أن يدير الموظفون أنفسهم بأنفسهم لأنه إذا ربحت الشركة ربحوا وإن خسرت خسروا ، فما الذي حققه يا ترى
باختصار كتابنا هو قمة الفن الإداري كُتِب بأسلوب القصة الواقعية فلن تمله وستتعلم الكثير دون أن تشعر
ولكن إذا ظننته كتاباً تتعلم منه نظريات الإدارة والأساليب المتعلقة بذلك ، فسيخيب ظنك لأنك لن تجد تنظيراً أو تقنيات بل تجد شخصاً –ريكاردو سيملر- بذل نفسه ووقته في سبيل فكرته ، وعمل من قلبه ليحقق ما يسميه الديقراطية في العمل. وبذلك خالف ما ورثه عن أبيه الذي أسس الشركة وأدارها بقدرة فنية وإدارية قوية
الديمقراطية في نظر سيملر هي أن يدير الموظفون أنفسهم بأنفسهم لأنه إذا ربحت الشركة ربحوا وإن خسرت خسروا ، فما الذي حققه يا ترى
باختصار كتابنا هو قمة الفن الإداري كُتِب بأسلوب القصة الواقعية فلن تمله وستتعلم الكثير دون أن تشعر
May 27, 2017
Ricardo Semler is clearly a rebel, and after getting a lot of this book stories and philosophy through some form of intermediary medium and people, I finally read his story from the source.
On SemCo, they optimized for common sense over convention. Not all this can be directly and quickly applied to any company, but it's an important example to know, as an evidence picking the road less travelled makes all the difference.
On SemCo, they optimized for common sense over convention. Not all this can be directly and quickly applied to any company, but it's an important example to know, as an evidence picking the road less travelled makes all the difference.
July 16, 2020
Ricardo Semler nos ilustra en las enseñanzas de la nueva administración implementadas en su empresa en Brasil. La informalidad aparentes, donde se deshacen las estructuras y ataduras organizacionales dan resultados de mayor eficiencias bajo el liderazgo de un jefe motivador que involucra a todos los niveles y empleados de la empresa.
Interesante libro que se convirtió en un paradigma de la moderna administración desde Latinoamérica.
Calificación: 4/5
Interesante libro que se convirtió en un paradigma de la moderna administración desde Latinoamérica.
Calificación: 4/5
July 20, 2021
More interesting than I expected, as it felt like the autobiography of a business. It was helpful that he presented the challenges when they restructured and the results/different things attempted. Good example of a non-hierarchical approach to business structure, with a few practical tools in the back.
Also, because this was published in 1993, it was funny to see all his references to faxing things. Mentally substitute “email” for “fax” and it’s all still relevant.
Also, because this was published in 1993, it was funny to see all his references to faxing things. Mentally substitute “email” for “fax” and it’s all still relevant.
February 10, 2014
An easy to read book, with good examples on what determined a business man to change his company, to make it a democratic workplace and the impact that had on the business overall. I liked the informal writing style and the small stories about employees.
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