Semco - A 'Maverick' Organization

The replication of business units into smaller units as and when the need arose created units small enough to operate with a commonly shared set of values, philosophy and culture. The organization was bound together by the three interdependent core values: Employee Participation, Profit Sharing and Free Flow of Information. These three values stemmed from the belief that participation in design and implementation of work procedures would give employees control over their work; profit sharing would bring in a sense of ownership; and the availability of information as and when needed would help the employees understand to improve their work practices continuously...

He nurtured changes that might have been viewed as taking away his power and authority. He created an empowered environment where employees could innovate continuously. An idea he generated would later permeate to the whole workforce.

For example, after seeing a company order file cabinets worth $50,000, which were meant only to keep documents which were hardly ever referred to, Semler said that every person in the company should clear his own file cabinets of documents which were never referred to and keep only those that were necessary. This soon became a biannual exercise at Semco...