|
|
Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace (Paperback)
by Ricardo Semler
| Category:
Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Business, Workplace |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 138.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
One of the highest recommendations on translating innovation into business results. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
Detail |
Author |
Description |
Excerpt |
Reviews |
|
|
|
Author: Ricardo Semler
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Pub. in: April, 1995
ISBN: 0446670553
Pages: 352
Measurements: 7.9 x 5.3 x 1 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA01380
Other information: ISBN-13: 978-0446670555
|
|
Rate this product:
|
|
- MSL Picks -
Shortly after Ricardo Semler took over Semco, his family's moribund manufacturing business, employees began referring to him as Dr. Dickie. In the context of a hardened and confrontational union work environment, this nickname signaled the changes that were about to come.
Maverick tells the story of the transformation of Semco into a radical and high performing organization.
Here's a sampling of Dr. Dickie's good ideas...
- Make each business unit small enough so that those involved understand everything that is going on and can influence the outcomes.
- Implement a rounded pyramid organization structure with floating coordinators. Coordinators are the only supervisory level and are all at the same organizational level but different pay rates.
- Demonstrate trust by eliminating symbols of corporate oppression as well as the perks of status.
- Share all information and eliminate secrets. You can't expect involvement to flourish without an abundance of information available to all employees.
- Every six months bosses are evaluated by their subordinates and the results are posted.
- Salaries are public information unless the employee requests that they not be published.
- Allow employees to set their own salary. Consider these criteria: what they think they can make elsewhere; what others with similar skills and responsibilities make in the Company; what friends with similar backgrounds make; how much they need to live on.
- Share 23% of pretax profits. Employees vote how the pool will be split. They must vote to determine the manner of each quarterly distribution. In practice they always vote for equal dollar shares.
- Substitute the survival manual for thick procedure manuals. Eliminate policies and rules wherever possible.
- Job rotation; 20% of managers shift jobs each year.
- Set up workers in their own businesses as suppliers to the company.
- Eliminate the wearing of wristwatches whenever and wherever possible. It is impossible to understand life in all its hugeness and complexity if one is constantly consulting a minute counter.
- Either you can create complex systems so as to manage complexity, or you can simplify everything.
My company used Maverick as assigned reading for a management retreat some years ago. The result was a change of direction that it's hard to imagine would have been arrived at otherwise. Highly recommended for those open to having their organizational paradigms shifted.
(From quoting a guest reviewer, USA)
Target readers:
All managers and entrepreneurs should read this book.
|
|
Customers who bought this product also bought:
 |
Direct from Dell, Strategies That Revolutionized An Industry (Paperback)
by Michael Dell, Catherine Fredman
Why is this book so powerful? It talks about the power of having a dream and following it with all your heart. |
 |
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It (Paperback)
by Michael E. Gerber
From world's #1 small business guru, this entrepreneurship classic and essential business reading is a must own for all entrepreneurs and managers. |
 |
Losing My Virginity: How I've Survived, Had Fun and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way (Paperback)
by Richard Branson
Entertaining and inspirational, this book is the ultimate mentor for those with self-employment dreams. |
 |
Made in America, My Story (Paperback)
by Sam Walton, John Huey
A real classic on entrepreneurship and business building. |
 |
Kick Start Your Dream Business: Getting It Started and Keeping You Going (Paperback)
by Romanus Wolter
Full of passion, practical advice and real examples, this book is an essential reading on starting a new business. |
 |
Forbes® Greatest Business Stories of All Time, 20 Inspiring Tales of Entrepreneurs Who Changed the Way We Live and Do Business (Paperback)
by Daniel Gross
Insightful and inspiring stories of 20 entrepreneurs and how they changed their and our lives. |
 |
The PayPal Wars: Battles With Ebay, the Media, the Mafia, And the Rest of Planet Earth (Paperback)
by Eric M. Jackson
|
 |
My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley (Hardcover)
by Ben Casnocha , Marc Benioff (Foreword)
The story is oriented around Ben's experiences as a teenager trying to deal with the pressures of "business" life, which is personal, educational, and emotionally deep. |
 |
Start Your Own Business (Entrepreneur Magazine's Start Up) (Paperback)
by Rieva Lesonsky
Though not thorough in coverage of every topic, Rieva's book is a complete guide and invaluable resouce for budding entrepreneurs. |
 |
Amazon.com: Get Big Fast (Paperback)
by Robert Spector
|
 |
McDonald's: Behind The Arches (Paperback)
by John F. Love
|
 |
The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison (Paperback)
by Mike Wilson
|
 |
The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything (Hardcover)
by Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki's The Art of the Start is a must-read for anyone who is working in a start-up or thinking of starting a business of any kind. |
|
|
Ricardo Semler's company, Semco, manufactures pumps, high volume dishwashers, cooling units for air conditioners. It does all this in the difficult economic conditions of Brazil.
