Replying to the John Constantine
Having read the book by Ricardo Semler, Maverick I keep on asking the
question: Is what he says in the last two paragraphs of the book not what
we are talking about:
"Semco is more than novel programmes or procedures. What is important is
our open-mindedness, our trust in our employees and distrust of dogma. We
are neither socialist nore purely capitalist, but we take the best of
these failed systme and others to re- organize work so that collective
thinking does not overpower individualistic flights of grandeur; th;t
leadership does not get lost in and endless search for consensus; that
people are free to work as they like, when they like; that bosses don't
have to be parents and workers don't act like children. At the heart of
our bold experiment is a truth so simple it would be silly if it wasn't so
rarely recongnized: A company should trust its destiny to its employees.
No, Semco isn't a model, with programmes to be followed with precision, so
many recipes for participation, productivity, and profits. Semco is an
invitation. I hope our story will cause other companies to reconsider
themselves, and their employees. To forget socialism, capitalism,
just-in-time deliveries, salary surveys, and the rest of it, and to
concentrate on building organizations that accomplish that most difficult
of all challenges: to make people look forward to coming to work in the
morning".
Looking at the results at Semco, I believe we can take a page out of his
book and use it when we talk about "unlearning".
Regards,
Floris G. Visser.
Floris G. Visser Ph : +27+02281+41221
Senior Lecturer Fax : +27+02281+43824
Department of Management Sciences E-mail : fgv@ma2.sun.ac.za
Faculty of Military Science
Stellenbosch University
Saldanha 7395
South Africa
--"Floris Visser" <FGV@ma2.sun.ac.za>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>