The Observer, Sunday November 2 2008
(Chinese follows English)
中文翻譯在英文全文的下方
Hi-tech pioneer WL Gore is weathering the crunch well, says CEO Terri Kelly,
because it is mercifully free of bureaucracy
In most companies, turning down the founder and chief executive's request to look after a pet project would be a career-stopper for a young engineer on her first assignment. But WL Gore and Associates is not most companies. And Terri Kelly, the engineer in question who became its president and chief executive in 2005 - only the fourth in the company's 50-year history - tells that story to illustrate a couple of Gore's most singular characteristics.
At Gore - a $2.4 billion, hi-tech materials company that most people know best for the Gore-Tex fabric that waterproofs their anoraks and walking boots - no one can tell any of the company's 8,500 associates what to do. Although there is a structure (divisions, business units and so on) there is no organization chart, no hierarchy and therefore no bosses. Kelly is one of the few with a title.
…That makes her job rather different from that of most CEOs. Bill Gore, who set up the company wanted to build a firm that was truly innovative. So there were no rule books or bureaucracy. He strongly believed that people come to work to do well and do the right thing. Trust, peer pressure and the desire to invent great products - market-leading guitar strings, dental floss, fuel cells, cardiovascular and surgical applications and all kinds of specialized fabrics - would be the glue holding the company together, rather than the official procedures other companies rely on.
Traditionalists wonder how it works. Kelly (says) that it works just fine, particularly in chaotic times like these. The financial crisis is also a management crisis and the symptom, she believes, of a wider issue: a deficit of trust. Gore, however, has 'focused on generating value through trust - with our associates [the privately-held company is co-owned by the Gore family and the workforce], suppliers and customers'. Counter-intuitively, the best governance, especially in troubled periods, is the absence of external rules: Gore would rather rely on fiercely motivated people who have no fear of challenging leaders to justify decisions, and leaders who know they can't rely on power or status to get themselves out of a fix.
In Gore's self-regulating system, all the normal management rules are reversed. In this back-to-front world, leaders aren't appointed: they emerge when they accumulate enough followers to qualify as such. So when the previous group CEO retired three years ago, there was no shortlist of preferred candidates. Alongside board discussions, a wide range of associates were invited to nominate to the post someone they would be willing to follow. 'We weren't given a list of names - we were free to choose anyone in the company,' Kelly says. 'To my surprise, it was me.'
Similarly, Gore doesn't have budgets in the sense that most companies do. 'When I joined we didn't have a planning process - budgeting wasn't in the vocabulary,' she says. Gore now does a better job of planning investment and forecasting, she maintains, but it still tries to avoid the games-playing and inflexibility of the traditional budget. 'Budgets hinder associates from reacting in real time to changing circumstances,' she says. Most of Gore's investment will only have an impact years ahead: 'We don't want folks making short-term decisions that are not in the best interest of the long term. The planning and investment horizons have to match.'
Gore also seems to reverse the usual notions of economies of scale. When Gore units grow to around 200 people, they are usually split up. These small plants are organized in clusters or campuses, ideally with a dozen or so sites in close enough proximity to permit knowledge synergies, but still intimate and separate enough to encourage ownership and identity. An accountant might complain that creates duplication of costs; Gore believes those are more than offset by the benefits smallness brings.
A Gore lifer, Kelly joined the company as a process engineer in 1983. (Like leaders in many of the most interesting of today's companies, she has no formal business education). …Is lack of experience outside the company a disadvantage, or an essential qualification for running Gore? It is hard to imagine an outsider being able to understand, let alone manage, a distinctive culture such as this. Kelly argues that the ability to develop its own ways of doing things is crucial to the company's success. Proof of the importance of the 'Gore factor' is the company's consistently high ranking in 'good places to work' surveys.
…Most companies find safety in numbers, ending up broadly resembling their industry counterparts in strategy, products and management processes. For the consequences, look no further than the credit crunch, which has overwhelmed the copycats in the financial sector.
Kelly, on the other hand, spends most of her time on emphasizing difference and preventing people from reverting to the conventional wisdom that in other firms would be the norm. This is a fine line to tread. Protecting the core heritage is one thing; not allowing anything to change is another. Where Gore has tripped up in the past, she says, has been in confusing the core values, which don't change, with the practices for getting things done, which do. So in the late 1980s there was a furious argument over whether 'structure' was bureaucracy and therefore bad and counter-cultural. “We didn't pay enough attention to accountability and decision-making and who was actually leading.” It was a good exercise for us to understand the need to distinguish between practices, which change with time, and who we really are, which doesn't. Otherwise you're paralyzed.'
Although at present, Gore is being prudent with investment plans, cutting back on hiring in areas most exposed to the downturn, Kelly is not rowing back from the promise that the company will double in size over the next few years. … it is no secret that the balance sheet is strong and the company has been in the black every year in its history. It doesn't lack opportunities, whether geographical or technical, nor is it constrained by ability to invest.
Growth, then, will largely be dictated by its ability to assimilate new people. 'It's all about how we bring new folks in, get them to understand our values and focus leadership on fitting it all together,' Kelly says. 'For our associates to know we aren't constrained by markets or finance, just by our own culture - that's a good problem to have. It's all in our own hands.'
