Smiling for Profit: Good-bye, employment. Hello, entrepreneurship on the job (Hardcover)

by Motty Perel (Author)
Key Phrases: labour utilization, monetary profit, floor sweeper, Human Nature, Under A-Option, Soviet Union (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Technology strives to raise productivity, yet productivity is barely rising. Why? Because human productivity declines since employment became obsolete. Workers should invest labor for profit.

About the Author
Born in Warsaw, Poland, 1935. My father Joel Perel turned to the profession of care for mentally disturbed children and juvenile criminals. Problems and solutions to abnormal and criminal behaviour were the usual topic at our dinner table for many years. My mother Esther was teaching elementary grades and kindergarten. This intellectual environment prepared me for analyzing human behaviour. I did not consider a teaching career. Engineering attracted me as practical and rewarding. No regrets. The massive gap between potential human productivity at the workplace and its actual productivity puzzled me since I set my foot on a production floor. I was still a student at the time. Later, along my engineering jobs, the puzzle haunted me and demanded an answer. In 1969, the answer to my puzzle suddenly emerged. It had been fifteen years in the making. I attempted to apply my solution, first at two consecutive production facilities where I worked. Then I attempted to set up one myself. All to no avail. My attempts afforded me some notoriety that prevented me from finding professional employment. I immigrated to Canada and after a while started to promote my solution here as well. On the negative side, two important General Managers, one in charge of two plants of Inglis and the other one in charge of fifteen plants of Domtar, lost their jobs when they dared to recommend my A-Option to their superiors. By contrast, the workers I met on picket lines and in the tube-production plant where I toiled for over three years did like my A-Option. The General Manager of this and two other tube-production plants of Jannock did understand me well, but he chickened out. I have no doubt someone will implement my A-Option, with or without me. Motty Perel --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 236 pages
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing (February 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1425168574
• ISBN-13: 978-1425168575
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Gain Twice from Your Enterprise, April 14, 2008

By	Sander Stepanov - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just have read a small but amazing book Smiling for Profit. I would call this book "How to Gain Twice from Your Enterprise" because it is a very practical "how to" book. It is also written by an easy-going intelligent person who gives you insights on economics and politics, history and evolution. First and foremost, the author makes a brilliant contribution to the workplace psychology and economics of enterprise. Communists had ignored human nature and fell on their face. Do you think that capitalists have ever used its full beneficial potential? Think again. Then read Mr. Perel's book and implement some ridiculously simple rules of the game. Within months, you will transform your lazy employees into the friendly, eager and thoughtful partners!

4.0 out of 5 stars marek's, November 29, 2008

By	Marek Frodis - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

An interesting idea - make your employees your partners in running your business. And no, it is not the old profit sharing. But is this idea feasible? Why has it not been put in place somewhere already? Is it the fear of having your books available to just everybody the major obstacle? The author thinks that it is doable and makes an intelligent and cogent argument along the pattern of "... for dummies". The presentation is funny and quite far reaching with an excellent elucidation of the ills of the socialist/communist system. The author also thinks that if the idea was widely implemented it would have the potential to cure the current ills of the capitalist economy. Well, in the light of the recent economic meltdown perhaps it could be worthwhile to give it a try. Perhaps the implementation at GM, Ford etc. would be cheaper and had better prospects than the planned bailout.

4.0 out of 5 stars A stimulating book, June 20, 2008

By	Israel Kleiner - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

To set the scene for the book, the author reminds the reader that employment, namely working for a wage, has been with us for less than 300 years. Like former modes of labour utilization, the employment mode passed various stages: boon to workers and employers, with a concomitant rise in wealth, improved health, a flourishing culture; a stable rise in productivity; and finally a depressing working place with steadily falling human productivity and declining moral and cultural values. The author concludes that it is high time for employers to proceed to the next mode of labour utilization, namely the entrepreneurial mode, in which a worker would invest his labour for personal profit rather than sell his labour to the employer for a wage.



In the university environment in which I work, earnings are a small part of the motivation to do work, in fact, to do it well. The work itself motivates us to achieve success. Apparently, at production and service workplaces, earnings are a major motivator. If earnings will consist of wages that the worker invests with a view to making a profit, several positive outcomes would occur. The gnawing feeling of being exploited would vanish, which should end the adversarial worker/employer relationship. Workers would join their employer as a team for a common goal - profit maximization.



These ideas make a lot of sense to me. Read the book and see for yourself. It is an easy read, given the novelty of the topic. I enjoyed reading it. It made me think of a whole range if issues around the employer/employee relations.