12 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Monday5 August 2019

WORK & CAREERS

’

Three cheers for positive thinking! The

evidence suggestsinstilling what the

psychologists call “positive affect” has

a variety of knock-on benefits.

Happy individuals enjoy

improvements in intuition, creativity

and resilience. Happiness reinforces

our immune function, reduces

susceptibility to strokes, among other

things, and even improves longevity.

Positive emotions also widen the

number of ways in which people react

to threats and challenges. Too much

negativity merely encourages us to

fight or flee from danger.

So it is entirely logical, even

desirable, that leaders should aim to

encourage this self-reinforcing attitude.

Listen to the London Stock

Exchange’s chief executive David

Schwimmer on the prospects for his

group’s $27bn high-stakes takeoverof

Refinitiv, the data provider:

“We feel that this is a very strong

combination that we feel very good

about strategically, we feel very good

about the leverage and our ability to

pay it down. We feel good about

integration and we feel very good about

the combined team.” It is fair to say he

feels good and wants everyone around

him to feel good.

Boris Johnson is the current highest

profile exponent of this art. The UK’s

new prime minister has evoked a “can

do spirit” to defeat “the doubters, the

doomsters, the gloomsters”, whom he

believes threaten Brexit.

Government insiders have already

dubbed his economic policy

“boosterism”. That is either a

deliberate or an inadvertent echo of the

coinage by Sinclair Lewis, the US

writer, who satirised midwest

American cities’ hyperbolic self-

promotion. The property-speculating

protagonist of Lewis’sBabbittis an

active member of “the International

Organization of Boosters’ Clubs... a

world-force for optimism, manly

pleasantry, and good business”.

Mr Johnson has drawn heavily from

club members for advice. Around him,

he has assembled a group of

supposedly can-do ministers and

advisers, who are themselves seeking

counsel from pro-Brexit outsiders.

After convening a roundtable last

week, loaded with business leaders

who favour leaving the EU, Andrea

Leadsom, the new UK business

secretary, said she had urged themto

“continue their positive approach to

the future” and lauded their optimism.

On the other side of the Atlantic,

Donald Trump cuts a different figure:

more aggressive, less ludic. His

inauguration speech played on fears of

“American carnage”, whereas Mr

Johnson emphasised British “pluck and

nerve and ambition”. Yet the US

president, too, was raised on the power

of positive thinking — the title of the

bestseller by Norman Vincent Peale,

the pastor who presided over Mr

Trump’s first marriage and preachedat

the church to which the president’s

father used to take the budding real

estate magnate.

In business, the influence of

psychologist Carol Dweck’s concept of

the “growth mindset” — openness to

learning and trying new approaches —

is spreading. It has been key to Satya

Nadella’s planto change Microsoft’s

culture. When he stepped in as chief

executive of Volkswagen, mired in the

“Dieselgate” scandal, Matthias Müller

talked of the need to change the

carmaker’s mindset and adopt “the

right attitude and mentality”. Both

CEOs recognise relentless positivity

alone will not achieve results, though.

Prof Dweck herself has criticisedthe

common misconception that just by

assuming a growth mindset, “good

things will happen”.

Leaders who set a strategic goal,

without rooting it in reality, or laying

out the steps to execute the strategy,

set followers up for disappointment,

cynicism and chaos. Boosterism risks

being exposed as mere blusterism.

Before leaders take to the

battlements to rally their troops with

positive messages, they must

understand their own abilities. Adam

Grant of Wharton business school

points outthat “whether people

succeed is not a matter of thinking

positively or negatively, but rather

whether they choose the strategies that

match their thinking styles”. A

defensive pessimist will look foolish

and unconvincing making a tub-

thumpingly upbeat speech to the

Boosters’ Club.

Leaders who are strategic optimists

actually perform no betterthan

pessimists, who are able to turn

anxiety into action. What is needed is a

mix of both. “We do not wish to knock

the booster,” Sinclair Lewis wrote, “but

we certainly do wish to boost the

knocker.”

Studies back him up. Too much

positivity can be bad for you. In fact,

there’s an ideal ratiofor human

flourishing of about three to one,

between positive emotions —

amusement, hope, joy and so on — and

negative ones. Three cheers, then, for

positive thinking — and one carefully

modulated catcall.

[email protected]

Leaders who set a

strategic goal,

without rooting it

in reality, set

followers up for

disappointment,

cynicism and chaos

How to stop

boosterism

becoming mere

blusterism

Andrew Hill

On management

‘

I

n these days of near-instant uni-

corns and listings that net a fortune

for founders, selling an innovative

small business in order to join a

large established company might

seem counter intuitive.

When Jason Field did just this, joining

WL Gore & Associatesin 2005, it could

have been seen as an indication of burn-

out, or at the very least a tacit declara-

tion of desire for a more routine, less

pressured existence. But you do not join

the US materials science group, which is

best knownfor Gore-Tex waterproofing

but which also makes products as varied

as guitar strings and heart patches, for a

quiet life and sedate progress through

the ranks of a conventionalcompany.

For a start, there arenot any ranks.

