The Seven-day Weekend: A Better Way to Work in the 21st Century (Paperback)

This book takes us further. Semler has focussed on aspiring to workplace democracy. That means relinquishing control. He may own the biggest chunk of the business, but he doesn't exercise power of veto, but goes along with consensus.

He still tells ripping yarns and ranges widely across philosophical tales, great thinkers and writers of our age and forecasts for the future.

What makes him different from Peters, Handy and Harvey-Jones? Semler isn't one to recycle the same old stories from book to book, nor put together stuff from elsewhere. He tells tales from recent history including dot.com mistakes and learning. He considers his own balance and focus on wisdom.

He advocates revolutionary stuff that only a handful of companies worldwide (mostly privately owned) practise. He dismisses corporate window dressing of mission statements and employee consultation and points out how far we go to war to defend democracy, but practice Eastern bloc centralisation in our workplace.

He tells a great tale about CEO egos that refused to recognise the writing on the wall of their dot.coms and allowed their companies to lose megabucks instead of joining forces in humility.

He encourages people to start where they are and affect the few people under them, instead of moaning that it's impossible in their context. He notes how many business schools and consultants preach empowerment, but run autocratic, tightly controlled organisations themselves.

He writes about how he works constantly to pull back from being placed in the role of saint/leader with the Midas touch, ensuring that the business is sustainable through the mass of employees rather than the one with a reputation.

He challenges macho latino stereotypes for men in other ways including his admission that he's never sure how his parallel parking will work out and that he wishes car companies would invent swivel wheels. There is a lot of space devoted to creativity and innovation, as well as a discussion of forces that work against change.

The 7 day w/e is a study of how to make the whole of life balanced and enjoyable.

Dangerous stuff. Read and enjoy.

He is at his best when giving detailed accounts of how he puts his philosophy into practice, acknowleging failures as well as successes. He gives vivid accounts of the characters and circumstances of his staff and how they have fitted in (or not) into this model of organisation. These accounts have an appealing honesty and show a good deal of affection towards those he employs. This is much more effective in getting his point across than the usual buzzwords and abstract philosophising of management textbooks.

Semler is at his weakest when he leaves the specifics of his own experience and occasionally digresses into generalised comments about business, politics and whether his system is socialism or capitalism or neither. In this, he regales us with nothing more than the trite simplisms of "third way" politics - we in the UK are more than familiar with these in the variants of "New" Labour, from Tony Crosland in the last century to Tony Blair in this.

He also shrinks from dealing with the unpleasant flipside to his system of blurring personal and work lives - whether his seven-day weekend could just as well be described as the seven-day working week! It's difficult to argue, however, with one of his contentions: if we know how to read work emails on a Sunday night, why don't we know how to go to the cinema on a Monday afternoon?

Overall a fascinating and wholly convincing read, well argued and full of personal charm. And a must-read for anyone interested in challenging the Western military style of hierarchical management in favour of a more democratic, adult alternative.

He is at his most persuasive when recounting personal examples and anecdotes of how Semco actually works. He displays huge amounts of charisma, commitment to real worker empowerment and belief that this is the route to business success. And also a charming amount of modesty and humility about his own role in his business's growth.

The weakest parts are when he digresses into more general discussions about the business world and whether this is capitalism or socialism. These verge on the trite and simplistic Third Way homilies that we in the UK are all too familiar with from the philosophising of New Labour. He also never fully addresses the potential downside of the blurring of our personal and professional lives - the seven-day working week as opposed to the seven-day weekend - that can all too easily happen in the hands of business leaders less scrupulous than himself.

But it's difficult to find fault with one of his beautifully pithy observations - if we know how to answer work emails on a Sunday evening, why don't we know how to watch a movie on a Monday afternoon?!

All in all, thought-provoking material for managers tired of the hierarchical/military model and looking for a more democratic and human alternative.