Frank Shipper

W. L. Gore & Associates: Developing Global Teams to Meet Twenty-First-Century Challenges

In 2008, W. L. Gore & Associates celebrated its fiftieth year in business. During the first four decades of its existence, Gore became famous for its products and for its use of business teams located in a single facility. To facilitate the development of teams, corporate facilities were kept to 200 associates or fewer. Due to the challenges of a global marketplace, business teams are no longer in a single facility. They are now often spread over four continents. Products are sold on six continents and used on all seven, as well as under the ocean and in space. The challenge of having a successful global presence requires virtual teams to enable a high degree of coordination in the development, production, and marketing of products to customers across the world. As previously, teams are defined primarily by product, but no longer by facility. Team members are now separated by thousands of miles, multiple time zones, and a variety of languages and cultures. Growth and globalization present significant challenges for Gore as it strives to maintain a family-like, entrepreneurial culture. According to Terri Kelly, the president of Gore and a 30-year associate1: nIn the early days, our business was largely conducted at the local level. There were global operations, but most relationships were built regionally, and most decisions were made regionally. That picture has evolved dramatically over the last 20 years, as businesses can no longer be defined by brick and mortar. Today, most of our teams are spread across regions and continents. Therefore, the decision-making process is much more global and virtual in nature, and there’s a growing need to build strong relationships across geographical boundaries. The globalization of our business has been one of the biggest changes I’ve seen in the last 25 years.

Herman Miller: Unrelenting Pursuit of Reinvention and Renewal

Herman Miller is widely recognized as the leader in the office furniture industry and has built a reputation for innovation in products and processes since D. J. De Pree became president over 90 years ago. Herman Miller is one of only four companies and the only non-high-technology enterprise named to Fortune’s “Most Admired Companies” and “The 100 Best Companies to Work For” lists and also to FastCompany’s “Most Innovative Companies” list in both 2008 and 2010. The three high-technology organizations selected for these lists were Microsoft, Cisco, and Google. Unlike most firms, especially those in mature industries and most of its office furniture rivals, Herman Miller has pursued a path distinctively marked by reinvention and renewal.

TEOCO (The Employee Owned Company): Principled Entrepreneurship and Shared Leadership

Fairfax, VA, October 6, 2009. Atul Jain, founder of TEOCO, a provider of specialized software for the telecommunications industry, had been meeting all day to finalize a partnership agreement with TA Associates, a private equity firm. For Atul, the pace of activities had been relentless on this special day.1 By all accounts, the last 12 hours had been hectic but the closing of the transaction was a success. The event had started with back-to-back meetings between TEOCO’s senior management and their new partner’s representatives and had culminated with the usual press conference to mark the occasion. The senior management teams of both organizations announced to the business community that TA Associates (TA hereafter) had made a minority equity investment of

Employee self-management without formally designated teams: An alternative road to empowerment

60 million in TEOCO. It was indeed a memorable day, the culmination of intense and uneven negotiations between two organizations that did not have much in common except for deep industry knowledge and a shared interest in seeing TEOCO succeed.