tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91156446058333841382024-03-13T21:16:17.380+01:00X de XavierUnos y ceros. A veces, en el orden adecuado.-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-23928791191333048602009-10-07T07:19:00.009+01:002009-10-07T08:25:42.636+01:00Bonuses<a href="http://www.mintzberg.org/index.html" title="mintzberg.org">Henry</a> <a href="http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/management/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12918770" title="His profile as a a management guru in The Economist">Mintzberg</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style:italic;">Executive compensation has become <b>a polite form of thievery</b>, or, if you prefer, legal corruption. Executives get paid extra when the stock price goes up (bonus) and when it goes down (golden parachute); they get paid extra for staying in their job (retention bonus <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(...)</span>), and for just doing their job (a bonus for signing a merger <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(...)</span>).<br /><br />As for the argument that if you don’t pay the bonuses, you don’t get the right person, I counter that if you do pay the bonuses, you get the wrong person. You get someone who is willing to single him or herself out from everyone else, at the expense of teamwork (...). The CEO, like everyone else in the company, has a job to do and should be paid for doing it. (...)<br /><br />For the sake of sustainable enterprise: Executive bonuses should be eliminated. Period.</span> </blockquote><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">From </span><a href="http://www.mintzberg.org/pdf/execbonus.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">http://www.mintzberg.org/pdf/execbonus.pdf</span></a>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-52998532998684628032008-05-01T19:39:00.003+01:002008-05-01T23:58:31.161+01:00Back in the U.S.S.R.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Kolkhoznitsa.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><blockquote><span style="font-style: italic;">East Germany may no longer exist, but now we have companies featuring central planning by Troikas, mission statements crafted by apparatchiks, quinquennial planning, no right to choose leaders in companies, no democracy in the workplace, a clear distinction between intelligentsia and peasants (top CEOs make 512 times the median salary and enjoy company 'dachas', jets and limos), and 'state' monitoring (time clocks, dress codes, drug-screening, 'employee assistance' plans, e-mail monitoring, smoking and personal conduct rules, as family-life audits).</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">[1]</span></blockquote>This is not a quote from a labor union leader, an anti-globalization essay or a witty comedian. It's from a proponent of democracy and transparency in the workplace that happens to be <span style="font-style: italic;">a business owner putting his money where his unconventional mouth is</span> <span style="font-size:78%;">[2]</span>: Ricardo Semler, in <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=_N4CAAAACAAJ&dq=inauthor:Ricardo+inauthor:Semler&ei=5JaLR9XAJJrUswOrpKHQBQ">The Seven-Day Weekend</a> <span style="font-size:78%;">[3]</span>.<br /><br />I loved this book, even if its writing style is not that great. Its main point is showing how Semco, Semler's company is run. When Semler and Clovis Bojikian started changing the traditional command and control ways,<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><blockquote>"We wanted to demonstrate that the workplace could be a place of satisfaction, not of suffering. Work should be a pleasure, not an obligation. But this wasn’t just some humanitarian thesis. We believed that people working with pleasure could be much more productive.”</blockquote></span>To Semler, <span style="font-style: italic;">it's not about values: it's about competitive advantage</span>.<br /><br />Hurry up and read his book, or take a peek into <a href="http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/content.asp?content=3">The Semco Way</a> by reading a <a href="http://www.cantanchorus.com/doco/semler3.pdf">1989 article by Semler in the Harvard Business Review</a> or a <a href="http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/artigos/docs/76.pdf">2006 article about him in Strategy+Business</a>. I'm sure that it will give you lots of food for thought.<br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><br />[1] Soviet/Corpororate parallels quote: It's a funny coincidence that I read this during <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workers%27_Day">International Workers' Day</a><br />[2] <span style="font-style: italic;">Unconventional mouth</span> quote: by Geoffrey Colvin in a <a href="http://semco.locaweb.com.br/en/artigos/docs/77.pdf">Fortune article</a><br />[3] Even if Semler is a best selling author, I never heard about him until I recently read <a href="http://jaybyjayfresh.com/2008/01/14/governing-the-twitterfolk-shel-israel-disappears-up-own-asshole/">a post by Jon Lister</a>. Thanks so much, Jon!<br /></span>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-16843927974809353652007-04-25T10:50:00.000+01:002007-04-25T11:00:17.054+01:00Turn them off!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.tvturnoff.org/"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://www.tvturnoff.org/images/header/logo.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It is <a href="http://www.tvturnoff.org/week.htm">turn off TV week</a>. Just do it!<br /><br />And if it is not TV but your PC/phone what is keeping you from <a href="http://xdexavier.blogspot.com/2007/04/healthy-urge.html">having green knees at the end of the day</a>, it is a good week to give it a thought to this: who is in charge, you or your gadgets?-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9115644605833384138.post-3739765076845137782006-11-22T12:23:00.000+01:002006-11-22T12:36:38.854+01:00Darwin? Photoshop?<a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6915842737034217262">Evolution - A Dove Film</a> (1 min 17 sec, Google Video)<br /><br />(via <a href="http://www.strangeparty.com/2006/11/20/why-beauty-is-only-screen-deep/">Anton Piatek's Strangeparty</a>)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/">http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/</a><br /><a href="http://www.porlabellezareal.com/">http://www.porlabellezareal.com/</a>-Xvhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12954073038736466058noreply@blogger.com1