The New Future
Global Takes on Terror

At Ricardo Semler's manufacturing company in Sao Paulo, financial data are shared with all employees, 30% of employees determine their own salaries, and self-managed teams replace hierarchy. He told the story in his seminal management book, Maverick.

By Ricardo Semler
President, Semco SA

Will Sept. 11 change the world?
I don't see structural change of any kind. It obviously shakes everyone up on a human level, but not on a structural level. I don't have the impression that we're now dealing with a completely different world, or that we're dealing with different economics or with different political considerations from those we had before.

What do you think of the U.S. reaction to the attacks?
They reflect a lot of impotence, and a lot of frustration. If the predator, as in this case, is almost impossible to find, you go for the next best thing, which is those who housed the predator. But it's a very different game. And redeeming the feeling of impotence that the man on the street has doesn't make the action either good or effective.

What impact have you seen in Brazil?
From a personal standpoint, I feel a lot of dismay. This is such a very sorry sequence of events. I don't see anyone watching the war and saying, "Okay. Now this is going to make a difference. Everything is going to end, and that's great because the world will be freer." But you know, I was in Milan a week ago, and there's a very strong pro-Arab sentiment there ... in the sense of looking at America as the imperialist. I don't see any of that in Brazil. This has all been front-page news, but now it's slipping into the back. And surprisingly, we've seen virtually no reaction in the business world. I'd imagined the usual slowdown. We've just finished our planning for the next year and I was expecting at the board meeting to hear a lot of explanations about why things are going to slow down, but our growth pattern seems unaltered.

What's the overall impact on globalization?
Typically, global businesses just add local flavor to an international package, so McDonald's will do fries differently in Holland and give them mayonnaise, or do a McCroissant in France. That's the McDonald's model of globalization. Maybe now that will be slightly halted. Maybe companies will think, "Geez! This ain't as easy as I thought it was!" Maybe the events of Sept. 11 will bring to globalization a flavor of cultural uniqueness that I think was washed away in the last few gung-ho years.

Next: J.K. Jain

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