Seven-Day Weekend

The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works. Ricardo Semler. Portfolio, 2004

A successful corporate adoption of the participatory model? the SEMCO case

In the book,The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works, CEO Ricardo Semler explains the counter-intuitive m measures he took to make his company succesful, by relying on the self-organisation skills of his workers. A paradoxical top-down implementation of the hacker culture:

• Give up control (e.g., no organization charts, dress code, fixed offices or policies; complete flex-time for all workers, including those on assembly lines).

• Share information (e.g., make all salaries public and invite everyone to attend board meetings; Semler even shares profit calculations with customers).

• Encourage self-management (i.e., force people to think independently, question everything, and solve their own problems; manage by doing nothing yourself when problems arise).

• Discourage uniformity (e.g., rotate jobs, allow extreme flexibility in work and pay).

(source: from the review: the seven day weekend)