seven day weekend
I first ran across Ricardo Semler in the late '90s when I began teaching business ethics. His widely-read article "Managing Without Managers" was in the anthology I was using though unfortunately in subsequent editions it was removed. Perhaps it wasn't trendy enough. But, it was, and still is, ahead of its time in terms of management practices. The Seven-Day Weekend expands on his ideas about management and living an enjoyable life.
One of his favorite questions is Why? That's probably why I, as a philosopher, find his insights so inspiring. He's not afraid to ask questions that might seem odd or out of place in the business world. One of his favorites which sets the tone for the book is "Why do people routinely bring homework on the weekend but never go to the movies on a Monday afternoon?
Semler continuously challenges the conventions of what it means to work in a company by asking why. Would that more people asked such questions. Why can't we know everyone's salary? Why can't employees negotiate for their salary and benefits? Why do we as a company need to keep track of people's vacation time?
About the same time, I was discovering Semler's ideas, Scott Adams was publishing The Dilbert Principle. In one chapter he explains how to tell if your company is doomed. Likely, every one of the signs he discusses is not present in Semler's company. One in particular that Adams doesn't mention but seems to be a sure sign is another one Semler discusses: having an obsessive focus on how much work your co-workers are doing.
This seems to be a growing obsession in higher education where much of the time spent being a professor is spent documenting your workload to satisfy colleagues who need to know that you're working as much or more than they are. I suspect this trend is occurring in other bureaucratic entities as well.
Meanwhile, Semler is running a company where employees set their own working hours, their own salaries, have no job titles, and do not need to document every hour of work they put it. And, the company is successful. Given this last point, you would think there would be intense curiosity regarding how they did it and how it could be replicated elsewhere.
What I also find interesting is that companies like Semler's will have a marked advantage in a world of growing disruptive innovation where creative thinking and problem-solving are premium skills. In that world, the one will live in and will continue to live in for the foreseeable future, obsessing over one's own workload and everyone else's will be seen as a mindless time-wasting effort that diverts from important work. Doing work that matters is what will matter. The seven-day workweek can be replaced by the seven-day weekend.
One of his favorite questions is Why? That's probably why I, as a philosopher, find his insights so inspiring. He's not afraid to ask questions that might seem odd or out of place in the business world. One of his favorites which sets the tone for the book is "Why do people routinely bring homework on the weekend but never go to the movies on a Monday afternoon?
Semler continuously challenges the conventions of what it means to work in a company by asking why. Would that more people asked such questions. Why can't we know everyone's salary? Why can't employees negotiate for their salary and benefits? Why do we as a company need to keep track of people's vacation time?
About the same time, I was discovering Semler's ideas, Scott Adams was publishing The Dilbert Principle. In one chapter he explains how to tell if your company is doomed. Likely, every one of the signs he discusses is not present in Semler's company. One in particular that Adams doesn't mention but seems to be a sure sign is another one Semler discusses: having an obsessive focus on how much work your co-workers are doing.
This seems to be a growing obsession in higher education where much of the time spent being a professor is spent documenting your workload to satisfy colleagues who need to know that you're working as much or more than they are. I suspect this trend is occurring in other bureaucratic entities as well.
Meanwhile, Semler is running a company where employees set their own working hours, their own salaries, have no job titles, and do not need to document every hour of work they put it. And, the company is successful. Given this last point, you would think there would be intense curiosity regarding how they did it and how it could be replicated elsewhere.
What I also find interesting is that companies like Semler's will have a marked advantage in a world of growing disruptive innovation where creative thinking and problem-solving are premium skills. In that world, the one will live in and will continue to live in for the foreseeable future, obsessing over one's own workload and everyone else's will be seen as a mindless time-wasting effort that diverts from important work. Doing work that matters is what will matter. The seven-day workweek can be replaced by the seven-day weekend.
