An iconoclast's ideas for redefining management

Command-and-control executives were lionized in the '90s boom for prodding their employees to ever greater productivity and pushing their companies' sales and earnings higher -- quarter over quarter, year over year.

So it's not surprising a business iconoclast would pop up in the aftermath of that go-go era to argue such a management approach is harmful to a company's equilibrium, not to mention the weekends of its employees. That iconoclast is Ricardo Semler, the majority stockholder and longtime chief of the Brazilian conglomerate Semco SA, who is currently a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

In a new book, titled ''The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works," Semler delights in contradicting every conventional managerial and workplace notion of the traditional corporation. He contends managers should abandon mission statements, seek only modest profit increases, and avoid growth for its own sake.

And for good measure, Semler says, leaders should turn over responsibility for running businesses to their employees, and let them set their own schedules, choose their own compensation, pick their own bosses, and work wherever is most convenient.

Semler also believes the benefits of continuous change, a currently popular management mantra, are vastly exaggerated.

''Change adds fuel to the bonfire of anxiety," he wrote, noting that the design of automobiles and jet aircraft has changed relatively little in the past half century. ''It accentuates the desire for stability and drives an organization toward traditional patterns of behavior -- i.e., command and control -- that creates a paralyzing culture clash."

Semler acknowledged that Semco, a privately controlled Sao Paulo company, is insulated from the pressure for financial returns that falls on the shoulders of executives at publicly traded corporations. His company, which builds pumps for offshore oil drilling and mixers for aspirin, chocolate, and rocket fuel, and provides real estate, outsourcing, and other professional services, is one of the 300 largest companies in Brazil, with 3,100 employees and over $200 million in annual sales.

Semco has rotating chief executives, no organizational chart or five-year plan, no human resources department, and very little turnover. Managers are hired not only by their supervisors but also by their subordinates, and salaries are set in a ''transparent" process that weighs internal pay scales against the financial resources of the company and what other companies pay for the same task. ''We know these factors, and we share them with employees," Semler explained in an interview.

Within the field of organizational transformation, Semler is known for his emphasis on trusting employees and hiring the right people, said Joseph Weintraub, professor of management and organizational behavior at Babson College in Wellesley. Weintraub said some of Semler's ideas, such as flexible time and employee input in hiring supervisors, have been adopted by a number of companies.

''The setting of salaries is a little different," Weintraub said. ''It's hard for us to be objective about salaries. We always want more."

Semler, who graduated from Harvard Business School in 1986, said many executives and business researchers have studied Semco's practices, though few companies, in Brazil or elsewhere, have embraced them wholesale. ''Some of the things we do, people say, 'They're crazy,' " he conceded. ''I say what these other companies do is crazy."

In particular, he is critical of executives who drive their companies with a single-minded focus on quarterly earnings increases. ''Companies are cutting costs, and the markets are getting more difficult, so they decide to do the military thing," he said. ''That has resulted in people getting so alienated that they become nine-to-fivers."

Semler said he doesn't care where or what hours employees work, so long as they meet their goals. ''They exchange visual control for 'I have to sell 512 widgets a month,' " he said. ''We're terribly strict about these numbers, because we're terribly lax about everything else."

Could they sell 600 widgets a month if they didn't take off a morning to play golf? ''Maybe," Semler admitted. ''But would it be sustainable? Maybe playing golf gives you a business relationship."

Robert Weisman can be reached at weisman@globe.com.