Ricardo Semler inherited his father’s business, which was run, like most of the companies, in an autocratic way. There was a rule for every contingency, layers of management, and not to mention employee’s disdain. But Semler changed it all as narrated in his book – ‘Maverick, The success story behind the world’s most unusual workplace’. It is fast-paced, motivating and thought-provoking. I just couldn’t keep the book down. I kept reading through day and night, stopping now and then to assimilate whatever I had read. I am still going through whatever I read to see how I could implement this wonderful philosophy. He says this could be implemented at any level, though change from the top would be favorable.

His revolution was to have complete employee participation in running the business – be it promotion, acquisition, profit-sharing or just about the color of wall next to an employee. The company is composed of self-managing teams, for there is no hierarchy in his firm. The balance sheet of the firm is publicly available and discussed, so even the lowermost employee knows how much profit is made. And the teams evaluate their bosses. End result of all this is, there is lot of trust between employees and employer, high productivity and every party reap the benefit. What a wonderful world to live in!

He doesn’t only paint a rosy picture, he also describes the hurdles he faced in implementing this system. But I am sure his satisfaction compensates for all the pain that he underwent.