The fact is, you don’t have to like people to work with them, and finding compatibility of purpose at work does not require surrounding yourself only with those you like. You can admire people, even if you don’t like them.

THOSE WHO HOARD INFORMATION ARE ATTEMPTING TO ACCUMULATE POWER.

Employees must be free to question, to analyze, to investigate; and a company must be flexible enough to listen to the answers. Those habits are the key to longevity, growth, and profit.

If workers weren’t working at the same time, the assembly lines would grind to a halt. Okay, we knew that, but so did the adults who work on it. And why would they jeopardize their output, their jobs? If they didn’t care if the assembly line moved or stopped, then we’d have a much graver problem, and the sooner we found out the better. I was confid

In the end, it’s an exchange that works: Out go mission statements, credos, and the control they exert; and in come self-interest, principles arising from practice, and a developing set of values. As control wanes, creativity and shared values bloom. An army that fights for what it believes in arises from this harvest of ideas, varied practices, an

We circulate questionnaires and ask them whether they feel like coming to work on Monday morning, whether they trust their leaders, and whether they believe everything we say in our internal and external communications.

Wisdom is what you get by asking why….”

monthly and addresses practices by management that may be at odds with the current values of Semco as a whole. Two of these board of trustees members have a seat and vote on Semco’s board of directors, and an agenda time allotment to bring up and negotiate whatever they find necessary.

The first Human Resources departments date to the turn of the century and blossomed because managers were uncomfortable dealing with personnel issues. Over time, it became accepted that managers couldn’t recruit, train, place ads, hire headhunters, do career plans or employee reviews, and serve as an objective third party.