Distinctive Features of WL Gore's Organization and Management

Running head: WL GORE & ASSOCIATES
WL Gore & Associates
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1. What are the distinctive features of WL Gore's organization and management and
to what extent do they represent a consistent management approach based upon
identifiable principles?
Answer- WL Gore and Associates are private enterprise that are both diversified
and global. They have a very unique organisational culture and they always focus on the
innovation and quality. They are committed to innovation and it shapes everything that it
does right from, imagining, discovering to inventing. It is a science and technology based
enterprise, with relationships and people at its core. It is founded by Wilbert L. (Urfa Bill)
Gore along with his wife Vieve (Schwendeman et al. 2017). The idea of Bill for Gore
enterprise started with his work with the PTFE compound called Teflon along with its
uses at the DuPont. While working with the PTFE, Bill realised that there can be a wide
range of capabilities of the products. He left the DuPont to start his work with the PTFE
and it was first taken into consideration in the sealants and wire coatings. It is also to
mention that WL Gore developed a wide number of product portfolio that was derived
from the PTFE like the GORE-TEX and this one of their widely known products. The
four power guiding principles of GORE are fairness, commitment, freedom and waterline.
At W.L Gore, a unique combination of the capabilities and resources all work
together in order to prevent the understanding of the competitors and the imitation of the
chosen strategy. This allows the company for deploying the competitive advantages in
different attractive industries. It is also to mention that the resource based model of this
organisation of the superior returns comprise of several steps and they include-
identifying the resources of the firm, determining the capabilities of the firm, determining
the level at which these capabilities and resources produce competitive advantage for the
organisation, locating a really attractive industry and then, selecting a strategy that

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matches the best with the unique capabilities of the firm and the most promising
opportunities present in the market for the company (Slintak and Tuckova 2016).
It is to note in this context that the success of this organisation is all because of its
unique culture. Work is conducted within the organisation differently. Employees at Gore
are all related to each other and there are absolutely titles, no formal hierarchy and even
no bosses in the organisation. Everyone works collaboratively within the organisation.
With the same, the decisions of promotion and compensation are all determined by the
peer rankings of the performance of one another. In order to avoid dampening of the
creativity of employee, the organisation has an organisational structure along with a
culture that goes completely against the conventional wisdom. Bill Gore has referred the
structure of the organisation as “lattice organisation” (Anderson et al. 2015). This
structure include several features as well. There is no assigned or fixed authority for
anyone. At the same time, there is no bosses in the organisation apart from only sponsors.
With the same, there are direct lines of communication, that is- person to person and
absolutely no intermediary. Moreover, there is a natural leadership within WL Gore. It is
just that everyone has the willingness to follow to others. The objectives in the
organisation are always set by the ones who must “make them happen” (Schwendeman et
al. 2017). The functions and the tasks of WL Gore are all organised by means of
commitments. Absolute avoidance of the control structure and hierarchical structure are
followed within the organisation.
The lattice structure of the organisation encourages the hands-on innovation and at
the same time, discourages the bureaucratic red tape by means of involving them closest
to the projects involved in the decision making process. Rather than having a pyramid of
managers and bosses, W.L Gore has a flat organisational structure. There are absolutely
no chains of command in the organisation and also, there is absence of predetermined

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communication channels as well. It sounds more like a self-managed structure of team at
a broader scale. Moreover, it is also to mention that WL Gore and Associates prefers to
think of different people who play significant parts in the organisation as being leaders
and not managers.
The founder of company Bill Gore did not believe in the idea of smothering the
company in the thick layers of the formal management. He believes that with the growth
of the company, he need to find different ways for assisting the new people as well as to
follow their progress. Hence, WL Gore and Associates came up with the program of
sponsorship or the “sponsor” program, which is, a human relations partnership in between
in experiences, incumbent and the newly hired and inexperienced employees. Before
hiring a candidate, associate at WL Gore needs to agree for becoming his or her sponsor
or someone that the others regard as the mentor (Steiber and Alange 2016). The role of
sponsors is to take his or her personal interest in the contributions, goals and problems of
the new associate by playing the role of both advocate and coach. He is the one to track
the progress of the new associates and offer him or her with encouragement and
assistance. He also points out their strengths and weaknesses and then advice them on the
basic of that. It is simply all about making improvements on the intrapersonal skills of the
new member in the organisation in order to help him get equipped with the organisation
and to bring out the best of him. It is also to note that the internal memos of WL Gore
describe a total of three types of sponsorship and they are- advocate sponsor, the starting
sponsor and the compensation sponsor. Associates can perform any of these three types of
sponsorship.
Being associate is a natural commitment to all the four basic principles of Human
Resource that are articulated by Bill Gore. It is also a key belief of the company. These
four principles are fairness, commitment, freedom and waterline. Firstly, fairness to one