You Have No Boss
Working as a business leader in Gore's military-fabrics division, Terri Kelly often finds herself disabusing outsiders of the notion that life in a world without authority figures is Utopia.
From: Fast Company By: Michael Kaplan
If you've nicknamed your boss the Walking Plague, Terri Kelly is a woman you will envy: she's never had a boss. After graduating from the University of Delaware in 1983 with a BS in engineering, Kelly went to work for W.L. Gore and Associates, a $1.1 billion company best known as a developer of high-tech fabric. If you've worn a Gore-Tex jacket, you've had a close encounter with a Gore product.
A visionary corporation, Gore is built from a blueprint that its founder refers to as a "lattice" (as opposed to a "ladder"). There is no visible hierarchy at Gore -- and no job titles. In fact, there are no bosses. Instead, there are leaders who achieve their positions by gaining followers. Business goals are established by consensus.
Gore's internal "structure" was put into place in 1958 by cofounder Bill Gore, an ex-DuPont exec who believed that leaders should be chosen by the people who follow them. Working as a business leader in Gore's military-fabrics division, Kelly often finds herself disabusing outsiders of the notion that life in a world without authority figures is Utopia.
Fantasy: You're responsible to no one.
Reality: You're responsible to everyone.
"Although I'm a business leader for military fabric, I'm a leader only if there are people who are willing to follow me," says Kelly. "A project doesn't move forward unless people buy into it. You cultivate followership by selling yourself, articulating your ideas, and developing a reputation for seeing things through." Here is Kelly's three-point plan for convincing fellow Goreans to buy in on her projects.
Resolve the potentially fatal flaw.
After conceiving an idea, Kelly scrutinizes the plan to find its weakest link and takes it to the person who oversees that part of the business. "Let's say I've come up with a design for a winter sleeping bag she says. "I'd go to the person responsible for marketing the bag and find out whether there's demand for it. If there isn't, I'd go back and try to reposition the plan. If he's excited by the idea and thinks it's viable, I'd bring him in on the project to help me develop it."
Give away ownership.
Once Kelly is convinced there's a market for the sleeping bag, she starts casting about for people from other divisions -- manufacturing, design, fabric, sales -- to form a core team and develop the product. "It's a process of giving away ownership of the idea to people who want to contribute and be a part of it. The project won't go anywhere if you don't let people run with it."
Connect the project with the Big Picture.
Unlike people in hierarchical companies, Kelly cannot simply draft the members of her team. She's got to win them over. Her most reliable tactic is to show how the project will improve Gore's bottom line.
Fantasy: There's no boss standing between you and a raise.
Reality: Everyone stands between you and a raise.
"Salary raises depend on the written reviews of your peers, not on a boss's recommendation," says Kelly, who adds that the reviews include a numerical ranking for each person within a particular department. "The idea is that employees are not accountable to the president of the company; they're accountable to their colleagues." Achieving a high ranking, Kelly explains, depends in part on your ability to work on high-profile projects.
Follow these steps:
Establish your credibility.
"You won't get invited to join the hot teams until you've already contributed to projects that weren't so attractive," says Kelly. "To get ahead, you must first demonstrate that you can take ownership of a project and stick with it. Anyone can talk about going the extra mile. First you've got to prove to everyone else that you can do it."
Pursue the team of your dreams.
"When it's not immediately clear who will be a good fit on a particular team, you hope that somebody will step up and express excitement about being a part of it. People here should never wait around to be asked to join a team. They've got to be proactive. They have to volunteer."
Buddha says; "Happy indeed are the men-of-worth, in them no craving's seen. The "I" conceit is rooted up; delusion's net is burst."
1 comment:
October 3, 2005
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
Telephone: (202) 362 7064
The Honorable Kenneth Wainstein
U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
U.S. Department of Justice
555 Fourth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Dear Mr. Wainstein:
The full text of my autobiography titled "Significant Moments" can be accessed on the web at http://signmomentsone.blogspot.com. The manuscript is unusual in structure, and is written entirely in the form of quotations from published material. I spent about ten years writing the document, from the spring of 1993 to about the year 2004.
From June 1988 to October 1991 I was employed at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, two of whose executive managers are Robert S. Strauss, Esq. and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Dennis M. Race, Esq. of Akin Gump designated himself the contact person regarding questions about my employment (202 887 4028).
From 1992 to 1996 I was an outpatient at the Department of Psychiatry of the George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry, which at that time was chaired by Jerry M. Wiener, M.D. (now deceased). Dr. Wiener served in 1994-1995 as President of the American Psychiatric Association. He had earlier served as President of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Coincidentally, Dr. Wiener was Jewish and a native of Texas, like Robert S. Strauss (who serves as a trustee of GW's Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine). Robert S. Strauss has an interest in biomedical issues and endowed a chair in neurology at the University of Texas Medical School. Both Mr. Strauss and Dr. Wiener were graduates of the University of Texas.
I believe (without proof) that senior Akin Gump managers surreptitiously (and unlawfully) obtained draft versions of my autobiography which I submitted to my psychiatrists at GW. I further believe that Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. transmitted the draft versions to his close friend and confidant, former President William Jefferson Clinton or Hillary Rodham Clinton. If you recall, in the mid-1990s, Mrs. Clinton chaired an ill-fated national health care reform initiative that considered benefits for mental health treatment.
I understand that the willful fabrication of delusional symptoms to bolster a Social Security disability mental health claim would constitute a prosecutable act of criminal fraud.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
cc: Eugene Lambert, Esq., trustee, GW
David Kendall, Esq.
January 5, 2005
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Apartment 136
Washington, DC 20008
U.S. Secret Service
245 Murray Drive
Building 410
Washington, DC 20223
Dear Sir:
This will advise the U.S. Secret Service that I have been the victim of an
ongoing fraud and racketeering conspiracy run by attorney managers of the
Washington, DC law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld: a criminal
enterprise that has involved The George Washington University Medical Center
Medical Faculty Associates, The District of Columbia Public Library (Richard
Jackson, Interim Director), as well as several high-level federal officials
including former President William Jefferson Clinton, former Treasury Secretary
Robert E. Rubin, and former Treasury General Counsel, Edward S. Knight, Esq.
The Government of the District of Columbia (Office of The Corporation Counsel)
determined (in 1997) that I formed a genuine and good-faith belief (though
unsupported by fact) that in January 1990 members of the law firm of Akin, Gump,
Strauss, Hauer & Feld (a class of persons that included Edward S. Knight, Esq.)
gained unlawful entry to my apartment (at the above address), and that the
unlawful entry was made with the knowledge and consent of the firm's management
committee (a class of persons that includes Robert S. Strauss, Esq. and Vernon
E. Jordan, Jr., Esq.). Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, 96-CV-961 (DCCA,
Sept. 1998), Brief of Appellee District of Columbia at 9. The firm did not
dispute the District's determination or its legal or factual relevance.
Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. is a close personal friend of former President
Clinton's.
Secret Service Special Agent Philip C. Leadroot (now retired) is familiar with
this matter.
Enclosed is a collection of pertinent documents.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman
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