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Show J 8S The Salt Lake Tribune, Supday, February 16, 1986 Bill and Vieve Gore: Entrepreneurs for the 80s Continued From 7 is one of g lines resembling a screen. In a typical corporation, people are placed in a box on an organizational chart. They have a fixed place and assigned tasks. They are told what to do and how well they follow orders determines if they are moved to another box. S-- criss-crossin- Bill Gore says this is not an un- natural way to organize labor. We are taught as children and in school to follow orders. But parents strive to make their children learn responsibility and teachers strive to make students responsible for their own education. Ironically, this is lost once they enter the workforce. When you get a job where the boss tells you what to do and you follow the orders precisely, you are not responsible, he says. The person who gave you the orders is responsible. And you immediately degenerate from a adult to a childish position. If you are an authoritarian and people have an idea, they are afraid to say anything because they are told what to do, says Vieve Gore. The lattice structure works through a system of voluntary commitments rather than commands. A person makes a commitment to do a certain task within the company. Even Bill Gore, in the company he founded, cannot give an order to anyone. But if there are no commands, neither is there chaos. Somehow, someone must volunteer for everything that needs to be done, Bill Gore says. And in a dedicated team, people are unbelievably willing to make commitments if the commitment is important and must be done. With freedom comes and this is the glue of Freedom the lattice structure. are inesand capably tied together, Bill Gore says. If you have a committed person, you really get the whole person. I can tell you story after story about how great people are. ONE STORY IS THAT OF the late Milton Cox. Cox asked for a job at W.L. Gore & Associates while the GM plant, where he worked as a janitor, was on strike. Bill Gore told him he would make more money on his strike pay, but he took the job anyway. He started as a janitor and became interested in the machine shop. He turned out to be an expert machinist, inventing several machines that saved the company thousands of dollars. Given the opportunity and encouragement, there isnt anyone who is not productive and creative, Bill Gore says. "In an enterprise with a great deal of freedom, the productivity, creativity and inventions are doubled. Chances are Coxs talent as a machinist would never have been discovered at GM. When Cox died a few years ago, his estate, consisting largely of W.L. Gore & Asso ciates stock, was worth close to million. 1 Bill Gore begins a lecture at Westminster with, I'm not really speaking entirely for myself tonight. It seems as though for the last 51 years weve been married and the last 28 years weve been working together in the enterprise, Ive had a partner who has indeed been a partner. They met when Bill Gore was a freshman as Westminster and Vieve was a junior at East High. He says it took him four years to get a date. She says he always The lattice structure contains several checks that prevent chaos in the business the primary one being a strict adherence to the bottom line. In our enterprise, we have a very simple objective, Bill Gore says. Our objective is to make to enjoy money and have fun doing it." The pleasure that is most basic and important to the individual is the conviction that what we are that it is doing is important worthwhile, that the things we are pany is based on the respect of a persons fellow workers not salaries, titles or the size of his or her office. An associate can tackle a new project, provided he finds people willing to follow him or her. There is an absolutely accurate, absolutely dependable way of determining leadership qualities: a leader always has followers, Bill Gore says. None of this has anything to do with the title. Bill and Vieve Gore learned early, however, that the lattice structure breaks down when people no longer know each other. The com When we started the business, I was all hyped on freedom and how creative people were, Bill Gore says. And he believed that traditional, hierarchical organizations stifled creativity. You have to maximize freedom because unless people have the freedom to try new to experiment, to innovate you are not going to make progress. Every things be improved. can business, every operation, every activity called too late. She kept trying to arrange blind dates for him. Eventually, he got a date with her. They now have five children, 20 grandchildren and several Their five children, as well as two and one grandchild, work for the company. Their eldest son, Bob, came to work for the company in 1963 after earning a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and invented Gore-Te- x in 1976 by figuring out how to stretch PTFE. sons-in-la- They are a close-knfamily and when their children grew up, rather then moving to a smaller house, the Gores added bedrooms for their grandchildren, says James E. Peterson, former president of Westminster. Bill and Vieve Gore share a love of the outdoors and still ski and backpack. The first tent made of Gore-Te- x was sewn by Vieve Gore. They have hiked in Nepal and the Kashmir and have traveled throughout the world. Yet their favorite spot to hike is still the Wind River Range in Wyoming a trip they have taken each year since 1953. Children, grandchildren and gather each it working on will contribute to the success of the enterprise and that the product and service that we produce are beneficial, he adds. An associates salary is tied to the contribution he or she makes to the companys profits. They must produce results. And though there are no titles, there are wide differences