Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace BY RICARDO SEMLER While many bosses are control freaks, Semler might be the first autonomy freak. He transformed the Brazilian manufacturing firm Semco through a series of radical steps. He canned most executives, eliminated job titles, let the company’s three thousand employees set their own hours, gave everyone a vote in big decisions, and even let some workers determine their own salaries. The result: Under Semler’s (non)command, Semco has grown 20 percent a year for the past two decades. This book, along with Semler’s more recent The Seven-Day Weekend, shows how to put his iconoclastic and effective philosophy into action. Type I Insight: I want everyone at Semco to be self-sufficient. The company is organized—well, maybe that’s not quite the right word for us—not to depend
too much on any individual, especially me. I take it as a point of pride that twice on my return from long trips my office had been moved—and each time it got smaller.”
