the semco system.

i went to a brekkie meeting a while back to listen to a marketing agency manager and a consultant talk about new forms of leadership. as usual, the bullshit factor was relatively high, but there were interesting ideas thrown in the air. obviously, i was not their target audience and much of the information provided was tangential.

the glorification of original thinkers in economics and business seems to have shifted in focus to journalists, such as malcolm gladwell of new yorker and chris anderson of wired, and leaders of smaller companies outside the us instead of academics and global company ceo's. at the lecture, i was introduced to the phenomenon around ricardo semler, the ceo (chief enzyme officer) of semco sa in brazil. his building idea is that the structure of a company or corporation should and can be challenged in extreme ways while maintaining a profitable business but with increased employee contentment. he questions the plausibility of hierarchy, compulsory meetings, working hours, the corporate ladder, hiring policies and so on, and has applied his insight into his own company with the result of less than 2% employee turnover and around 30% growth per annum.

while he insists there is no semco system when it comes to the organization of his own company as an application to be followed elsewhere, i think the system is apparent: follow instinct and never stop questioning the obvious.

his lecture "leading by omission" can be seen here.