Maverick The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace
Notes
To survive in modern times, a company must have an organizational structure that accepts change as its basic premise, lets tribal customs thrive, and fosters a power that is derived from respect, not rules. In other words, the successful companies will be the ones that put quality of life first. Do this and the rest—quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all—will follow.
ritz replies...
How can anyone ever really be motivated if they donâ??t believe that they are gaining ground in quality of life? Whether itâ??s for a salary, or a cause, or a hobbyâ??itâ??s hard to do your best when you know youâ??re not creating a better life for yourself or your loved ones.
But when cards are held close to the vest, communication will be faulty, and anxieties, misunderstandings, insecurity, and eventually hostility will manifest itself. No amount of “we’re-all-in-this-together-because-we’re-all-one-big-family” sloganeering will compensate.
ritz replies...
I think people with power in an organization often forget that they have to earn the trust of the people constantly. Itâ??s easy to think that your â??positionâ? means something and you should â??get what you deserveâ? without keeping everyone informed. Itâ??s amazing how fast things go downhill.
Nothing is harder work than democracy, I keep telling myself… But I’ll gladly bite my lip when I disagree with a judgment made by consensus, because I believe that unfettered democracy is much more important (and even more profitable in the long run) than prevailing over our managers in a way that takes you back to the days in which seesaws and sandboxes were important parts of the world.
ritz replies...
Unfettered democracy can very easily be seen as â??design by committeeâ? and bring out flashbacks of the torture scene in the movie Hellraiser. But the big difference is letting disagreements happen. Being accepting of disagreement in the group is better than watering down every idea to the point of uselessness. If everyone in your next meeting expects to leave the room happy with the idea, you should probably just call in sick.
I have called our structure new, but it isn’t much different from the organization used 500,000 generations ago when man was a hunter. The person who saw the mammoth first became the Spotter. The one who chased the fastest after the mammoth was the Runner. The one who threw the spear most accurately was the Marksman. Whoever managed to impose himself as the leader was the Chief.
ritz replies...
Today we would have come up with some contrived way to delegate who does what, discipline anyone who does it different, let the Chief take all the credit when winning, and let the Chief blame everyone else when losing. Fail and a half! All we really need to do is get a few smart people who want the same thing together, go do it, and see how it works out. Then do it again and again with a little more awareness, organization, and efficiency each time. Win times ten!
The crucial information is at the top of the page. If you want to know more, read a paragraph or two. But there are no second pages. All our memos, minutes, letters, reports, even market surveys, are restricted to a single page. This has not only reduced unnecessary paperwork, but has also helped us avoid meetings that were often needed to clarify ambiguous memos. Concision is worth the investment. The longer the message, the greater the chance of misinterpretation.
ritz replies...
Itâ??s rarely the need for more information on confusing subjects. Itâ??s the need for clearer and more purposeful information. Taking an extra 15 minutes to rewrite a simple and straightforward email or memo will focus a lot of time and energy on getting what you want done, done.
A company makes, sells, bills, and, God willing, collects. It doesn’t need to know if the taxi ride being claimed by a manager was for business. Or if another manager couldn’t have stayed in a hotel with three stars rather than four stars. With few exceptions, rules and regulations only serve to:
- Divert attention from a company’s objectives.
- Provide a false sense of security for executives.
- Create work for the bean counters.
- Teach men to stone dinosaurs and start fires with sticks.
ritz replies...
There is a huge difference between succeeding and not failing. And Iâ??ve always felt rules were to keep people from failing. Unfortunately, rules also seem to keep you from succeedingâ?Š They force you to do just as much as required and keep you from doing anything more.
How progressive do you have to be, after all, to ask someone else’s opinion? And to listen to that opinion—well, that’s a start. But it’s only when the bosses give up decision making and let their employees govern themselves that the possibility exists for a business jointly managed by workers and executives. And that is true participative management as opposed to merely playing lip service to it.
ritz replies...
Iâ??ve never been comfortable with the idea of a manager being a person who has all the answers and decides how things should be. Wouldnâ??t it be more productive to be the organizer of a team towards a common goal and make sure everyone has what they need to make the best decisions? A good manager shouldnâ??t have to make any decisionsâ??just make sure everyone else can effectively.
Today I’m a big believer in MBWA, or Management by Wandering Around. Popularized at Hewlett-Packard, it simply means taking the time each week to walk around with, as Bob Dylan said, no destination known. You can see how new projects are going, solve some problem in the factory or office, or just chat in the hall with someone you haven’t seen in a long while.
ritz replies...
At first this sounds like wasting time. But thereâ??s a lot to be said for being aware of your surroundings and having the ability to make quick decisions based off that awareness. Thereâ??s a lot research can do, but I donâ??t think it can ever make up for having a good grasp on whatâ??s happening in your world right now.
Few excuses are as convincing as the “we’re just going through a [blank].” Fill in the blank: a switch at the top, restructuring, layoff, expansion. To allow such events to shape one’s workday is to become a mere cork that bobs up and down on the sea.
ritz replies...
Itâ??s amazing how much growth and knowledge can come out of asking, â??We suck hard at this! Why?â? It can be a scary thing to admit to, but itâ??s the best way to get to the root of the problem and deal with it. Donâ??t forget the we. If itâ??s a problem youâ??re involved inâ??you suck, too!
Dan's lists
Reread and Reread and Reread
All the books I feel are worth going back to and reading again at some point. Possibly yearly? Who knows...
Description edit
A Brazilian executive's success story describes how he turned around an aging, stagnant company that defied recession, strikes, and inflation by eliminating nine layers of management and instilling democratic practices. Reprint.
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Additional information
- Pages: 352
- ISBN: 0446670553
- EAN: 9780446670555
- Dewey: 650
- Binding: Paperback
- Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
I estimate that the ratio of useless to relevant reading material is about twenty to one. With that in mind, my advice it to reduce the literary inflow to a maximum of two newspapers a day, two weekly magazines, and two publications in a specialized field. Get off distribution lists. The reward will be an opportunity to engage in that underappreciated occupation, contemplation.
ritz replies...
Itâ??s funny that almost everyone I know is running on nothing or drowning themselves in information. At what point does self-improvement stop paying off? At what point to you start relying more on what you read to make your decisions for you? At what point to you forget how to think for yourself? Orâ?Š At itâ??s worst. At what point do you realize the world has changed while you werenâ??t paying attention at all.