In his book 'Maverick', Ricardo describes how he took over as chief executive of the company from his father at the beginning of the eighties, when he himself was not yet twenty, straight out of Harvard.
He started out by doing things the traditional way, wielding the corporate axe to cut a failing organization into shape. He ran the company himself, from the top, with tight disciplines and controls. The stress he created was enormous.
Semler himself was being physically destroyed by the workaholic lifestyle he had to adopt. Something had to give. And it did! Semler's sickness forced him to make a dramatic change to his work patterns, more than that, he had to rethink his whole way of managing the business.
Ricardo has been voted Brazil's Leader of the Year and Latin American Businessman of the Year and has served as Vice President of the Federation of Industries of Brazil.
|
|
From Publisher
First published in Brazil in 1988 as Turning the Tables , this book was the all-time best-selling nonfiction book in Brazil's history. Semler, the 34-year-old CEO, or "counselor," of Semco, a Brazilian manufacturing firm, describes how he turned his successful company into a "natural business" in which employees hire and evaluate their bosses, dress however they want, participate in major decisions, and share in 22 percent of the profits. Semler believes that Semco is different from most companies that have participatory management because employees are given the power to make decisions-even ones, with which the CEO wouldn't normally agree. Semler claims, "This is not a business book. It is a book about work, and how it can be changed for the better." Highly recommended.
|
Booklist (MSL quote), USA
<2008-05-08 00:00>
What makes for a successful company? In a sometimes breathless, often boyish manner, Semler, a counselor of a Brazilian company (Semco), relates the transformation of a traditionally structured business into one quite literally without walls and rules. Semler details his not-so-easy steps in the metamorphosis: abolishing dress codes and regulations; decentralizing plants; getting rid of paperwork and titles (hence, his appellation as counselor, not CEO); and creating a consultative democracy in which employees set their own salaries and work hours and vote on managerial candidates, among other responsibilities. If it sounds too much like utopia, Semler admits that Brazil's economic downturn has impacted Semco and that, yes, being born with a silver spoon certainly colors his vision. Nonetheless, his is a philosophy that merits some serious thought by managers and workers alike. Barbara Jacobs |
Graham Lawes (MSL quote), USA
<2008-05-08 00:00>
Maverick, written by Ricardo Semler, is one of the most powerful and inspiring books I've ever read. It takes the idea of participative management to new levels and demonstrates, through the evolution of his company, Semco, that a completely new way of working is possible, a way in which workers decide when and where they work, who gets hired, and how much they get paid. And it gives a vivid account of Semco's story so that we see the way of life and hear the voices of the people who created it.
Clearly, the ideas in the book didn't come out of a vacuum. Semler read and studied widely, building on the ideas of people like Robert Townsend and Peter Drucker. But he has elaborated and improvised on those ideas to create an entirely unique, collaborative work culture at Semco in São Paulo, Brazil, that he has then sustained over a period of 25 years. Astonishing!
Semler inspired me to look at some of his sources like Robert Townsend's 1970 book, "Up the Organization," a similarly contrarian and original creation. Semler shares a kindred spirit with Townsend and his book is just as entertaining, and as concise and full of important ideas about governance and leadership. Townsend calls his style of management "Participative Management" and puts into practice many of the principles from Douglas McGregor's Theory Y (as proposed in his 1960 book, Human Side of Management). But whereas Townsend simply orders his ideas alphabetically, Semler's book is organized chronologically. Each of its thirty six chapters tells a story from the history of Semco, and each contains at least one important lesson. At the end of the book, as if in homage to Townsend, Semler encapsulates all his key ideas in what he calls his ABC's, which includes an alphabetic glossary of management ideas, as well as his ideas for time management and his "Survival Manual," which is given to new hires at Semco and contains just twenty-one cartoons illustrating its governing principles - amplified by just one or two sentences - that constitute Semco's only policy manual or rule book.
