Semco Leadership With Out Strategies

How We Went Digital
Without a Strategy
by Ricardo Semler

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ROBERT GOFFEE
AND GARETH JONES

Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

R00506

MORTEN T. HANSEN ET AL.

Networked Incubators: Hothouses of the New Economy

R00507

JAMES WALDROOP
AND TIMOTHY BUTLER

Managing Away Bad Habits

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CLAYTON M. CHRISTENSEN,RICHARD BOHMER, AND JOHN KENAGY

Will Disruptive Innovations Cure Health Care?

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THOMAS H. DAVENPORT
AND JOHN C. BECK

Getting the Attention You Need

R00505

W. CHAN KIM
AND RENÉE MAUBORGNE

Knowing a Winning Business Idea When You See One

R00510

DIANE L. COUTU

Creating the Most Frightening Company on Earth:
An Interview with Andy Law of St. Luke’s

R00504FORETHOUGHT
DAVID CHAMPION
SIMON BERKELEY
A CONVERSATION WITH RAJIV GUPTA
AMAR BHIDÉ
ROBERTA FUSARO
ERIC SCHWALM AND DAVID HARDING

A Stealthier Way to Raise Money
Web Attack
Profiting from Open Source
David and Goliath, Reconsidered
Peer to Peer
Winning with the Big-Box Retailers

JEFFREY C. CONNOR

HBR CASE STUDY

It Wasn’t About Race. Or Was It?
RICARDO SEMLER

R00502FIRST PERSON

How We Went Digital Without a Strategy
TOM COPELAND

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F 00502
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BEST PRACTICE

Cutting Costs Without Drawing Blood
ROBERT S. KAPLAN
AND DAVID P. NORTON

TOOL KIT

DANNY HILLIS

R00503

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Having Trouble with Your Strategy? Then Map It
The Bandwidth Bomb

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FIRST PERSON

How We WentDigital
Without a Strategy
Over the last decade, Semco has successfully extended its
business from manufacturing to services to the Internet.
Here’s what it has learned: transformation is easy–if
you throw away your plans and let your people lead you.

I

own a $160 million South American

company named Semco, and I have
no idea what business it’s in. I know
what Semco does – we makethings, we
provide services, we host Internet communities – but I don’t know what Semco
is. Nor do I want to know. For the 20
years I’ve been with the company, I’ve
steadfastly resisted any attempt to define
its business. The reason
is simple: once you say
what business you’re in,
you put your employees into a mental
straitjacket. You place boundaries around
their thinking and, worst ofall, you hand
them a ready-made excuse for ignoring

by Ricardo Semler

harvard business review September–October 2000

new opportunities: “We’re not in that
business.” So rather than dictate Semco’s
identity from on high, I’ve let our employees shape it through their individual
efforts, interests, and initiatives.
That rather unusual management philosophy has drawn a good deal ofattention over the years. Nearly 2,000 executives from around the world have
trekked to São Paulo to study our operations. Few, though, have tried to emulate
us. The way we work – letting our employees choose what they do, where and
when they do it, and even how they get
paid – has seemed a little too radical for
mainstream companies.

Copyright © 2000 by the President and Fellows of HarvardCollege. All rights reserved.

F I R S T P E R S O N • H o w W e W e n t D i g i ta l Wi t h o u t a S t rat e g y

But recently a funny thing happened:
the explosion in computing power and
the rise of the Internet reshaped the
business landscape, and the mainstream
shifted. Today, companies are desperately looking for ways to increase their
creativity and flexibility, spur their idea
flow,and free their talent – to do, in
other words, what Semco has been doing
for 20 years.
I don’t propose that Semco represents
the model for the way businesses will
operate in the future. Let’s face it: we’re

How do you get a sizable
organization to change
without telling it to? It’s
easy – but only if you’re
willing to give up control.
a quirky company. But I do suggest that
some of...