Ricardo Semler Quotes

The purpose of work is not to make money. The purpose of work is to make the workers, whether working stiffs or top executives, feel good about life.

If you look at any kind of modern organization and you think, 'What are the foremost tools of power?' You will find that it is information.

Only two things grow for the sake of growth: businesses and tumors.

It is not socialist, as some of our critics contend. It isn't purely capitalist, either. It is a new way. A third way. A more humane, trusting, productive, exhilarating, and, in every sense, rewarding way.

Growth and profit are a product of how people work together.

For a company to excel, employees must be reassured that self-interest, not the company's, is their foremost priority. We believe an employee who puts himself first will be motivated to perform.

I believe no one can afford, endure or can stomach leaving half a life in the parking lot when she or he goes to work. It's a lousy way to live and a lousy way to work.

A high percentage of organisations develop a military rationale, whereby only a very small number of people make all of the decisions. There is little wonder, then, that people aren't keen to get out of bed and come to work on a Monday morning.

The era of using people as production tools is coming to an end. Participation is infinitely more complex to practice than conventional corporate unilateralism, just as democracy is much more cumbersome than dictatorship. But there will be few companies that can afford to ignore either of them.

If we do not let people do things the way they do, we will never know what they are really capable of and they will just follow our boarding school rules.

Human nature demands recognition. Without it, people lose their sense of purpose and become dissatisfied, restless, and unproductive.

Every one of us has learned how to send emails on Sunday night. But how many of us know how to go a movie on Monday afternoon. You've unbalanced your life without balancing it with someone else.

There are companies which are prepared to change the way they work. They realize that nothing can be based on what used to be, that there is a better way. But, 99 percent of companies are not ready, [they are] caught in an industrial Jurassic Park.

We have absolute trust in our employees. In fact, we are partners with them.

There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its work force and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees

Large, centralized organizations foster alienation like stagnant ponds breed algae.

To survive in modern times, a company must have an organizational structure that accepts change as its basic premise, lets tribal customs thrive, and fosters a power that is derived from respect, not rules. In other words, the successful companies will be the ones that put quality of life first. Do this and the rest - quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all - will follow.

Man is by nature restless. When left too long in one place he will inevitably grow bored, unmotivated, and unproductive.

Forget socialism, capitalism, just-in-time deliveries, salary surveys, and the rest ... concentrate on building organizations that accomplish that most difficult of all challenges: to make people look forward to coming to work in the morning.