Delivering continuous innovation by turning management principles on their head Subject: Management

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Title: Delivering continuous innovation by turning management principles on their head
Subject: Management
Type of Paper: Assignment
Words: 466
Industrial Context And Business Strategy
This is the story of the UK branch of a US multi-national company that for the last three decades
has achieved continuous innovation in its products. Starting with its unique textile, Gore-Tex, for
which it is best known, the company has created new fluoropolymer products by sustained
creative research and development and through getting close to their customers and exploring
new ways of satisfying their needs. They have developed new products for next-generation
electronics, for medical implants as well as high-performance fabrics, “we provide the
marketplace with differentiated products that add value to the customer’s business and make a
profit”, Ann Gillies, the Human Resource Manager at Gore commented. So confident are they of
their ability to sustain innovation that they have a policy of moving out of product areas once
their patents expire and other companies start to compete on the basis of price, to devote their
creative energies to developing new products. In this organisation, change is the only constant.
Their success is measured not just by the ability of the company to make a profit but also by the
number of patents they register.
Turning Management Principles On Their Head
All this and more has been achieved through the inversion of traditional management principles.
This has been done so thoroughly that at Gore there are no managers, no job descriptions, no
bosses to tell you what to do, just associates and leaders. Whereas in a conventional company an
employee does what he or she is told to do, at Gore their associates do what is needed to make
the whole organisation successful. In this organisation no one can release you to work on a
project because there is no fixed job to be released from. At Gore you are not paid to do a job.
You are rewarded for the contribution. Your colleagues see you making the success of the
business. At Gore, you are not allocated to a position of authority over others. You achieve
leadership by convincing others of the quality of your ideas and your contribution to the goals of
the business. This is how it is possible that 50% of employees, when asked in an independent
survey, described themselves as leaders.
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How has this been achieved? How is it possible that half of all employees see themselves as
leaders? In part it is through applying the lessons learnt by the founder Bill Gore, from his
experience at DuPont. He identified four guiding principles for work organisation in the
company:
• Fairness to each other;
• Freedom to encourage people to grow in knowledge and responsibility;
• The ability to make commitments and keep them; and
• Consultations with others in the company before undertaking actions that would affect
the reputation of the company.
These principles are followed in all the local plants and operations.
Building Trust And Working Through Teams
In the UK, these principles provide the basis for building extremely high levels of trust within
the company between all the associates and leaders that comprise it. These are manifest in the
way in which work is organised, in the way in which learning is supported, the ways in which
work is rewarded and in the unique way in which knowledge is shared, decisions made and
communication is fostered. All this requires that substantial skills are built up among staff at all
levels. Together these create a powerful sense of identification with the company and attachment
to its values. From this flows a high level of performance in the form of constant innovation.
One of the keys to this form of work organisation is the fact that the operating units are kept
small, ideally between 150 and 170 associates. All are members of multidisciplinary teams, for
example, an HR team, teams of engineers, manufacturing teams, but these are constantly
changing in terms of their composition. Some are global in their membership, such as the IT
team and the leadership team in fabrics, the latter being made up of a German, American and UK
person. Most teams are local in that if a person comes up with the idea for a new product, say in
connection with motorcycle clothing, then he or she takes on the leadership of that team,
followed by others who have an interest or specialist knowledge in the area. The result is that
teams are constantly changing, creating an organisation that takes on an amoeba-like quality.
Members of the team determine their objectives, their mode of operating and their composition.
If a person wishes to join a new team, because they are interested in the idea and fe