Maverick Quotes

“Ou seja, total capitulação da empresa à força da greve. A empresa começa com cara de Rambo e termina com jeitinho de Clodovil.”
― Ricardo Semler, Virando a própria mesa

“Over the next three or four months we simply collected all our procedures manuals…People would ask us from time to time when the new manuals would be ready. Eventually, some began to suspect that an update wasn’t going to appear and asked us why. Only then did we say aloud what we had been thinking: that we were trading written rules for common sense. And that is the system we have today, which is barely a system at all.”
― Ricardo Semler, Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace

“We could write a completely new manual incorporating all our new policies and spelling out the emerging philosophy behind them. Or we could do away with the old manual and not just replace it. That way we would force people to make decisions based on common sense…We tried to write new rules. We really did. But at every turn we found ourselves wading into a swamp of minutiae.”
― Ricardo Semler, Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace

“Fernando was gone, but his tough-guy philosophy was alive if endangered.

“You’ve taken away my powers,” supervisors would complain when they bumped into me in halls. “i can’t even tell if my people are arriving on time.” Or: “How do you expect me to meet this month’s sales goal when I don’t have control anymore?”

They would tell me they were confused. They wanted me to explain Semco’s policy. I kept thinking that was what was wrong. There was too much policy at Semco, and not enough thought, judgement, and common sense. But I understood why our managers were scared.”
― Ricardo Semler, Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace

“But sometimes the committee members complained that in our effort to be equitable we dragged out the process, talking too much, agonizing too long, and increasing the pain. Perhaps that was the unavoidable price for corporate democracy.”
― Ricardo Semler, Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace