Let me say this first: I am an optimist.

This statement may come as a surprise to those who know me personally (I’m a bit cynical at times), but it’s true. I have faith in all sorts of optimistic ideals and fantasies of the way things should be. And I really believe that there is an alternative path to a happier, healthier life. And this includes the workplace.

Ricardo Semler is a hero of mine. I first encountered his style of business management in an article a few years ago and I immediately got a copy of his book, Maverick! It’s a great read about how he worked with his employees at Semco to transform the way the business was run. They turned the business into a democratic (some have implied communist) system that thrives on participation and openness. It’s a truly glorious thing and it has worked better than anyone ever dreamed.

Many of the seemingly fantastical ideas employed at Semco are the kind of thing the your average business management will either completely write-off as lunacy or perhaps will state “it’s nice in principal, but that could never work here“. Of course, many of the concepts found at Semco are also found at some extraordinarily successful companies (a current well-known example being Google). And Semco is primarily in the business of making things.

While you might believe that “crunchy” things like setting your own hours could only take flight in a “creative” workplace, Semco is in manufacturing, a sector known for pragmatic thinking. When you have to turn out everything from building-sized air conditioners to blenders you need to know that your workforce is going to get the job done. And yet, Semco has not only thrived, they’ve grown and grown.

Mr. Semler is now working to extend his ideas to education and I can say that based on my own experiences I would have loved to go to one of the schools he is working with!

The reason I mention this is that I came across a nice post on Semler at 37signals Signal vs. Noise and I was reminded of how jazzed I was on first reading about Semco. The post is actually a reference to an great post at Bieber Labs, but it also includes links to a couple of video interview with Ricardo Semler which I highly recommend watching.

And now back to dreaming.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 17th, 2008 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Business and Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.