Book Review - Maverick: Ricardo Semler

Can you imagine a company where the employees decide their own salaries, the timings they would come and leave the workplace, how the surroundings around them should look like!!? Well, if whatever Ricardo Semler claims in his book "Maverick" is true, "SEMCO" in Brazil would be the only company in the world where the things said above do happen!

Ricardo Semler took over the reigns of "SEMCO" from his father. Till then, SEMCO was just another old fashioned manufacturing company with strict shift times, cribbing workers, etc. Handing over the papers to Ricardo, Semler Sr. said, "Do whatever you want as long as I'm alive to correct your mistakes" But Ricardo had his own ways of doing things that made sure that his father won't have anything to complain about in the first place and even if there was, he (father) won't be able to do much!

After stabilizing the company through the turbulent periods of change of management, Ricardo started acquiring companies to enhance business. I won't go into the details of how he went on to acquire companies or the timelines but I would surely like to share the philosophy behind this world's most unusual workplace.

The premise that Ricardo runs his company on is that "All the people working are adults and they know what needs to be done. It's no use policing them and having strict rules about what to do and what not to. If the employees are satisfied with work they are doing, a lot of problems won't arise in the first place." Ricardo proclaims that the policy of his company is not to have policy at all!

Some of the interesting initiatives that were implemented at SEMCO are:

• When recruiting a new team member, he / she would be interviewed by the team with whom he / she is going to work. That way, the team members would find out if they would be happy working with the new member.

• For some days, the company had started an initiative where everybody had to put a tag on the peg named after the employee. If someone is in a really bad mood at the start of the day, he/she would put a red tag at the entrance, "Stay away from me!" If someone is in OKish mood, he/she would put a yellow tag, "It's just another day for me..." and if someone is in really good mood, he/she would put a green tag, "What a wonderful day this is!" This initiative gave a clear indication to the management whether the employees are happy coming to work. But I believe it served another bigger purpose: to identify emotions to a certain extent. To control an emotion one needs to identify it first! I think, most of the employees would have certainly spared a few moments wondering why they feel what they feel.
  
  

• Headline Memo: Earlier, shelves after shelves were filled with documents and memos. It was tedious to maintain and find the required document from the piles. Ricardo used a simple criterion to get rid of the excess documents, "What worst can happen if I throw this piece of paper?" and he could manage to reduce his 6 cupboards full inventory of documents to just 3 shelves! Similarly, employees used to write pages for a simple memo. Ricardo suggested an effective way. He asked the employees to write the memo just like reporters write the news. They manage to catch the attraction of the reader and deliver important information through the Headline. The headline memo concept was used throughout the company. It reduced the documentation drastically and still, managed to convey the important information effectively.

• As stated earlier, Semler believed in employees being mature. He asked the employees to decide how much salary they'd need. It's hard to believe but employees did really rate themselves appropriately and asked for the salaries they really deserved. Some even asked for a less salary that they were getting!... And believe me, the company is still running.

• In spite of the fact that SEMCO is a manufacturing company and has to work in Shifts, the workers decided themselves when they would come to the plant. They were keen to adjust the timings of other shifts and schedule according to the business requirement.

• Workers coloured the walls of the surroundings the way they wanted. Some grew plants between adjacent cubicles.

• And last but not the least, Semler scrapped the age – old hierarchy of CEO – Middle Managers – workers. Instead, he proposed a new systems of 3 concentric Circles wherein the innermost circle is that of Partners, the middle one being Coordinators and the outermost being the Associates. Any associate could move into the inner circles of respective departments. This way every employee has an opportunity to move around in the company.

Ricardo has also pondered upon the growth of the company and "How big is big enough?"

These are just some of the astonishing things. The whole book is filled up with such out – of – the – world initiatives. It's really hard to believe that a company can survive with such processes (in fact, no processes!) and with adverse government policies, let alone prospering. But today the company is making exceptional progress!

One important thing: SEMCO has a total count of 3000 – 4000. So I think, it is manageable to implement the initiatives effectively in a small company and difficult to implement in big companies like ours. Also, it needs maturity and commitment of the employees to appreciate such initiatives. But then, as the clichéd saying goes, "Where there is a will…There is a way!"

~~
Varun Nagpal,
Corporate Study Circle,
IMERT, Pune