Case Incident: No Bosses at W. L. Gore & Associates
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Summary of the Case:
W.L. Gore & Associates, manufacturers of more than 1000 products, has never been a traditionally bureaucratic company. Since its inception in 1958, the founder Wilbert L. Gore believed that too much hierarchy and bureaucracy hampered creativity and adaption. He also believed innovation was spurred only from collaboration among employees, hence providing them informal arenas to share their views irrespective to status differences. There are no job titles or supervisors, each employee works on projects collaboratively. By staffing smaller number of employees, Gore made sure that all employees get to know each other, so they can freely discuss their views and ideas. This innovative structure resulted in tremendous growth and profit for the company. The new employees are startled to take in the non-traditional environment, where instead of a person; your team is your boss as you dont want to let them down. Also there are no typical roles and job descriptions; inculcating multitasking.
Background:
W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. is a manufacturing company specializing in products derived from fluoropolymers. It is a privately held corporation headquartered in Newark, Delaware, with operations around the globe. Although best known as the developer of waterproof, breathable Gore-Tex fabrics, Gores products are also used in a variety of industrial and consumer products, such as electronic signal transmission, diverse industrial applications and medical implants.
The company was founded in 1958 by Wilbert (Bill) Lee Gore and his wife Genevieve Walton Gore in Newark. Bill Gore had spent 16 years with the DuPont Company in a number of technical positions that included fluoropolymer research when he decided to form his own company. While working in his basement, he set out to develop a process for insulating a series of parallel electrical wires using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). The company operated from the basement of the Gores home until 1960, when an order from the Denver Water Company for seven and a half miles of Multi-Tet cable made it necessary to expand manufacturing capacity. The Gores built a new facility in Delaware, not far from their home, which is still in operation. By 1970, Gore and its subsidiary companies had manufacturing plants for wire and cable in Arizona, Scotland, Germany, and Japan.
Unlike the traditional management structure that Bill Gore had experienced at DuPont, he proposed a flat, lattice-like organizational structure where everyone shares the same title of “associate.” There are neither chains of command nor predetermined channels of communication. Leaders replace the idea of “bosses.” Associates choose to follow leaders rather than have bosses assigned to them. Associate contribution reviews are based on a peer-level rating system.
Bill Gore articulated four culture principles that he called freedom, fairness, commitment and waterline:
Associates have the freedom to encourage, help, and allow other associates to grow in knowledge, skill, and scope of responsibility
Associates should demonstrate fairness to each other and everyone with whom they come in contact
Associates are provided the ability to make ones own commitments and are expected to keep them
A waterline situation involves consultation with other associates before undertaking actions that could impact the reputation or profitability of the company and otherwise “sink the ship.”
In 2009, for the twelfth consecutive year, W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. earned a position on Fortune magazines annual list of the U.S. “100 Best Companies to Work For”. Its European operations have also earned similar honors.
Questions:
Question 1: How would you categorize Gores organizational structure using terms from this chapter? For Example is it mechanistic or organic? How might this structure influence Gores strategy?
As W.L. Gore & Associates culture, as described on their official webpage, is a team-based, flat lattice organization that fosters personal initiative. There are no traditional organizational charts, no chains of command, nor predetermined channels of communication. Instead, we communicate directly with each other and are accountable to fellow