Ricardo Semler
Ricardo Semler
Ricardo Semleris the CEO and majority owner of Semco Partners, a Brazilian company best known for its radical form of industrial democracy and corporate re-engineering. Under his ownership, revenue has grown from 4 million US dollars in 1982 to 212 million US dollars in 2003 and his innovative business management policies have attracted widespread interest around the world. Time featured him among its Global 100 young leaders profile series published in 1994 while the World Economic Forum also nominated him...
NationalityBrazilian
ProfessionBusinessman
CountryBrazil
I once worked it out - after $12 million, all millionaires are the same. That's because we're all humans, confined to human scale. How many homes can you live in? How many meals can you eat? You can have a living room the size of a cathedral, but you won't live in it. It's too big.
In life, we do not give employees enough leeway. If you look around Semco's office, there are plenty of empty desks. The question is - where are these people? I do not have the slightest idea, but I am not interested.
One of the things that is very silly - and I hear from educators all the time - is that schools essentially teach kids to learn. They don't need school for that. Learning is what they do best.
The purpose of work is to make the worker - whether a working stiff or a CEO - feel good about life.
If you look at any kind of modern organization and you think -- what are the foremost tools of power? You will find that it is information.
I am not interested in...making sure that you (the employee) are here, that you are giving us so many hours a day. We need people who will deliver a final result.
We have absolute trust in our employees. In fact, we are partners with them.
There are companies which are prepared to change the way they work. They realize that nothing can be based on what used to be, that there is a better way. But, 99 percent of companies are not ready, [they are] caught in an industrial Jurassic Park.
Only two things grow for the sake of growth: businesses and tumors.
The key to getting work done on time is to stop wearing a watch.
The best way to invest corporate profits is to give them to the employees.
Bill Gore from Goretex was a very strong influence because he was one of the first larger companies to experiment with freedom in the workplace.
I once worked it out - after $12 million, all millionaires are the same. That's because we're all humans, confined to human scale. How many homes can you live in? How many meals can you eat? You can have a living room the size of a cathedral, but you won't live in it. It's too big.
No-one works for money alone and tapping into what people want from their careers and what they have to offer is essential.