RELINQUISHING CONTROL FOR BETTER BUSINESS

An intriguing TED talk by Semco CEO Ricardo Semler

This inspiring man has the heart and mind set that can truly help propel us into a future of wellness and fairness. He not only has great ideas about self organisation in business and education, but is implementing them and has been doing so for two decades.

CEO Ricardo Semler took on his father’s company (now Semco) in 1980, and turned much of traditional business on it’s head. Handing the decision making around salaries, organisation, working hours, working locations and more to his employers is a bold move now let alone in the 80s, but it well and truly paid off with a more empowered workforce, that just happens to make loads of financial capital as-well. At $4 million and 90 employees in 1980, it swelled to over 3000 employees and over $200 million in 2003.

But the financial boost to me is a small aside compared to the constant querying Semler has engaged in over how to do things better, how to tap into our innate wisdom and live more engaging lives.

He realised these questions needed to be addressed earlier so he looked at how to teach children in an environment that empowers rather than controls them. His questions around education and why people even go to school has led to the Lumiar school of which there are now three, for children up to the age of 14 to learn by engaging in projects that interest them.

The only drawback in both education and business seems to be getting other organisations to take on his ideas, as many of the benefits could take a generation or more to take hold; well beyond the care factor of many. But I have a feeling with the focus of much business moving towards social enterprise that there may be more of an uptake in his ideas in the near future. I for one am looking forward to creating space in in-Spiral projects to implement them.

And here’s another video if that one got your educational brain juiced up!

Could this be the future of business and education? I certainly hope so!