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Gore-Tex不是靠經理人做出來的！
高科技材質先鋒WL Gore屢屢安度危機，執行長Terri Kelly說，因為這裡毫無官僚體制
by Simon Caulkin
在大多數的公司裡，年輕、資歷淺的工程師在第一個任務就拒絕受理創辦人和高階主管倍感得意的專案，可謂職涯發展的一大殺手！然而WL Gore and Associates 並非「大多數」公司！Terri Kelly，這位在2005年成為該公司總裁的工程師，也是該公司50年來的第四任總裁，用這個自身的經歷充分描繪出Gore最異於常人的特質。在這規模24億以專門讓厚風衣、登山鞋防水的Gore-Tex著稱的高科技材料公司，Gore，沒有誰能命令公司8,500位同仁做任何事。雖然仍有組織架構（部門、事業體等），但沒有組織表，沒有官僚體系，當然也就沒有一堆的「老闆」！Kelly是少數有老闆頭銜的一位。
…這也讓她的工作與大多數的執行長相異其趣。Bill Gore, 成立公司時想要創立一家真正創新的企業。所以沒有成冊的規訂，也沒有官僚體系。他堅信人們來此是要「做好工作」和「做對工作」的。信任、同儕壓力和發明偉大產品的渴望—最先進的吉他弦、牙線、燃料電池、心血管及手術材料和各式各樣的專利布料—就是公司上下的凝聚力，而非其它公司所仰賴的公司章程。
傳統論者想知道實際上的運作成效。Kelly說，運作起來效果很好，特別是在像現在這樣混亂的大環境之下。她深信，金融風暴也是一種管理危機和更深層議題的癥狀：信任赤字。然而，Gore透過信任，致力於和我們的同仁（這是Gore家族與員工們共同擁有的私人企業）、供應商和客戶一起創造價值。與直覺相反地，最好的管理，特別是在艱困時期，是要擺脫外加的規則。Gore寧可仰賴高度積極且不畏懼去挑戰領導人改變決定的人和深知不能依賴權力或地位讓自己脫離困境的領導人。
Gore自我規範的體制中，所有的管理常規都被顛覆了。在這顛覆的世界中，領導人不是被指派的，當他們累積足夠的追隨者，就自然形成了領導人。當三年前前任執行長退休時，內部不乏接班人選。除了董事會的討論之外，許多同仁也受邀提名他們願意追隨的領導人。「沒有人吩咐我們要投給誰，我們有絕對的自由可以選公司裡的任何一個人。」Kelly說。「我很訝異，竟然是我！」
同樣地，Gore也不像大多數企業一樣的編列預算。「當我加入時，我們沒有規劃的流程，更別說有編列預算這回事。」她說。Gore現在在規劃投資與預估這方面進步了，她也繼續保持，但也堅持避免傳統預算制中的把戲與僵化。「預算妨礙了同仁在第一時間改變現狀。」她說。大多Gore的投資都在未來幾年才看得出成果。「我們不希望大家做出對長期無益的短利決策。規劃與投資的兩條地平線必須一致！」
Gore似乎對於經濟規模的看法也與眾不同。當他們成長到200人的規模時，他們就分開。這些小工廠分組或分地區運作，最好是12人左右，廠區也相距夠近，相互分享知識與經驗，雖維持足夠的親密也保持足夠的距離鼓勵自我認同與區隔。一般會計人員可能會抱怨資源重複、浪費成本，Gore則深信小規模所帶來的好處遠大於此。
一位在Gore終生服務的人，Kelly於1983年加入為流程工程師。（跟當今最吸引人的許多公司的領導人一樣，她並非經營管理科班出身。）…缺乏公司外的經驗是個缺點？還是經營Gore必備的要件？很難想像一個外人能理解，甚至管理，像這樣與眾不同的文化。Kelly印證要有發展自己獨特行事作風的能力是公司成功的基石。Gore工廠的重要性已經由年年「想投入的最佳工作環境」調查高排名中明顯可見。
…大部分公司在數字中找尋安全感，進而廣泛地在策略、產品、和管理制度上模仿他們的同業。結果往往就是財務產生缺口，這也通常讓抄襲者招架不住。
另一方面，Kelly將大部分心力放在強調差異，避免人們落入其它企業常見的傳統模式。這是個好方向。保護核心資產是一回事，不允許任何改變又是另一回事。她說：Gore過去犯過的錯就是核心價值（不改變）與實際運作（要改變）混淆不清。於是1980年代晚期引起了激烈的爭辯，認為「組織架構」太官僚，帶來不好與背道而馳的文化。「我們沒有放足夠的心力注意到責任、決策和誰是真正的領導人。」對我們而言，是個好的練習，讓我們瞭解到必須能夠分辨實務（隨時間而演變）和我們的本質（不因時間而變）。否則你會癱瘓，無法運作！」
雖然現在Gore對於投資計畫變得謹慎，對於萎縮的領域也採取人事凍結，Kelly可沒有改變公司在未來幾年仍會加倍成長的承諾…公司資產負債比很健全、年年都有盈餘並非秘密。在地理上或技術上，都不乏機會，更不憂心投資的能力！
那麼，成長將賴於吸引新人的能力。「一切在於我們如何帶入新血，讓他們瞭解我們的價值觀，並將領導力專注在整合。」Kelly說。「也讓我們的同仁們知道我們不是受限於市場或財務，只是我們自己的文化，這算是個好的難題。因為一切掌控在我們自己的手中。」
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