i finished reading “maverick” by ricardo semmler. it’s a pretty fantastic read and opened my eyes to new possibilities about how work can get done. my current office environment is a good example of modern office culture. we have open office spaces, each week a group of my team gets together and makes decisions about how the company should run, and we have free coffee, organic fruit deliveries every week, office snacks, etc. i was impressed to see a vision of corporate culture that didn’t feel corporate in this book, but focused on how to get work done. the vision of the author was getting out of the way of the people doing good work. something i’d like to do more.
at the start of the book, you have to get your head around the time it was written in, and take some of the comments with a grain of salt “You might not need a secretary!” (who has a secretary anymore) but a lot of the core principles, of finding ways to educate the people on the ground, making the decisions every day – give them the training and information to make good decisions and you’ll provide incredible value and meaning to the team you work with.
a lot of the advice and examples are targeted towards large factories, and don’t apply to a small web shop, but overall there are some great ways to rethink what you do. some specific examples are the way decisions are made. rather than pushing all the information up the organizational structure through reports, decision making practices are pushed down the organizational structure, so people on the front lines – doing the real work – can make the decisions. i love this idea, and want to find out how to bring this into our company more.
if you work at a company, or run one – this is a great read.
thanks to Carl Smith for the recommend at owner camp.