I first heard of Maverick author Ricardo Semler when I came across a blurb for his new book called The Seven-Day Weekend in a copy of Inc Magazine a few months back. Semler's counter-intuitive approach to running a business immediately intruiged me, because it seemed to solve many of the employee satisfaction problems that plague most North American companies these days.

Semler's company, Semco, has eliminated org charts, made vacation time mandatory, allows employees to set their own salaries, and requires employees to evaluate their bosses. I'm quite excited to dig into this book because I believe most of what Semler preaches makes sense if running a business with a long-term outlook: he encourages employee growth, trusts them to take responsibility and holds them accountable, holds performance above all else when evaluating employees, and treats them like people who are motivated by different different types of incentives.

Semler has lectured on his "unorthodox" methods at HBS, and I've found a fascinating article on Semco at CIOInsight.com. I think this is going to be a terribly insightful read.