Maverick, a book reivew
Mathieu | 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).