Just to give you a flavor of "Maverick", here is the story from one chapter, in which Semco gives up control to energize the workforce.
"By the middle of 1984 we were...ready to buy another company," starts Semler. "Hobart Brazil's Ipiranga plant, near São Paulo, had a long but less than glorious legacy, endured by a weary band of employees, some of whom had invested as many as forty-five years there."
Some months after the acquisition, Fernando Lotamorro, who was Semco's executive in charge of operations, became convinced that the Hobart plant lacked organization, ambition, and controls and insisted that some action should be taken.
As Semler relates, "Clovis [Bojikian] and I discussed it often and, in the end, agreed with Fernando. We were worried about his hard-edged style and lack of experience as a general manager. But Fernando had the aggressive personality that we then believed a successful business required, especially one in a slump."
"Fernando changed everything about the Hobart plant in his first few months...I would soon have cause to wonder whether all this movement was taking it in the right direction. We thought we were more organized, more professional, more disciplined, more efficient. So, we asked ourselves with a shudder, how come our deliveries were constantly late?"
Semler became dissatisfied with the way things were going and says in the book, "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." This story, which is probably centuries-old, seemed to be a catalyst for a deep change in Semler's behavior.
"I was particularly distressed by the malaise that was all too apparent in our factories, both old and new. Workers just didn't seem to care."
Semler decided that he needed to take over Hobart and show that "improved performance and touchie-feelie style were not mutually exclusive." So he fired Fernando and took over the job of running Hobart.
"Every few weeks the Hobart plant's managers would spend a lunch hour talking to the workers, who would gather in the cafeteria, 200 strong, and talk about anything on their minds. No subject was taboo - salaries, profits, new products, hiring and firing policies were all fair game...Everyone could be a cathedral builder."
"The pot soon began to boil and before long the old Hobart plant was unrecognizable...Workers who had for years - even decades - reported to the plant and promptly turned their minds off became full-fledged industrial citizens, making decisions not only about their jobs but also about the products they were making and indeed about their company."
With its new philosophies and policies, Semco had one of the highest growth rates in Brazil and Semco became No. 1 or No. 2 in each of its markets. The Hobart plant became successful with Hobart scales going from 3 percent of the market to 23 percent in three years, despite many strong competitors, but it had to face many crises, and this was just one of the stories and one of the transformations that it underwent.
The concept of participative management and trust in employees is central to Semler's achievement. This is hard work and Semler is critical of other managers who pretend to this philosophy while failing to fully embrace it: "What people call participative management is usually just consultative management. There's nothing new to that. Managers have been consulting employees for centuries. How progressive do you have to be, after all, to ask someone else's opinion?...It's only when the bosses give up the decision making and let their employees govern themselves that the possibility exists for a business jointly managed by workers and executives. And that is true participative management as opposed to merely paying lip service to it."
Semler has not rested on his achievements at Semco, going on to work on environmental issues and founding the Lumiar International School, a progressive school that serves all segments of São Paulo society.
Larry Fisher, writing in the Winter 2005 issue of strategy + business magazine, is respectful, but expresses some skepticism that Semler's ideas would work elsewhere, giving doubting quotes from Warren Bennis and Charles Handy: "I just wish that more people believed him," laments Charles Handy, the British management guru and social philosopher. "Admiring though many are, few have tried to copy him. The way he works - letting his employees choose what they do, where and when they do it, and even how they get paid - is too upside-down for most managers. But it certainly seems to work for Ricardo."
True, the model is idealistic, but it is no easier to apply in Brazil than in America. Robert Townsend, back in the 1960s, made participative management work at Avis - and Dennis Bakke was similarly successful at AES in the 1980s. In fact, it seems to me that there is an inevitable movement towards participative management and democratic practices in the workplace simply because it consistently produces better results than more traditional autocratic styles of management.
Nor should people make the mistake of thinking that participative management is necessarily a worker's paradise, or that the workers at Semco have it easy. This model can only work if it motivates people to perform at very high levels. This happens at Semco because workers have to compete in a global marketplace and there is zero tolerance for low performance. As Semler puts it, "The pressure is greater at Semco because we truly believe in the market. We don't protect anybody from the vicissitudes of the business cycle or the crazy Brazilian economy. This is not for everybody."
