Matt Linderman at Signal vs. Noise – Excerpts from Ricardo Semler's book "Maverick: The Success Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace" (citing Ricardo Semler's Maverick):

"In other words, the successful companies will be the ones that put quality of life first. Do this and the rest – quality of product, productivity of workers, profits for all – will follow. At Semco we did away with strictures that dictate the “hows” and created fertile soil for differences. We gave people an opportunity to test, question, and disagree. We let them determine their own futures. We let them come and go as they wanted, work at home if they wished, set their own salaries, choose their own bosses. We let them change their minds and ours, prove us wrong when we are wrong, make us humbler."

See also his follow-up post Tips on how to work smarter from Ricardo Semler.

Update (2016-10-20): TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript – Ricardo Semler: How to run a company with (almost) no rules:

“We said, let's devolve to these people, let's give these people a company where we take away all the boarding school aspects of, this is when you arrive, this is how you dress, this is how you go to meetings, this is what you say, this is what you don't say, and let's see what's left.

[…] And we'd say [to kids in the school they founded], you put the rules together and then you decide what you want to do with it. […] They came up with the very same rules that we had, except they're theirs.

[…] But the fact is that it takes a leap of faith about losing control. And almost nobody who is in control is ready to take leaps of faith. It will have to come from kids and other people who are starting companies in a different way.”