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Ricardo Semler

Round Pyramid, or Rounding the Pyramid

In the Workplace

Used by Ricardo Semler in Maverick to describe the circular hierarchy created at Semco in Brazil. (Chapter 24, “Rounding the Pyramid,” pp. 187-196.)

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Work, Not Business

Quotations

This is not a business book. It is a book about work, and how it can be changed for the better. Ricardo Semler in Maverick, 1993, in a statement following the acknowledgements. Maverick was originally published in Portuguese as Turning the Tables in 1988.

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Democracy Is a Lot of Work

Quotations

Democracy is a lot of work, I kept telling myself and anyone else who would listen. It needs to be exercised with conviction and without subterfuge or exception. And it begins with the little things, like neckties, time clocks, parking spaces, and petroleum blue uniforms. Ricardo Semler in Maverick, 1993, p. 136. Maverick was originally published [...]

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Full Disclosure

Quotations

No one can expect the spirit of involvement and partnership to flourish without an abundance of information available even to the most humble employee. I know all the arguments against a policy of full disclosure. … But the advantages of openness and truthfulness far outweigh the disadvantages. And a company that doesn’t share information when [...]

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Maverick by Ricardo Semler

Worth Reading

This is a wonderful little book by the CEO of Semco, a corporation in Brazil. His father started the company and in 1980s passed it along to his rather young son who built a new kind of corporation using “open management” and advocating a “natural” and “democratic” workplace for “industrial citizens.” In 1984, Semco acquired [...]

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Semco, São Paulo, Brazil

In the Workplace

Throughout Maverick, Ricardo Semler’s book on the development of his corporation Semco, he expresses and implements ideas that are hauntingly similar to those of Gerard Endenburg. Semler calls his method “open management” and refers to democracy for workers. He never mentions Endenburg’s “sociocratic-circle-organization.” What was the connection between the ideas of Semler and Endenburg? Between [...]

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