Corporate Democracy? Innovation plus People plus Results!

Most companies are stuck in their corporate patterns: large overhead costs and bureaucratic burdens; a focus on short-term results; an inert workforce following a handful of leaders; exposure to bias and unfairness. We sort of know it is wrong, but we don't have the means to change to the better.

Except for one company! Very few people heard of the company Gore (mainly famous for its Gore-Tex fabrics) which churns out 3 billion USD of revenue with 9'000 employees worldwide. Gore has a very different management philosophy: no hierarchy, family feeling, CEO is selected via a poll, etc. The fundamental belief at Gore is that individuals know what's right for the company and success comes from collaboration in small teams; "we are all in the same boat". Followed by the guiding principles of freedom, fairness, commitment, transparency.

On my side, I love to share the story of Gore in order to inspire and show, it is possible to lead differently. Enabling leaders to think out of the box and facilitate change. Here are a few of the elements that define the leadership innovation at Gore:

1. Commitment, instead of assignment - focus on the Why and the understanding; touch people passion
2. Motivate the right behaviour - no complicated criteria, and embrace simple voting; enable ownership (shares) in the company
3. 10% working time to find fellows working on new ideas
4. Success comes from ensuring the culture is healthy and supporting innovation ('enabling teams to give their best')
5. Scaling is easy because Gore has a distributed management system; authority is pushed to the operating teams
6. At the core is culture! This drives the right behaviour in distributed, self-organising teams

Reading through this story, I see Hive17's Human Operating System confirmed: we need to start with a shared direction; then creativity comes up with solutions; experimentation allows to polish these ideas; and solid relationships motivate and allow fast decision-making.

How do you enable your teams to give their best?


Source: ​Innovation Democracy: W.L. Gore's Original Management Model
Photo Credit: Charlie Bibby, FT

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