Maverick: Samba of the Semco Workplace - A Book Review

When we think "Brazil," most of us picture samba, vibrant carnivals, and yellow-clad football legends dancing with the ball. So a book on Semco - a little-known company with an unconventional work culture - feels like the odd man out in Brazil’s colorful parade. But Ricardo Semler’s Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace is here to shake up more than just our perceptions of Brazil; it redefines the workplace itself.

Imagine a company where employees write their own rulebook, no reception desk greets you, and workers decide when, where, and how much they work - all on their terms. Sounds wild? That’s Semco for you. And in Maverick, Semler, the bold chief behind the revolution, gives us a backstage tour of this unique “anything goes” corporate culture.

“A company where traditional corporate dogma was being discarded and unpredictability was a way of life,” Semler writes in Chapter 13, and that one line captures the spirit of Semco. The story begins with Semler taking over his father’s company - a rather lifeless, demotivated place - and his mission to breathe life into it. His remedy? Dump all the corporate nonsense. No more rigid hierarchies or tedious policies. Instead, Semler installs a culture where the business runs on simplicity, common sense, and a philosophy that could almost be mistaken for socialism - Eastern European style, or as he calls it, “Nonsenseskaya.”

Semler’s narrative is a refreshing take on business, proving you don’t need a deskful of management theories from Peters, Porters, or Kanters to run a successful company. Just a willingness to throw out the rulebook and trust people to run things their way.

If you’re curious about the nuts and bolts of managing a business - or about how radically a workplace can operate - Maverick is a breezy, mind-bending read that’s as colorful and unpredictable as the samba itself.

T20, Caribbean, and Dhoni & Co’s Swansong

The Caribbean world T20 world cup campaign ending in a whimper , the Indian cricket team will be back in India soon doing what it does best – brand endorsements and commercials! So when someone asked the Indian cricketers the reason for the debacle, each of them answered in their own characteristic style (I suspect much of it had to do with their endorsement scripts)

M S Dhoni – See.... I told my guys to keep cool (like Orient PSPO fans) but they lost it at crucial times, what can I do? i also tried telling my opposition bowlers “Eh! Yemm Yesss Dhooooni from Chennaiii. All you fast bowlers, I have the bat, do you have the ball... Mind it!” but they dint mind knocking off my bails.

Yuvarj Singh – People said I was not fit and in shape but thats crap....you see I take ‘Revital’ every day and do the treadmill, if you don’t believe me ? you can check my advts!

Ravindra Jadeja – Everybody believed that my form & performance had sunk but the captain had faith in me & we all sank together....because we all believe ‘My Pepsi My way’.....

Yusuf Pathan – I did not hear the captains call for the catch (crucial dropped catch of Chris Gayle in the west Indies match that tanked India) b’coz i said to myself ‘Suno dil ki Awaz’(listen to your heart – Vodafone pre paid calling card)

Coach Gary Kirsten – I gave them plenty of ‘Boost’ in the dressing room but there was no energy (after the IPL)

And finally with all the cricket over, Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s teammates wonder if they can organize a trip at short notice. Dhoni manages all the information on Aircel, and they’re set. Suresh Raina wonders if he’s made it to the team. Aircel again comes to the rescue; Dhoni finds out he has and he will be leading the team to Zimbabwe . The Advt tag line: It’s time to move on (for Dhoni).

The Ambani Saga continues...

The supreme court made its verdict in the Ambani Gas dispute yesterday. It was no ordinary dispute but the kind of media attention it got was amazing. No other corporate group would even come close to the kind of drama that was played out. The 2 dramatis personae of this saga, Mukesh & Anil have been at each others throats for a long time,and the family story has been the kind of stuff or rather fluff that the Bollywood mills churn out regularly. There is this patriarch (Dhirubhai) who starts out as a petrol bunk attendant but goes on to successfully flourish in the license raj era and create an industrial empire with his typical Gujju way of working around obstacles . He excels in the art of covert operations and wherever possible uses the cloak & dagger technique to hit out at competitors. But then the father never expected that the same techniques would be used by his 2 sons against each other.

The supreme court episode has been one of the important turning point of this drama (power struggle) that probably began after Dhirubhais death in July 2002. The father died telling the world “ My sons are never going to fight over family assets. They’ll always be together”. He probably underestimated that the 2 brothers (with a 2 year gap between them) were poles apart right from their childhood and deeply distrusted each other. So when he went ahead & made Mukesh the vice chairman, Anil raised the hackles because he felt Mukesh was treating the Reliance group like his personal fiefdom and alienating him from the decision making process. On the other hand Mukesh saw his younger brother as a non serious businessman; one who had time to go to parties, rub shoulders with politicians and middlemen and move around with celebrities.

However somewhere down the line Mukesh seemed to have made his mark especially by commissioning the Jamnagar petrochemical plan (which was touted as one of the world’s largest and most complex project) and claimed his father’s legacy from the Investors and the Business world. That has only fuelled Anils ambition & his angst to outdo him . And the ensuing war , in the truest of Ambani tradition, has been fierce , murky and no holds barred. The 2 brothers have hurled mud at each other that is still stuck, they have ripped each other’s credibility as entrepreneurs, they exposed the unprofessional manner in which each ran his companies, they exposed the alleged dishonesty of senior most managers in the group. All this & probably it’s still not over , like Shahrukh khan In Om Shanti Om Anil might be still saying “ Abhi Kahani baki hai, mere dost”.

P.S: I Recommend the book ‘Storms in the Sea Wind’ by Alam Srinivas for readers interested in the blow-by-blow account of the war between Mukesh & Anil.

Joy Gurudev

The beleaguered Swami Nithyananda got arrested at the Bangalore International airport last week and was jeered by the crowd gathered there. Maybe the swami from Thiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu could have been better off had he heeded to this story;

During a gathering a swami found himself cornered by a talkative woman who demanded to know his opinion on celibacy for the attainment of Sanyasa. The Swami said it would take a long time to explain and he would rather not do so at that occasion. But she wouldn’t let him go.
“All right, I’ll tell you how i feel about celibacy” said the badgered swami eventually. “ When I go to bed at night , I’m sorry. And when I get up in the morning, I’m glad.”