One of Warren Buffett’s best-kept investment secrets might be that he practices workplace democracy in managing his subsidiary companies. Few people may be aware that this innovative management strategy has contributed to the phenomenal success of Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings. Unlike most other conglomerates, whose executives exert tight control over their subsidiary companies and often make the [...]
Archive for the ‘Democratic Principles’ Category
Workplace Democracy: the secret to Warren Buffet’s investment success?
Posted in Democratic Principles, workplace democracy, tagged democratic workplace, Management Innovation, Warren Buffett investment secret workplace democracy, workplace democracy at Berkshire Hathaway on June 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Professor calls hierarchical, top-down management ‘outdated’
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, workplace democracy, tagged workplace democracy, democratic workplace, democratic company, Management Innovation, Stanley Truskie, Fischler School of Education and Human Services, Nova Southeastern University, Leadership in High-Performance Organizational Cultures, Miami Herald, enlightened leadership on March 25, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Stanley D. Truskie, a program professor at the Fischler School of Education and Human Services, Nova Southeastern University, and author of Leadership in High-Performance Organizational Cultures, wrote an opinion in the Miami Herald where he called for a new, “enlightened” style of management. Truskie recommends the following leadership practices to help companies quickly adapt and [...]
Owner gives company to employees on 81st birthday
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, democratic company, employee-owned companies, workplace democracy, tagged workplace democracy, Management Innovation, Democratic Companies, Bob Moore gives Bob's Red Mill company to employees as ESOP, Operations VP Dennis Vaughn, Employee Stock Ownership Plan, sharing ownership, employee ownership at Bob's Red Mill on March 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Bob Moore, the owner of Bob’s Red Mill Natural Foods celebrated his 81st birthday by giving the company that he founded to his employees. Moore announced the new Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) at an all-company meeting at the headquarters office in Milwaukie, Oregon. Moore said, “It’s been my dream all along to turn this [...]
Netflix takes a vacation from its vacation policy
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, employee engagement, tagged workplace democracy, great workplace, Management Innovation, Brian Carney, Freedom Inc, Netflix no vacation policy, Reed Hastings ends vacation policy at Netflix on January 18, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Contrary to most companies, the vacation policy at Netflix is quite simple: “there is no policy or tracking.” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings referred to vacation limits and face-time requirements as “a relic of the industrial age.” Several years ago, employees had argued that it wasn’t logical for the company to track vacation days since [...]
An argument against ‘totalitarian’ IT policies
Posted in Democratic Principles, Gary Hamel, Management Innovation, democracy at work, employee engagement, workplace democracy, tagged innovation, Management Innovation, Gary Hamel, IT departments, IT policies, Management 2.0 blog, creativity, productivity, engagement, totalitarian IT policies on December 2, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In his Management 2.0 blog, Gary Hamel shares some thought-provoking questions about counterintuitive, yet common, IT policies that seem to discourage productivity and innovation: How is it that companies are willing to trust employees with their customers, their expensive equipment, and their cash, but are unwilling to trust them when it comes to using the [...]
The end of the ‘rock star’ CEO
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, democracy at work, workplace democracy, tagged workplace democracy, Management Innovation, Democratic Companies, workplace jerks, the cult of the faceless boss, rock star CEOs, anonymous bosses, top-down hierarchcal system, decentralized democratic organizational model, Jeff Skilling of Enron, Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco, Sarbanes-Oxley, Bob Nardelli of Home Depot, Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard, Democratic Principles on November 22, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A story published earlier this month on the Economist discussed the recent trend of companies preferring “anonymous” bosses to the “rock star” CEOs who were popular in previous decades. “The corporate world is increasingly rejecting imperial chief executives in favour of anonymous managers.” We believe that this shift represents another stage in the ongoing evolution [...]
Interview with WorldBlu Founder Traci Fenton
Posted in Democratic Principles, democracy at work, workplace democracy on September 30, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The following is an interview that WorkplaceDemocracy.com conducted with Traci Fenton. Traci is the Founder and CEO of WorldBlu, a non-profit organization that champions the growth of democratic organizations worldwide. She is also author of the forthcoming book, Democracy at Work. What makes a company ‘democratic’? A company is democratic when it operates using the [...]
The Invisible Hook: What Managers Can Learn from Pirates
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, workplace democracy, tagged Peter Leeson, University of Chicago, pirates, democracy, economics, The Invisible Hook, Adam Smith, invisible hand on September 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
WorkplaceDemocracy.com conducted an interview with Peter Leeson, economics professor at the University of Chicago and author of The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. The Invisible Hook is a fascinating book that explores why and how lawless and violent pirates organized themselves into what may have been the world’s first democratic workplaces. The Invisible Hook shows how pirates’ [...]
Investors Benefit from Zappos Democratic Work Environment
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, tagged Amazon.com, decentralized workplace, democratic workplace, great workplace, Management Innovation, Tony Hsieh, Zappos on July 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Zappos, the online shoe retailer famous for its quirky company culture and unconventional management practices, recently announced that it is being acquired by Amazon.com for $847 million. Founded in 1999, it took Zappos less than a decade to achieve revenues of over $1 billion, and the company has been profitable since 2006. Tony Hsieh, Zappos’ [...]
Workplace Democracy at GM and Chrysler?
Posted in Democratic Principles, Management Innovation, workplace democracy, tagged Chrysler, democratic company, General Motors, Management Innovation, workplace democracy on May 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
There has been a lot of discussion going on about whether the workers at General Motors and Chrysler will become the owners of their respective employers and about the kind of impact that this ownership stake will have on the future of the two car manufacturers. Without decentralizing the management structure and decision-making processes, simply [...]
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- Apple falters because of Steve Jobs top-down management style... http://fb.me/C3ekbUG9 1 week ago
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- Workplace Democracy: the secret to Warren Buffet’s investment success?... http://fb.me/yDORnqKD 1 month ago
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