in salaries. WHEN ASSOCIATES EXCEL, they are rewarded accordingly. They receive a bonus, in cash or stock, when they make a one-shcontribution that is not likely to be duplicated. Factory workers are rewarded for suggestions on how to improve productivity. Coxs fortune, for example, came from demachines veloping money-savin- g for the company. Sometimes there are people who get bonuses considerably more than my salary, Bill Gore says. The company also has developed a system in which each associate has what is called a sponsor. Any associate can try another job provided he finds a sponsor. Cox moved from being a janitor to a machinist by finding a sponsor in the machine shop. The sponsor is part mentor and part advocate. He is the person ot pany limits the size of its plants to 200 people and the typical plant has 150 associates. To retain some economies of scale, the plants are built in clusters. This allows equipment such as machine tools and computers that are too expensive for one plant to be shared. Finally, for the lattice structure to work, the Gores believe associates must have an ownership in the company. Associates receive 15 percent of their annual salaries in stock after their first year. Ninety percent of W.L. Gore & Associates is owned by the associates. That's where the word associate fits in, says Vieve Gore. We are all partners. When asked why they gave away most of their company, Bill Gore says, We did it in order to get rich. As a consequence, we have conscientious, dedicated people. That is what makes the company a success. Although he was graduated more than 50 years ago and lives on the other side of a continent, The emphasis on creativity, however, demands tolerating mistakes. If you look around and nobody is making a mistake, you have a problem, Gore says. This means nobody is taking risks. Mistakes can sometimes be very creative. year at Vail for a ski vacation though the Gores say their favorite skiing is still in Utah. And they are, in the most literal their sense, business partners offices are next to each other's at the companys headquarters in Newark, Delaware and Vieve Gore still works in the financial group. We've always been in love and that helps, Vieve Gore says. Ive always thought my husband is a real hero, and he is. Its been very much a shared thing, Bill Gore replies. "My wife has done many heroic things." who helps an associate, get ac- -' quainted with and find a place in the company. The sponsor also makes certain an associates accomplishments do not go unnoticed. This is essential because each associates salary is based on his or her contribution. Every associate has a sponsor including Bill Gore, whose biggest sponsor is Vieve Gore. Westminster College remains Although the company does not have titles, it definitely has leaders. This is another check. Bill Gore says a leader is simply a person who has a recognized judgment and leadership at the com school. close to Bill Gore. His familys tie to the school is now in its fourth generation. His mother and sister went to the school. His daughter. Ginger also is a graduate, is married to a graduate of Westminster and is on the Board of Trustees. And, continuing the tradition, a grandson has been graduated from the Gio-val- e, My mother was raised down in Alpine. She was not a Mormon and to some degree was ostracized, Bill Gore says. She was awarded a scholarship and was graduated in the late 1880s. I have a lot of affection for the school. When I was going here, it was the kind of school where a lot of kids came from the back country and it was their only chance for an education. Ive tried to help the school with their financial struggles, he says. We both felt that is was an important project to keep the school going. One of the most moving experiences I had at Westminster was I sat down with Bill Gore and his wife Vieve and told them how desperate we were for money and told them honestly that we might not make it. To demonstrate their support for the school, and I guess for me, they went home and sent me a large amount of money, even though they knew the money was at risk. During the time I was there, I think the Gores visited the school twice a year, Mr. Peterson says. d I dont know anybody in my years I respect more. The best sign that his unusual that it management ideas work does foster creativity and initiative is the fact that the company has consistently developed of new and marketable products over the past 28 years. "The reaction from businessmen today is, You guys are so damned lucky with your products that any system will work Bill Gore says. The thing they dont ask is where those products come from. The emphasis on creativity, however, demands tolerating mistakes. If you look around and nobody is making a mistake, you have a problem, he says. This means nobody is taking risks. Mistakes can sometimes be very creative. Ribbon cable for electrical wiring continues to be a major product, but W.L. Gore & Associates now is involved in businesses a bit more glamorous. A significant part of the companys sales come from Gore-Te- x vascular grafts. Approximately one million Gore-Te- x vascular grafts have been imin people throughout the planted ' world. The company also manufactures industrial and medical filters and industrial seals. At a time when American corporations are being bloodied in the world marketplace, W.L. Gore & Associates is doing just fine against foreign competition. Two-thirof the companys sales come from abroad and the company has 15 plants overseas in Japan, Germany, Scotland, France and India. The turning point for the company was in 1969 when Bob Gore succeeded in stretching PTFE. The first application of expanded PTFE was industrial seals. But the company quickly was at work developing machines that would e Gore-Te- x in wide sheets. See Column 1 mass-produc- S-- |
