Articles — Ricardo Semler

Recent Article Should Your Coworkers Know How Much You Make? - Harvard Business Publishing Maverick Leadership - ReSource Magazine

Democratising Profit

By Hamilton Wende

It’s an outrageous idea that’s earned Ricardo Semler – the author of Maverick! (no relation) - a lot of money: treat your employees like adults and stop the parochial nonsense. And it’s on he believes will work just as well in south Africa as it has in Brazil.

IDEAS HAVE A STRANGE ENERGY OF THEIR OWN. It was about a year ago that I was freezing my butt off in Aus in Namibia talking to a tourism entrepreneur and lodge owner. An unseasonable storm had trapped me in a flash flood and the lodge owner had to come and rescue me in the freezing darkness. Later, sitting around a comforting fire with a brandy, the talk somehow turned to southern Africa and its prospects for growth. "There’s no point in us trying to compete with China. We can’t do it. We’ve got to concentrate on what we can do in Africa, and create jobs out of that," my host said.

It seemed a little too pat for me then, so it was with some surprise that when I interviewed international business guru and mega-wealthy Brazilian entrepreneur and industrialist Ricardo Semler – by phone, while he was in his luxury hotel in Norway – he told me much the same thing.

Read On