Ricardo Semler: A Trickster, a Maverick
How Ricardo Semler Successfully Turned Around SEMCO’s Business Upside Down
The following is a section from my book, ‘Philosophy for Business Leaders: Asking Questions, Navigating Uncertainty, and the Quest for Meaning.
It’s available in paperback and Kindle editions. You can grab your copy today at the following link.
Ricardo Semler frequently clashed with his father, Antonio Semler, over the direction SEMCO should pursue to stay afloat. As the head of the business, Antonio Semler vehemently opposed the diversification strategies Ricardo proposed. However, SEMCO, a Brazilian manufacturing company that originally specialized in shipbuilding, was, in fact, sinking.
In 1980, Antonio Semler finally decided to step down and passed the majority of the company’s ownership to his son, Ricardo. At the age of 21, Ricardo had to step up and pull the struggling company forward. It was an uphill battle worse than that of Sisyphus. The first order of business as soon as he took office? Reduce the firm’s top leadership by 60%.
Ricardo’s experience at the helm of the company was an extremely fruitful learning curve. Under his leadership, SEMCO would eventually increase its annual revenue from $4 million in 1982 to approximately $200 million in 2003. He also grew the company from 90 employees to over 5,000. But it wasn’t always roses and rainbows.
The ride was extremely bumpy. At the age of 25, Ricardo was diagnosed with an acute case of stress that threatened his health and his life. It was his first wake-up call, the catalyst for change, to reexamine his leadership style, his approach to management, and the importance of work-life balance.
Gradually over the years, Ricardo challenged the well-established traditional methods of management in favor of an unorthodox, decentralized, laid-back, employee-first approach. Through a trickster-like attitude, he started examining himself and questioning the assumptions that underpinned traditional management styles. By challenging the norm and established values, Ricardo was viewed with a certain sense of skepticism at first.
He adopted a more transparent tactic with his employees, removing complex hierarchical structures and relying on decentralized and smaller manufacturing units. He cut down unnecessary bureaucracy, shared the company’s budget and balance sheets with employees, allowed them to work from anywhere they wanted, choose their working schedules, and determine their salaries and benefits. Unit managers and leaders were chosen by employees and were evaluated by them every six months. Employees were encouraged to pursue a work-life balance, seek innovation within the company, and explore their own interests outside the organization, without being constrained by rules and regulations. Instead, the company adopted a more organic approach that included a bottom-up standard of practice, which the employees helped develop.
In short, as Ricardo himself put it, he treated employees as adults capable of making decisions that contributed to the common good of the firm. He let them in on the decision-making process, ensured they were well-informed about the ins and outs of the financials, maintained open channels of communication, and encouraged employees to pursue meaningful work within the company and achieve a work-life balance.
Despite it being a manufacturing business that required a large number of employees to be present, the manufacturing units were able to determine the flow of work that best suited them to keep up with their key performance indicators while maintaining the well-being of the employees.
By adopting a trickster-like attitude, infused with a reflective and philosophical mindset, Ricardo Semler managed to challenge deeply-rooted beliefs about leadership and management styles, succeeding eventually in creating a productive, well-functioning, employee-friendly company underscored by a bottom-up, self-organizing dynamic.
Ricardo writes about his experiment in an interesting book called “Maverick!: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace.” Over the years, Ricardo gradually reduced his involvement in the business and focused on other activities, like establishing a new educational methodology called LUMIAR that aims to transform the traditional educational model. It proposes a new way of approaching education, empowering students, and making their learning journey more meaningful and practical, echoing a Socratic-like approach.
But self-awareness, the Socratic method, and keeping our ego in check would be insufficient if we were not willing to shift our perspectives and see the problems we are facing from different angles.
In the following chapter, we will explore the importance of shifting our perspectives and examine the difference between the desire to win arguments vs. the need to solve problems.
About the Author
Mahmoud Rasmi is an independent writer, researcher, lecturer, and consultant. Over the past few years, he has been teaching philosophy to professionals and philosophy enthusiasts in a non-academic setting. He spent seven years as a university professor before he decided to venture into bringing philosophy back to the marketplace. He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy, and a BBA in Banking and Finance.
You can connect with me on:
https://mahmoudrasmi.com
Cover design by Studio Anthony Smyrski.
Paperback ISBN: 978–84–09–55950–3
Kindle ISBN: 978–84–09–56068–4