Before joining Gore, Mr Field, then in

his thirties, had owned a horse veteri-

nary practice in Flagstaff, Arizona,

where he had pioneered the idea of a

new kind of stent.By the time he joined

Gore, he had picked up enough about

the unique culture of the “enterprise”

(its preferred identifier) through his

customers, some of whom worked at

Gore’s nearby medical business head-

quarters, to be intrigued.

Mr Field says that the scientific exper-

tise of his customers that worked at

Gore had pushed him to be a better vet,

whilealso helping him identify an

opportunity “to apply my technological

background in a new setting”. This ini-

tially led to him taking a research and

development role in the company. First

product: his stent.It was a natural fit.

Other aspects of Gore’s unusual work-

ing culture — including quite different

reporting structures —took more

adjusting to. Although roles and respon-

sibilities at Gore are clearly defined,

they are not captured inneat organisa-

tional charts, and the only concession to

hierarchy is the word “leader” on a

select number of business cards.

In Gore’s “lattice organisation”, any-

one can talk to anyone, and no one tells

another what to do. Instead new

employees — all of whom become share-

holders if they stay — are encouraged to

navigate their own way through the

business.

The self-propelled culture suited Mr

Field. So much so, thatsomewhat to his

surprise, he maintains, he emerged last

year from Gore’s selection process as the

fifth chief executive in six decades of

history. A successful career at Gore and

a close fit with the board and founding

family over values and future direction

were obviously important in his

appointment. But those alone would not

have been enough: no one gets to the top

leadership role at Gore unless they have

the strong support of colleagues, known

internally as “associates”.

“We extend a lot of freedoms to asso-

ciates,” says Mr Field. “For individuals

who are strongly personally motivated

and self-driven, that usually works well

from the outset. For those who are used

to being directed and told how to do

things, it’s a challenge.” Not everyone is

able to adapt, he notes.

Gore has a disarmingly simple work-

ing definition of leadership: a capability

to attract followers, for which no other

qualifications are a substitute. Mr Field

quickly discovered that his previous

business record counted for little. “That

can be challenging for someone joining

later with career experience, and I cer-

tainly went through it looking for my

opportunity to build credibility and fol-

lowership,” he says. “You really do have

to demonstrate those capabilities, not

just talk about them.”

As Mr Field describes it, to lead Gore

is to steward a company that prides

itself on innovating. It has a constantly

expanding portfolio of more than 1,

products, ranging from Gore-Tex to aer-

ospace cable wiring assemblies.

But Gore’s most significant innovation

may not be a particular product, but

rather the unique non-hierarchical

management model that enables the

new products to emerge. “We do see

companies trying to replicate some of

what we do,” says Mr Field. “But it’s hard

to take bits of it and apply them piece-

meal, because it’s an ecosystem — a

truly holistic way of working.”

When Bill and Vieve Gore founded the

company in 1958, in Newark, Delaware,

the aim was to build an organisation

where inventive people could “have fun

and make money”. But they did it seri-

ously. Bill Gore was greatly influenced

by human relations school theorists

Douglas (Theory X, Theory Y) McGre-

gor and Abraham (“hierarchy of

needs”) Maslow, and emphasised the

importance of purpose. In the case of

Gore, this meant applying technology to

have a meaningful impact on society. He

also wanted to supporthuman fulfil-

ment, embodied in a set ofprinciples

and management practicesdesigned to

foster trust, initiative and enable the

emergence of natural leaders.

“We talk about the sweet spot where

personal interest, skills and experience

and business needs intersect,”says Mr

Field. “Where that happens, we really

encourage associates to chase those

experiences.” This, he believes, supplies

the fun, the energy for forward momen-

tum and the fuel for Gore’s creativity.

Nurturing this all-important culture

absorbs much of Mr Field’s attention.

And as the company has grown — in

2018 revenues were $3.5bn with a head-

count of 9,500 — being so atypical a

company has cut both ways.

There have beenno shortage of

growth opportunities in healthcare, avi-

ation, electric vehicles and telecoms, for

instance, but the company has learnt

the hard way that it cannot expand

faster than it can scale the culture — one

person at a time.

It helps that Gore is privately held, so

it does not need to react to every spike in

the news cycle or short-term demands

from Wall Street. But inventing your

own rules means there are no conven-

tional management short-cuts to fall

back on. It has had to define decision-

making roles and attribute accountabil-

ity more clearly. There have also been

uncomfortable moments when the

company has struggled to reconcilethe

founding principles with the need for

more structure to support growth.

“Gore isn’t perfect,” Mr Field says.

“But we’re a human organisation, a

learning organisation, and we think

about our organisation and practices in

the same way as we think about our

technology... the more we can find

proof points that we’re going in the right

direction and allocate resources against

those practices, the better off we shall

b e .”

WL Gore: the company others

try and fail to imitate

The group behind the

Gore-Tex fabric thrives on

its unconventional

corporate structure,

writesSimon Caulkin

Jason Field,

chief executive

of WL Gore,

owned a horse

veterinary

practice before

joining the

‘enterprise’

Charlie Bibby/FT

Words matter at Gore, and they do not

always mean what they do elsewhere.

