Presentation: Christina Staunton-Burke and Richard Healy

RICARDO SEMLER

New approach to business and company organisation

RICARDO SEMLER

Profile of Ricardo Semler

• Born 1959 in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

• At 21 made CEO of Semco, his father’s a traditionally structured industrial pump manufacturing industry.

• Within five years his “participative management “vision had radically altered the structure and philosophy of this Sao Paulo, Brazil-based company.

• Semco is now 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 hoping to join it.

What is Ricardo Semler’s vision of leadership?

• Employees set their own working hours• Employees choose their own salaries• All meetings are voluntary and open to everyone• Employees hire their own bosses• HR has been abolished, because leaders need to be able

to treat their employees right themselves• All employees rate their bosses twice a year and all ratings

are published• Employees choose which leader they want to work under • Employees choose which Semco office they want to work

out of• Employees can take early retirement, meaning they get

one day a week off in return for working one day a week after they retire.

The Semco philosophy is built on participation and involvement.

Semco doesn’t use a formal organization chart

Employees set their own working hours.

Employees are free to change and adapt their working environment.

Employees feel and at ease to wear just their common sense.

Unacceptable use of authority is not tolerated.

Unions are an important form of worker protection at Semco.

Absence from work because of a strike which representsthe feelings and opinions of Semco employees is acceptable.

Big changes are considered healthy and positive.

Semco employees are encouraged to participate in factory committees.

Employees are encouraged to be very frank and honest when evaluating top bosses.

It is not considered healthy at Semco to reward suggestions with prizes.

A person’s private affairs are considered sacred by Semco.

Thirty day vacations should be taken every year.

What values underpin his vision?

• Participation and involvement• Open communication• High level of trust• Work life balance• Sharing information • Openness and truthfulness • Empowerment• Collaboration • Job satisfaction

Ricardo Semler has vision of faith and hope in the power of his employees to run Semco.HE GETS RESULTS!

She WorksM. Thomas

She works, she works like a trojanAnd she never says nothing, she doesn't get sick, She never makes trouble, she's a really good stick.

All day, she works at the same jobOver and over like a cow in the fieldA pig that's in clover, a capital yield

IT'S a permanent job, it's a permanent strain She's a permanent woman, and it's a permanent pain

And her fingers are feeling quite wretched But she never says nothing, doesn't complain She's alright in the morning, she does it againShe tells you she's happy, she cries on the train

And her boss, he thinks he is SantaHe inquires politely, she says it's alrightIt's hurting so badly but it wouldn't be rightShe can do one more carton 'fore she says goodnight

Problems, she's got great big problemsShe says it's arthritis to the power of tenIt's been in her family since I don't know whenShe tells you it's going but here it comes againOh and the union, she won't join the unionShe thinks she's a martyr, takes it with a smileThe management knows but it's not their styleYou get used to being a cripple after a while

Implications of Semler

• Challenges traditional business structures.

• Perceived as ‘revolutionary’.

Australian Context

• Paid maternity/parental leave:– Concerns about low birth rates.– How will mother’s be supported in staying

home and maintaining career opportunities.– Employer Initiative? Who will fund?– More women may be denied potential

positions/promotions.

The value and conditions of labour.

• “there is general agreement, that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class: for the ancient workingmen's guilds were abolished in the last century, and no other protective organization took their place” #3

• “Wherefore, it is in his power to exercise his choice not only as to matters that regard his present welfare, but also about those which he deems may be for his advantage in time yet to come.” #7

Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII, 1891

Health and Safety?

• Laws need to be stringent. Case of Victorian truck driver death- $130000 fine.

• Costs 34.3 billion a year in Australia (deaths and serious injuries), however, numbers of accidents and injuries have fallen.

• “It is not only good in the sense that it is useful or something to enjoy; it is also good as being something worthy, that is to say, something that corresponds to man's dignity, that expresses this dignity and increases it. If one wishes to define more clearly the ethical meaning of work, it is this truth that one must particularly keep in mind. Work is a good thing for man-a good thing for his humanity-because through work man not only transforms nature, adapting it to his own needs, but he also achieves fulfilment as a human being and indeed, in a sense, becomes "more a human being".” #9

Work and dignity.

Alternatives?

The Lumiar School

• Learner focused

• Challenges traditional models of schooling.

• Encourages student decision making in learning.

• Flexible program.

Eduardo ChavesBusiness Consultant, Lumiar Scool, Brazil

Source: http://lumiarschool.spaces.live.com/

There are two ways of viewing work:

• Work is something you have to do, like it or not, to make money that will allow you not only to sustain yourself but also, and most importantly, do the things you really enjoy doing;

• There are many things you really enjoy doing, and the best way to work is by getting people to pay you to do the things you would do anyway, even without pay.

• There are many things (information, knowledge, values, attitudes, skills, competencies) that you have to learn, like it or not, and the function of the teacher is to present these things to you and (in the case of teachers considered good) to look for ways of motivating you to learn them by trying to make learning them either fun and interesting or otherwise rewarding;

• There are many things that you are interested in doing, and the function of the teacher is to find ways to get you to learn important things (competencies, skills, information, knowledge, values, attitudes) while you are doing the things in which you are interested.

Key focus questions:

• What are the benefits of work?• What risks are there associated with work?• Should employers fund maternity leave or

should the State?• Are safety risks worth capital gain?• What is more preferable, hierarchical structure

or more democratic?• Do we live to work, work in order to live or does

is there are different relationship to consider?

Bibliography

• Banks, Stephanie (2006). “There’s a Market for Protocols”, The Age, Melbourne 15/5/2006.

• Chaves, Eduardo (2008), “Lumiar, An Innovative School”, http://lumiarschool.spaces.live.com/, accessed on 13/4/2010.

• Dodson, Louise (2002). “Why Babies are the PM’s Risky Business”, The Age, Melbourne 2/8/2002.

• Maresco, Peter (2007). “Ricardo Semler: Creating Organizational Change Through Employee Empowered Leadership”, http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical_research/Ricardo_Semler_Creating_Organizational_Change_Through.shtml, accessed on 13/4/2010.

• Leo XIII (1891) “Rerum Novarum”

• John Paul II (1981) “Laborum Exercens”

Find out more about Ricardo Semler:•Semler, Ricardo. Maverick: The Success Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace, 1993, Century: London.

* Permission to use cartoons granted by Miguel Paiva (Appendix D: The Survival Manual p255-271.

•http://www.academicleadership.org/emprical_research/Ricardo_Semler_Or...•http://nrsl.wordpress.com/2005/08/30/maverick-by-ricardo-semler/•http://dpsinfo.com/essays/maverick.hml•http://positivesharing.com/2006/05/book-review-the-seven-day-weekend/

Presentation: Christina Staunton-Burke and Richard Healy 1-5-10

Bibliography