The "Open Organization" - a Brasilien experience, from HBR

[Artur F. Silva]

Dear all:


"How We Went Digital Without a Strategy", from Ricardo Semler,
in Harvard Business Review, Set-Oct 2000, had a so uninteresting
title that I skipped it and went directly to "It wasn't about Race. Or
was it?"...

But today a Portuguese "Executive Digest" magazine published
a translation (Ricardo is a Portuguese or Brazilian name and
"digital" is "in"). And it is a very interesting article that I recommend.

And afterwards I recognized the name (Semler has not Portuguese
or Brazilian origin) from an old and very provocative HBR article
("Managing without Managers", HBR, Set-Oct, 1989).

We all would call it an "Open (Space) Organization", even if the
author doesn't refer to OS, and doesn't seem to know about.
And A. de Guess would call it a "Living Company" (title of his
1997 book), or a "learning organization" expression that he was
the first to use (as Senge acknowledges in the Preface of the referred
book), in is seminal HBR article "Planning as Learning" (HBR, Mar-Apr,
1988). And Ackoff would call it a "Democratic Organization"(1994),
expression that Semler used in his article, back in 1989...

[It is interesting - as Khun showed for sciences - how similar concepts
appear when the situation is ready for them...]

 From Semler 2000 HBR article a quotation (that could very well
come from H. Owen's "Riding the Tiger" (1991):

"You may wonder how that's possible. How do you get a sizable
organization to change without telling it - or even asking it - to change?
It's actually easy - but only if you are willing to give up control. People,
I have found, will act in their own best interests, and by extension
in their organization's best interests, if they are given complete
freedom. It's only when you rein them in, when you tell them what
to do and how to think, that they become inflexible, bureaucratic and
stagnant. Forcing change is the surest way to frustrate change" (under
the sub-title "Transformation without end")

Another quotation (under the sub-title "Management without Control"):

"Semco's ongoing transformation is a product of a very simple
business philosophy: give people the freedom to do what they want,
and over the long haul their success will far outnumber their failures.
Operationalizing that philosophy has involved a lot of trial and error,
of taking a few steps forward and a couple back. The company
remains a work in progress - and I hope it stays that way forever.
As I reflect on our experience, though, I see that we have learned
some important lessons about creating an adaptive, creative
organization" (this one could be from A. de Gues)

The last one (under the title "Don't be a nanny")

"Most companies [and Universities, my comment, AS] suffer from
what I call boarding-school syndrome. They treat their employees
like children. They tell them where they have to be at what time,
what they need to be doing, how they need to dress, whom they
should talk to, and so on. But if you treat people like immature
wards of the state, that's exactly how they will behave. They' ll.
never think for themselves or try new things, or take chances.
They' ll just do what they' re told, and they probably won’t do it
with much spirit.

At Semco, we have no set work hours, no assigned offices or desks,
no dress codes. We have no employee manuals, no human
resource rules and regulations. We don't even have a HR
department. People go to work when they want and go home
when they want. They decide when to take holidays and how much
vacation they need. They even choose how they' ll be compensated.
In other words, we treat our employees like adults. And we expect
them to behave  like adults. If they screw up, they take the blame"

Regards

Artur

[para os copiados: desculpem a lingua; deu-me mais jeito escrever
em Inglês. Podem ver a versao portugues na Exec Digest, Nov/2000,
que, alias, tem outros artigos interessantes - AFS]

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