To those who work there, Gore is the

enterprise, not the company. It has

leaders, never bosses.

Associates(included in the corporate

identity) is not a euphemism for staff —

it reflects the fact that they are

shareholders who play an active part in

upholding the four founding principles of

freedom,fairness,commitmentand

waterline.

The latter refers to avoidingactions

that risk holing the boat without first

consulting others.

Freedomis as much about helping

others grow as oneself, and is boundby

the further obligations to fairness and

accountability to personal commitments.

Gore encouragesknowledge-based

decision making, based onrelationship

building(so you know where the

knowledge resides) andface-to-face

communication, on the basis of which

teams self-organise around the best

ideas for new products or market

opportunities.

Associates emerge asleadersby

virtue of attractingfollowership, the only

way of demonstrating leadership

credentials — your business record is not

sufficient. ‘If you call a meeting and

people turn up, you’re a leader,’ as one

associate has put it.

Gore-speak

Culture

It helps that the company

is privately held, so it does

not need to react to every

spike in the news cycle

Managing others

Rich, the family-business

man

I’ve taken the liberty of

ordering pastries for our

breakfast meeting. Where’s

Milo? Sleeping? Go and fetch

him, Sophia. Theo, yes, you

can start on the croissants.

Glad you could join us,

Milo. So: I thought we’d start

the holiday with a family

meeting. I think of my

business as one big happy

family, so why not run my

family like a business? It’s

rather a brilliant idea. Says

who, Milo? Me and my

deputy. Sorry, Liz, I mean

joint CEO. You prefer

Chairman? OK, I suppose.

Don’t cry, Theo: you can still

call her mummy.

Every company needs a

mission statement. With

thanks to Google, I’ve come

up with “Don’t Be Lazy”. I

know this is a holiday but

that’s no reason to be

unproductive.

We’ve set some KPIs. First,

improve your swimming. By

the end of the holiday, you

must have halved your

100m personal best. I’ll log

times on this spreadsheet.

Second, clean up after meals

without being asked. Last,

learn daily three French

words for every year you’ve

been alive.

By the end of D14, or day

14, Theo, that’s 168 wordsen

français pour toi, Sophia 336

etpourMilole grand total

will be 546. These will be

reviewed every quarter.

Theo, do keep up —

Tuesday afternoon.

Each of you has a budget

for the two weeks. Yes, Milo,

you’ll pay your own meals in

restaurants. Might think

twice about those ice

creams, eh, Theo?

Being four years

old is no excuse

for poor cash

flow management.

You can make

extra money with a

side-hustle

outside the core

business. Theo,

you could maybe

sell some of your teddy

bears? I’ll review spending at

the interim meeting the

morning of D8.

I haven’t forgotten we’re

here to have fun. I’ll be

awarding performance

bonuses. Breakfastpains au

chocolatfor those who put

in 110 per cent. Croissants

for those with good attitude.

Baguettes for the others.

Right, tuck in. Make the

most of the onboarding

session.

Janice, the deputy of the

deputy

Welcome to the call,

everyone. I’m deputising for

Jeremy, who, as you know,

usually deputises for Jonty.

Jonty’s on business in

Australia and Jeremy is on

holiday. To quote his out-of-

office response, he is “out of

range”, which I didn’t even

think was possible these

days. So you’ve got me.

Hang on. Caller with the

ice-cream van in the

background? Please mute

your phone. Now I’m hearing

baby noises. Sounds like

your little one needs

feeding, whoever you are.

Could you mute, or muffle?

Or even stifle? Thanks.

So, welcome to our fort-

nightly update on Project

Coiled Spring. Who’s on?

Betty, thanks. Sandeep,

excellent. So you’re the one

with the ice-cream van! And

crashing waves. I thought

you were working from

home, Sandeep. Anybody

heard from Jeff? I couldn’t

find him this morning, but I

can’t tell whether he’shot-

deskingor just somewhere

hot. Leonard... Leonard? I

don’t know who you are,

dear. You may be on the

wrong call. But do stay:

according to the rota,

everyone else is away,

anyway.

Talking rotas, Jonty likes

to block out the last week of

August and first of

September. He already did,

in fact. Last December.

Jeremy’s taking all of August

this year. Hence the overlap

with Jonty’s Australia trip.

So we don’t have a full team

until we are one week away

from the Coiled Spring

deadline.

Who’s that? Hi,

Charmaine — I

thought you were

off sick. You’ve got a

rota amendment?

Riiiight. Yes, I’d

forgotten that you

like to take

advantage of cheap

flights after the

schools go back. Just adding

that week to the shared

document. So we’ll have a

full team again one week

afterthe project deadline.

Great. Just great.

Thanks for asking,

Sandeep. No, by the time I

got to the rota, all summer

slots were accounted for. It’s

fine. I need to save some for

Christmas... where I see

Jonty has already blocked

out another two weeks.

So. Agenda item one...

Work Tribes

‘Why not run my family like

a business?’

EMMA JACOBS AND ANDREW HILL

Meet the tribes

Read the series

ft.com/

work-tribes

                 

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