The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works (Hardcover)

by Ricardo Semler (Author)
Key Phrases: way work works, United States, Sao Paulo, Wakefield Semco (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Semler, the Brazil-based CEO of Semco, believes corporations and employees can become successful by bucking tradition and thinking wildly outside the box. He attempts to explain Semco’s success (a company with $212 million in annual revenue and "no official structure… no organizational chart… no business plan or company strategy") and how its principles can be applied in other companies to make working environments more appealing and opportunities for growth and achievement limitless. Nine chapters (one for each day of the week, as well as one for "Any Day" and one for "Every Day") explore the ways in which the traditional workweek stifles creativity and fosters distaste for working days. But Semler also looks at how to shake things up. The Wednesday chapter leads off with the following to-do list: attend a board of director’s meeting; dump a deal rather than pay a bribe; tell the company it sucks. While Semler’s ideas often seem counter-intuitive, the idea is not to provide specific guidelines but rather to encourage readers to view their organization and professional lives in a new way. The book’s premise is promising, but the actual steps to achieving a seven-day weekend still seem unattainable.
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Product Description
Ricardo Semler thinks that companies ought to put employee freedom and satisfaction ahead of corporate goals.

Imagine a company where employees set their own hours; where there are no offices, no job titles, no business plans; where employees get to endorse or veto any new venture; where kids are encouraged to run the halls; and where the CEO lets other people make nearly all the decisions. This company—Semco—actually exists, and despite a seeming recipe for chaos, its revenues have grown from $35 million to $160 million in the last six years. It has virtually no staff turnover, and there are no signs that its growth will stop any time soon.

How did Semco become wildly successful despite breaking many of the commonly accepted laws of business? In The Seven-Day Weekend, Ricardo Semler shows that for those willing to take a chance, there is a better way to run a workplace. He explains how the technology that was supposed to make life easier—laptops, cell phones, e-mail, pagers—has in fact stolen free time and destroyed the traditional nine-to-five workday. But this can be a good thing—if you have the freedom to get your job done on your own terms and to blend your work life and personal life with enthusiasm and creative energy. Smart bosses will eventually realize that you might be most productive if you work on Sunday afternoon, play golf on Monday morning, go to a movie on Tuesday afternoon, and watch your child play soccer on Thursday.

This is a radical book that will challenge the business world to make the seven-day weekend a reality.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (April 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591840260
• ISBN-13: 978-1591840268
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #162,141 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A New Way to Work that Works, March 15, 2007

By	Walter H. Bock "Wally Bock - Author, Blogger,... (Charlotte NC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Semco, Ricardo Semler's privately held Brazilian company is hard to describe, mostly because it looks and acts so different from what we expect a company to be. That's why Semler devotes the first chapter of Seven Day Weekend to telling us what Semco is and does and what makes it a different place to work. At the end of the chapter, he says this:

"Although I still can't definitely answer the question about what Semco does do, I can say we've changed the way work works and improved the quality of our lives - and so can you."

After reading Seven Day Weekend, I still can't tell you exactly what it's about. But I can say that it will change the way you think about work and open up new possibilities for you.

There's a lot of talk these days about changing the workplace and making it more democratic and self-organizing and participative. We've seen pieces of this at places like WL Gore and, more recently at Best Buy. We've read the business press articles and pundit opinions.

But the fact is that if we are going to see significant workplace change on a large scale, there will need to be more companies that act like Semco. The owners of those companies will have to try things out and show us. That's what Ricardo Semler has done.

If you want to see how the wisdom of crowds works out in a company, it's in here. If you want to see how democratic principles work out in management, that's here, too. And if you want to see things about self-organizing and self-managing work groups and chaos theory, that's here too.

But Seven Day Weekend is not a how-to manual. You won't come out of it with a bunch of checklists or bulleted lists of sure-fire techniques. You will improve your understanding of a few key points
* People can be trusted to make decisions that are not only in their best interests, but in the company's best interest.
* In most cases, following the natural law of things works at least as well and often better than trying to control and direct.
* Strategy Semco-style is about building on talents and following ideas and not about master plans.

You will want to know if Semco has been successful in a traditional business way. It has been extravagantly successful, growing revenue and profits at 40 percent per year for two decades. Not only that, the company survived the convulsions in the Brazilian economy in the 1980s and 1990s.

And you'll want to ask Ricardo Semler about how he works as CEO and how he controls things. Here's his answer.

"I don't. I let the system work for itself."

The bottom line is that you should read this book because it will give you a window into a very different way of working and organizing a business. It's a system that's uncommon as well as uncommonly successful. And it's a system we can learn from.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Radicalism that is fun - and works, February 23, 2005

By	Bill Godfrey (Mt Stuart, TAS Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Written with engaging enthusiasm and frankness, the 14 essays in this book have titles like 'Let the Followers Lead', 'Do it your Way - See if I Care', 'Too Much Talent is as Bad as Too Little'.

Collectively they demonstrate the enormous business success - over 20 years - of a philosophy, culture and practices that are totally radical in comparison with 'conventional' business.

Yet they are based on the commonsense principles of democracy, trust, transparency, a shared search for new opportunities and better ways of doing things, and guardianship by the community of a shared set of values, beliefs and principles.

In the process of explaining how these principles work in practice, Semler blows apart just about every piece of conventional wisdom underpinning the behaviour of large public companies - Semler's Semco remains privately owned. It is reasonable to question to what extent it could operate as it does if it were a public company - and whether it could be as successful as it is. Is the classic joint stock form becoming a 'dead hand', rather than a driver of progress?

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars work and life balance, May 30, 2004

By	jeff horn (toms river, nj United States) - See all my reviews

Semler has downloaded from the brains of so many successful entrepeneurs the key to balancing life and work. People live and people work. People do not need to loathe work or be treated like idiots to operate in the work place. Treat people like adults and afford them adult decision oportunities and they will shine and make you money.

Corporate America has alot to learn and Semler is ready and eager to teach. Start down the road to learning who you are as a successful business person and person by reading "The Seven -Day Weekend." People in control of their lives will self-create, self-improve and self-manage.