Google, Apple and Semco

Three articles, three companies and three very different managing styles. The articles look at how three very important people keep a handle on their employees. Steve Jobs co-founder of Apple and his non-text book approach to an autocratic managing style, CEO of Google Eric Schmit and his laissez-faire catastrophe and Ricardo Semler CEO of SEMCO and his participative ways that surprisingly seem to be working. All run in different markets and have created their own rules to follow. They are the companies paving the way and demonstrating how to be successful in traditional ways but with their own twist. Sometimes they may not seem like the most efficient ways to get your workers to be productive, but in these astounding cases they seem to be working. It may just be the personality of these superiors, or just the absolute fluke, but it works.

While reading the articles one may be thinking, “How can these companies managing styles have anything in common?” or “How could they possibly be doing the same thing?” Managing styles of these three firms do have something in common though, they work. While they may not have similar tactics, Job’s and his micromanaging and Google with the 20% free time, they all have incredibly productive and creative employees. While Apple and SEMCO are doing strangely (with their crazy techniques) well with holding on to their employees, Google with the free-rain program is not doing so well with keeping employees. Google’s employees are given too much freedom, nothing is holding them back. They are already creative, even Google acknowledges this, they wouldn’t have been hired otherwise, but having 20% free time is what seems to be the problem. Having the time once a week allows workers to start building their own project, and they have resources around them to start. By allowing employees so much freedom Google is begging to lose workers that want to become entrepreneurs. SEMCO and APPLE are doing things right and in drastically different...