Maverick!

Maverick: A lone dissenter, as an intellectual, an artist, or a politician, who takes an independent stand apart from his or her associates.

True to its name, the latest read by Ricardo Semler , owner of famous Brazilian company called SEMCO is a delight to read for all people in workforce...at least it was very true for me. I remember my MBA colleague Dipankar mentioning it while doing module on Leadership but somehow did not read it then. The book is about the story of SEMCO and how the changes were made to it under the leadership of Ricardo and all of associates, controllers, partners and counsellors in the company to transform it into something UNUSUAL...where it was difficult for outsiders to comprehend how the company works.

List of some UNUSUAL things:

* Associates( thats what workers are called in SEMCO) decide their working hours

* The Financial report is shared from the top to the sweepers in the company and efforts are put in to make all understand the same.

* The subordinates decide if the boss is fit to lead them. Boss has to prove his worth to lead the team.

* All memo/reports in the company are limited to 1 pager ( No exceptions)

* In case of relocation- all employees have a say in where to shift plant and all visit the final 3 shortlisted places after which decision is made.

* Employees fix their own salary

* Does not have a quality control unit in its plants

* No organizational chart

* Has a 3 layered circular structure of management instead of pyramid

* Though internally company has 4 ranks only ( Associates, Controllers,Partners and Counsellors), it allows people to publish on their business cards what they feel like.

It tries to question the usual corporate norms and ways of running an organization prevalent in the modern world without much change over a century and more. The ideas thought of and implemented are just unbelievable.

It felt after reading , if you give the power to the mass instead of concentrating it in few individuals...you will be surprised by the impact it brings in for the company. Richardo has tried to do it in SEMCO. Innovation, productivity improvement, creative thinking all would be taken care of by themselves. The same is not limited to manufacturing companies.The ideas can be very well applied in other industries.

Here Richadro's video speech in MIT in 2005:

More reviews here.

Link to video on You tube on SEMCO.