Semler is ahead of his time. His ideas are consistent with the needs of the future. Eventually, they will not seem as radical as they do today. (See, for example, Drucker's "Management Challenges for the 21st Century," written in 2001, which argues that management will need to change radically to accommodate changes in society and particularly the aging populations of the world.)
In conclusion, this is a book full of profound lessons about how people can be motivated to work together in an organization and how the productivity that is hidden inside each of us can be unleashed. It reaches both to an organizational level - making us question common business assumptions - and to a deep personal level - making us question whether we are doing enough to create meaning in our work lives. Semler points a way to a better workplace and ultimately a better life. |
Dadi Ingolfsson(MSL quote), USA
<2008-05-08 00:00>
Semler recounts the evolution of his family's company, Semco, from being a paternalistic, strictly hierarchical one, when he takes over the reins from his father, to a company like no other.
The book reads like an autobiography, and it is, but only with the focus on the transformation of Semco and how Semler and his colleagues evolved through it. The reader is escorted through the many gestation periods of Semler's organizational theories. It's an amazing trip that you can hardly believe took place.
Instead of paraphrasing Semler here I want to use a pretty long quote from one of the last pages of the book. There Semler has such a succinct description of his core theories and the way he put them into practice that I feel his words summarize the plot of this book far better than I ever could:
"To survive in modern times, a company must have an organizational structure that accepts change as its basic premise, lets tribal customs thrive, and fosters a power that is derived from respect, not rules. In other words, the successful companies will be the ones that put quality of life first. Do this and the rest - quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all - will follow. At Semco we did away with strictures that dictate the "hows" and created fertile soil for differences. We gave people an opportunity to test, question, and disagree. We let them determine their own futures. We let them come and go as they wanted, work at home if they wished, set their own salaries, choose their own bosses. We let them change their minds and ours, prove us wrong when we are wrong, make us humbler. Such a system relishes change, which is the only antidote to the corporate brainwashing that has consigned giant businesses with brilliant pasts to uncertain futures."
I truly enjoyed every page of this book and I highly recommend it. |
Mohammed Faheem Khan (MSL quote), USA
<2008-05-08 00:00>
This is one of the finest gifts I have ever received in my life, and from one of the finest gentlemen I have known so far!
A wonderful book to read and an insightful journey into the entrepreneurial experience of a man who is not only a good leader but a wonderful human being too - Ricardo Semler. It is really difficult to carry business and personal life on the same track and yet not mix them together. This was exactly what Mr. Semler has done to his business making sure his employees get benefited too.
There are a lot of multinationals working somewhat on the thoughts and ideas of Mr. Semler but no company achieved the status that Semco enjoys. A company where all human values are respected, where workers are not questioned, where there are no set times to enter office, where there are no dress codes, where employees decide there own salaries, where adults are treated like adults and given the respect they deserve - that is what Semco is all about.
There are unions of workers almost in all organizations - and they are in Semco too, but with a difference. The rules set for unions are absolutely humanistic and makes sure that the decisions of Unions are respected too. This we see in action when the union goes on strike. The rules Semco follows are somewhat different from other companies. These are as follows: -
1. Treats everyone as adults 2. Tell the strikers that no one will be punished when they return to work. Then don't punish anyone. 3. Don't keep records of who came to work and who led the walkout. 4. Never call the police or try to break up a picket line. 5. Maintain all benefits. 6. Don't block worker's access to the factory, or the access of union representatives to the workers. But insist that union leaders respect the decision of those who want to work, just as the company respects the decision of those who don't. 7. Don't fire anyone during or after the strike, but make everyone see that a walkout is an act of aggressiveness.
This is just one example - there are a lot of other things, which makes Semco a real Masterpiece. Semco is a smorgasbord that signifies all possible qualities of a successful business with complete humane values incorporated in its decision-making.
I would suggest this book to every senior personnel in any industrial set-up, to every entrepreneur, to every management student, and to all those who love to read real management and successful stories.
This is in deed a great book and I would suggest it as a must read for even those who are not related to business, because it also teaches the humanistic side of any company whatsoever the business conditions are.
A must read for anybody who loves to read.
|
|
|
|
|
