Менеджеры и менеджмент (Executives and Management) - 39 стр.

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executive are rated regularly by their employees. Every manager gets points from 1 to a hundred from his staff
anonymously. This happens every six months when a new budget is set. If managers regularly fail to come up
to expectations they give way or are pushed out. One long serving manager used to score 86 out of a l00 has
dropped down to nearly 51 and what will happen to him is uncertain.
Charles: Surely, this means the work force watches the management closely all the time instead of going
on with their work.
Robert: Yes, but evaluating the boss was just the first step. The big break came when the people were al-
lowed to elect their own boss. In Semler’s view managers imported from outside the company are bad news.
The staff who are truly involved in the financial success of the factory are realistic about choosing future
bosses.
Charles: Jane, can this system really work?
Jane: Absolutely, and I'll tell you why. You see, the factory employees are free to come and go as they like
or work from home or become a consultant. It means that they don't take advantage of the situation. They rec-
ognize the responsibility that comes with controlling their own futures. And as several reports show it appears
to be a happy place to work with very low staff turnover and a long waiting list of people applying for jobs
there.
Robert: As Jane's already said what's happened is that Semco has got rid of the old pyramid structure of
bureaucrats together with their power symbols. So secretaries and parking spaces have gone. The organization
now consists of three concentric circles: an inner one of 6 vice-presidents (including Semler), surrounded by a
second circle of up to 10 leaders of the business units and the outer one which includes everyone else. They are
called associates. Just walking around the factory there's no way of distinguishing the high earners from the low
earners because workers wear what they like and hardly anybody has a desk.
Charles: Of course, the major question people have been asking is whether the Semco experiment is trans-
ferable? For instance, to other types of company and other countries?
Jane: –Yes, that's a big question. In some parts of Europe employees already do participate actively but in
this case there seems to be a special factor to explain their success. For example, the Mondragon cooperatives in
Northern Spain which are closely tied up with the Basque culture, or the benevolent former owners in employee-
owned companies in several other countries.
Charles: Still Semco must be taken seriously: a company that can survive more than a decade of Brazil’s
inflation can’t just be ignored. Can it Robert?
Robert: Oh, no it certainly can’t. But there's one area, I believe where this model won't work. Transferring
the model to a large corporation like IBM or General Motors doesn't have much hope of success, as long as giv-
ing up control means bringing information out in the open. And it's precisely information, or the lack of it,
which represents power in such organizations. Or as their critics would say, those are the reasons they will go to
the wall.
Charles: At any rate a few smaller companies have tried, to directly сoрy Semler’s example and if the
hundreds of managers who visit Semler's shop floor have any guide, there's a considerable appetite out there for
making Western capitalism more civilized. Would you agree, Jane?
Jane: That certainly appears to be the case. And yet I suppose the probability of this happening quickly is
very small. As the British journalist Victor Keegan puts it: "The trouble is that the corporate world is run by
people who are not exactly willing to lose their parking lots, let alone to subject themselves to monthly scrutiny
by people whom, currently, they can hire and fire. Corporate managers don't yet look in a hurry to commit mass
professional suicide!"
Charles: That's right.
T a s k 7. Listen to the recording and tick off which of the following general topics are mentioned:
1. Bureaucracy at work.
2. Staff promotion systems.
3. Management elections by the workers.
4. The design of Semco’s factory buildings.
5. The success of large corporations.
T a s k 8. Define if the following statements are true or false:
1. The industrial assembly line system has a further 100 years' life in it.

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