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Are you tired of the command-and-control hierarchical structure in your organization? Are you forced into the rat race of promotion and performance, and are you in constant terror of your company's hire-and-fire policy? Read this new quirky,tongue-in-cheek model of company management. In his article in Across the Board, A.J. Vogi writes about the anti-CEO Ricardo Semler of Semco and talks to him about his radical company governance policies and his new book The Seven-day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works. Ricardo defies the models that the top billion-dollar management consultants prescribe.

The high points of this anti-ceo is pro-freedom:

1) Attendance at all company meetings is voluntary.
2) Two of the company's eight board seats are held on a first-come-first-served basis, open to any worker in the company.
3) Semco has no business plan, no mission statement, no long-term budget, no HR department, no VP of IT, no COO, no fixed CEO, no dress codes, and no job descriptions. Nobody approves expense accounts.
4) Workers choose their own training instead of having their boss or HR choose it for them.
5) Workers can take up to three years off for any purpose.
6) Through Semco's Retire-a-Little program, a worker in his prime can take days off now and "redeem" them in the future, after he retires.
7) Semco's "Lost in Space" program allows young recruits to wander the company for a year to discover what they want to do.
8) The company holds collective job interviews, in which candidates meet their rivals for the position and are interviewed by a cross-section of employees.

Excellent article, dream model, makes you long for a company like that...hmm...charity begins at home?