Ξ July 30th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |
W. L. Gore & Associates is a company without titles, hierarchy, or any of the conventional structures associated with enterprises of its size. The titles of president and secretary-treasurer are used only because they are required by the laws of incorporation. In addition, Gore does not have a corporate wide mission or code of ethics statement, although Gore does not require or prohibit business units from developing such statements for themselves. Thus, the Associates of some business units who have felt a need for such statements have developed them for themselves. The majority of business units within Gore do not have such statements. When questioned about this issue, one Associate stated, "The company belief is that (1) its four basic operating principles cover ethical practices required of people in business; and (2) it will not tolerate illegal practices." Gore's management style has been referred to as un-management.
Ξ July 30th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |
Your Choice is Your Responsibility
There's a dual meaning here.
Most companies tell you what to do. Then they make you accountable to the person who told you what to do, not to yourself. We don't think this gets the best long-term results with a truly ambitious project like Second Life. At Linden Lab, you are expected to choose your own work, you have to decide how you can best move the company forward. This isn't always easy, but it can be very rewarding for you and it is a huge win for the company. This doesn't mean that you can't ask someone else what to do - it means that you are responsible for choosing who to listen to! You are responsible for listening well and broadly enough to choose wisely."
Ξ July 30th, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Uncategorized |
Part of his education at GE/Durham has involved something that many teams stumble over: how to get around the truism that committees don't make decisions, people do. At GE/Durham, virtually every decision is made by a team, by consensus. Consensus is another of the founding principles of GE/Durham. It is so ingrained that technicians have turned consensus into a verb: The people at the plant routinely talk about "consensing" on something.
The average group of 15 or 16 people can't reach consensus on where to go for lunch -- let alone how to run a factory. How to organize a production line, whether to hire someone, how to assess someone's skills for promotion, even how to pick who will work over the weekend -- those kinds of issues inspire strong disagreement. "Everybody doesn't see things in the same way," says Williams. "But we've had training on how to reach consensus. We've had training on how to live with ideas that we might not necessarily agree with." And the team members always have the power to change things that don't work out. Says Williams: "All the things you normally fuss and moan about to yourself and your buddies -- well, we have a chance to do something about them. I can't say, 'They' don't know what's going on, or, 'They' made a bad decision. I am 'they.' "
From Teams to Tribes
"Teams," "teamwork," "teaming" -- these are such overused words, such overworked concepts, that they have been all but drained of meaning. GE/Durham isn't so much a team environment as it is a tribal community. There are rules, rituals, and folklore; there is tribal loyalty and tribal accountability. There is a connection to a wider world, beyond the tribe.
