Product Description

This is the international bestseller that tells how Semler tore up the rule books - and defied inflation running at up to 900 per cent per year! Workers make decisions previously made by their bosses. Managerial staff set their own salaries and bonuses. Everyone has access to the company books. No formality - a minimum of meetings, memos and approvals. Internal walls are torn down. Shopfloor workers set their own productivity targets and schedules. Result - Semco is one of Latin America's fastest-growing companies, acknowledged to be the best in Brazil to work for, and with a waiting list of thousands of applicants waiting to join it. Learn Ricardo's secrets and let some of the Semco magic rub off on you and your company.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12239 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 332 pages

Review
'The way that Ricardo Semler runs his company is impossible; except that it works, and works splendidly for everyone. I relish this book. It revived my faith in human beings and my hope for business everywhere' Charles Handy

The Times
‘Semco takes workplace democracy to previously unimagined frontiers’

About the Author
Ricardo Semler took over his father's company, Semco (founded in 1954), at the age of 19. Not only did he turn the company round, he made it an outstanding success. On the brink of bankruptcy in 1980, Semco achieved revenues of $34 million in 1993 - and $160 million in 2000. Semler threw out the rule book: for example, workers make their own decisions; every corporate decision is put to the vote; people turn up to the meetings they want to be at. It sounds insane: but it works.

Customer Reviews

Best management practice now made easy!
As a management consultant I found this book very useful indeed - much of it is directly applicable to shop-floor and pressure-politics situations - the 20-page cartoon "rulebook" at the end is more than worth the price of the book itself - buy it! And if you have the courage, apply what it says, too: It's been known for some time that organizations are designed according to "command and control" principles that very poorly match how humans are really built to behave. More complex self-ordering behavior is always observed when any lack of hierarchy exists, and the hierarchies that do emerge tend to be more effective than those that were designed by managers with experience in previous eras. Semler just chose to trust it more than, say, Tom Peters. Prof. Nicholson, head of London Business School recently wrote (in the Harvard Business Review) that Semler's model was the only one to really respect "stone age nature" of human behavior (the many insights from evolutionary psychology that tell us that we're far more often feeling our way through decisions than thinking our way through).

Semlers assessment of Human Resource Management (HRM) practice is truly radical but built on a foundation of good management practice and a healthy dose of common sense. HRM managers and departments confuse traditional and successful hierarchies and should be the first thing to be axed if any organisation is serious about survival in the 21st Century.

Excellent book and guide, highly practical and an enjoyable read.

Fantastic
I love this book. It doesn't read read like a business book at all but is more like a fascinating biography. I would recommend it to anyone not just people with an interest in business. I am slightly embarrassed to admit that I've probably bought around 50 copies of this book (over the years) for friends and colleagues.

Wonderful you must read it.

Inspiring!
I've read a lot of success story business books - many of them are full of motivational phrases which mean very little; many of them are badly written (just because someone is successful in business doesn't make them a great writer!).

This book is different. You can really feel the author's vision through his writing. As well as talking about his philosophy he gives concrete examples of how he implemented his ideas. Also, he tells us all his mistakes and how he learnt from them. I found this inspiring as I've realised you don't have to be perfect from the start to create something amazing.

You must read this!