Maverick, a book reivew
Mathieu | Sunday, November 8th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
My best friend (Miles) and his wife (Ruchika, also an awesome friend) hooked me up with a copy of Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace for my birthday.
Miles and I had talked about this company for a few years. He had heard about them and the way they do business, discussed the radical way things are accomplished there so it was nice to read about it in a book written by Ricard Semler, the CEO of the company.
Semler took over Semco from his father when he was 20 years old. Based in Brazil, Semco had prospered under the government’s five year plans that included building up Brazil’s shipping business. Being a supplier of marine parts the company had done very well.
However as the economy sagged and Semler Sr. handed over the reigns to his son, Ricardo went about transforming Semco into a democratically run manufacturing business where workers set their own hours and salary and the office space is redesigned as after as the seasons change (sometimes even more).
Maverick offers a how-to guide to turn your workplace into a shop that puts the decisions right in the hands of the people that it will effect the most. Semler details the different steps he and the company took in order to open up the environment for a healthy relationship between workers and management (they don’t even use those titles, though).
I thoroughly enjoyed the book and it’s a decent length but I would have appreciated another 50 pages in which Semler could have expanded on the set backs, explained some of the obstacles to the changes he wanted to implement a bit more and give some in-depth advice the way he does with his time management tips at the end of Maverick.
What I found particularly fascinating in Maverick is the natural way the company grew into a place where employees hire and evaluate their bosses, dress however they want, participate in major decisions, and share in 22 percent of the profits.
Semler obviously has great business genes but his early hires (for senior positions) were not the ones that really helped the company turn the corner. They were the ones that helped lift Semco from the brink of bankruptcy to a profitable business. It was only when the company was on sure footing was he able to bring in the real change agents.
Important to note, and Semler does in fact, is that he was born into privilege in Brazil. It was much easier for him to turn this company around than it would have been for even the workers to organize and bring about these changes. He recently published another book called the Seven-Day Weekend (smells a bit like Timothy Ferriss’ Four-Hour Workweek) that advocates workers set their own hours, salaries and do away with job titles.
I believe these ideas can work in every company but I do think it would require the leadership of the managers and executives to initiate them. Unlike ideas Dr. Stephen R. Covey discusses in his books that anyone at any level can implement, Semler’s ideas require leaders to take action.
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Nowadays, you must be super creative to have a good business idea that works.:*”
it is easy to get Business ideas, just look for a product or service that has demand and fill it’;: