The Seven-Day Weekend - Ricardo Semler - Book Review

When I picked this book from a friend's collection - I thought it was material along the lines of time management. The cover specifics were not very enlightening ! :) I was surprised by the atypical model of management that I ended up reading about ! :) 
 
The main underpinning of this book is employee democracy ( democrazy ?? :) ) in all areas of company management. The ensuing chaos may seem like a recipe for disaster but it is hard to argue with numbers - the Semco company is supposed to have grown from $35 million revenue to $212 million revenue in 6 years .... with virtually no employee turnover.

The conviction the author advocates is that of relinquishing control ... and inherently trusting the employees to behave like adults and not kids requiring supervision. He believes that peer control is effective for both reporting and auditing purposes.

Consider some of the company practices -

• Company plans

The company has no vision statement, no 5 or 10 year business plans , no mission statement or corporate strategy. Plans are only made for 6 months in advance !

• HR / Organization structure / Motivation

The company has no HR and the organization structure is flat. They have no fixed CEO ( at the time of writing the book ! ) and no standard practices either.

The author believes that an employee who puts himself first will be motivated to perform !! And that it is due to a non-alignment of corporate interests vs personal interests that too many companies end up spending too much time trying to motivate its folks.

• Attending meetings are optional

Now this may not sound very unusual - but considering the amount of importance a show of hands by workers has towards - opening a new service, product, vetoing a deal, closing of a factory unit, hiring of new people for a particular function - it assumes considerable importance.

Say not one person turns up for a meeting to discuss a new type of product for the market it is a clear indication that the employees do not consider this important and perhaps this product is not required at all. Same logic extends to everything. Even the CEO is not immune to empty meetings towards any of his ideas ! :)

• Salaries

People decide their own pay packets and everyone knows what others are paid ( Ha ha ha - can you imagine the furore this would cause ??? :) ).

People can opt to work less ( phases in life - pregnancy, part time study etc ) and can move some of their work to other people interested in working and earning more. The people who work less thus choose a lower pay packet accordingly.

Individuals can take 3 yrs off for a sabbatical with some help from financial packages ( they should invest towards the same while working obviously ! :) ).

• No time constraints

People decide when they come and what they do and this extends even to assembly line workers. These groups decide amongst themselves when to come and hence are better able to monitor themselves and manage themselves ... it is no longer a management vs workers problem !

The author believes that forcing workers to work standard hours may mean losing employee potential on a daily basis. This kind of flexi-timings allows people to make family the first priority and schedule work around it.  ( And in Brazil - schedule work around the football matches ! :) )
 

• Choosing their niche

People can move around in the company to find their niche. Trainees for the first one year are not assigned to any unit - they are exposed to various groups and responsibilities. Workers follow their interests and instincts when choosing jobs or projects.

•  No information hoarding

Board meetings are open to all employees - people can sign for them in advance on a first come and first serve basis and the agenda is made available so persons can prepare themselves. Whoever attends is expected to actively participate and vote responsibly.

 The company books are opened to all employees and all unions. To ensure workers understand what exactly is happening - not only classes are provided - the budget is also presented in simplified format where relevant.


Sounds like Utopia ? :) Some of the things mentioned in the book are not new - 360 reviews, profit sharing plans but the underlying collective consensus approach is perhaps what makes the difference.

All in all - an easy and interesting read. And if executed ...... new vistas ...... :)))

Do you identify with .... Treasured Emptiness ?

Sometimes .... this feeling settles down on me .... "Is this it ??"

Although it may seem that nothing but depression can trigger this ... it is not true .... it can happen subsequent to euphoria; post some cherished accomplishment or when I look at a brilliant sunset too ( sorry to all those nature lovers who believe sunsets are always inspirational ! :) ).

I am confused when I find that this mental frame is not chased away by one's regular daily activities, music, movies, books , shopping ( :) ) , browsing, twitter ( :) ) etc

This is different .... it does not intrude in the normal course of life's events ... what it does is, give a spectator perspective .... it is a part of every activity and yet a bystander ... a strange dichotomy of being ....

It is not sadness, happiness, not anger , not futility, not animation or sentimentality ...... and it dawns on me ( sometimes after a week or so !!!! ) ... it is nothing ...... a very special barrenness .....

A strange emptiness ; an emptiness that resounds with silence .... a thing of desolate beauty .... an emptiness where thoughts are intruders .......

Vedanta Treatise - The Eternities by Swami Parthasarathy - Book Review

I bought this book quite some time back but each time I picked it up to read, I felt I was not mentally prepared for its tenets :) But now after reading it ......to say it is inspirational and profound sounds very tame !! It is much beyond that.

First of all - don't read this book unless you are ready to have your religious , spiritual beliefs questioned ! :) The author calls a spade a space and how ! :)) Secondly it starts dry - more like a textbook - and includes examples with logic, maths, poems , stories etc.

Some insights in the book -

• Vedanta - The author says that Vedanta is to be approached like a science. Vedanta elucidates truth in an analytical manner akin to how math theorems are approached. Its truth is its authority and needs no person to give it credence. It belongs to everybody and in fact needs organized study just like a professional course.

• God - The author claims that God is a concept like the unknown quantity in an algebraic equation. One needs to resolve the equation to get to the real value !! Also compares God to fuel in a vehicle ; says while the vehicle cannot move without the fuel - still the vehicle holds responsibility for where it travels and hence the responsibility of our lives lies with us !

• Religion -  The soul of religion has been killed and people are clinging on to the remains ! A most sagacious statement and so true ! Today - religion seems to mere following of rote conventions / meaningless rites / forced thoughts / inflexible beliefs without any value or emphasis being given to contemplation and reflection on any spiritual maxims or discourses.  Religious education seems to have become an acceptance and compliance of past thoughts and actions. Says thinking is a skilled activity !! :) Most consider it a natural ability !

• Who are you ? - We do not know who we are because when in dreams we think we are the person in the dreams and it is very real to us , just as the person we become when we wake up is very real to us too !!!!

• Bhagvad Gita - Says it is ironical that while the Gita is a actually a book that is a kindle towards action ( after all it galvanized Arjuna to fight !! ) most people in India seem to consider it as a retirement activity and is only for the elderly !!

• Renunciation - Renunciation does not mean abstaining from your essential duties. In fact it means that you should perform your duties and yet be a detached witness to all that happens in your life. True renunciation means you should be able to life life even enjoy life and yet know it is but transient and momentary.

• Meditation - The author's views on meditation was startling and perhaps contentious too !!! Meditation is the last step of religious procedure and not the first. Says a mind full of desires is an agitating mind and cannot truly meditate. Something like bags of stones weighting a bird down - it just cannot soar. With all the hype surrounding meditation and the blithe assumption that meditation is the first thing to do when needing to be calm - this confounded me !!

The main goal in any-one's life should be self-realization. The world dissolves on attaining this !

Would you hire someone smarter than you ? :))

One of the oft repeated mantras in management lore that I come across is hiring/surrounding yourself with people smarter than you. My personal experience in this has been somewhat ambivalent and inconclusive.

I have had people with me who climbed the corporate ladder faster than me plus there are others who are languishing more or less where they were when I left. :) I cannot claim to have made any conscious decisions towards encircling myself with brighter people than me.

 So ....... let us look at others .....

When I was a relative junior in the organization a valid query from me regarding Database design along with a viable solution was rejected by a senior person ....  I was puzzled by it at that time but came to the conclusion that there must be a very valid reason for the dismissal of my inputs.  It made the code a little messier in my opinion so I could not help wondering why that individual did not see it fit to tell me the reason. ( And yes I did ask in person too !! :)) Since when have I stopped asking questions ? :)) )

Contrast this to another boss who was also high up in the corporate hierarchy but always found time to answer my queries (plus that of my team mates ); especially those insights gained through experience. We were exposed to quick bytes of wisdom ( and justified rebukes too ! :) ) through out the working relationship. This person collaborated with people who were technically more brilliant and yet did not feel intimidated nor were the inexperienced people in the group treated in a cavalier way for the many "dumb" questions.

Needless to say - working for the second person was much more fun and there was hardly anyone who found it difficult to go the extra mile when deadlines loomed !! :)

So my musing is this - Exactly what kind of person can hire other people around him/her who are more sharp, talented and clever than himself / herself ?  Someone --

• who is articulate ? ( May be my boss could not tell me why my design was wrong ! It is one thing to know and another to explain ! )
• who is secure ? Security not based on position / title alone. ( Think of the number of  CEOs sacked so unceremoniously ?? ;) ).
• who enjoys learning
• who knows he/she is employable ( even if the recession bites ! )
• And someone who is office-politics-savvy if he/she is gunning for that promotion while being surrounded by exceptional people and actually wants to keep them happy too !!!! :))