Freedom, Inc.

Brian M. Carney & Isaac Getz

Managing in a Liberal Environment

By: Erin Matthews

 Objectives

 Key Principles

 Strengths & Weaknesses

 Relating information to the workplace

 Key Principles

 Equality & Fairness

 Instilment of Values
 Natural Leadership
 Self-Motivation
 Equality & Fairness
 Bill Gore & Gore-Tex ®

 Replaced his employees with “associates”, their jobs with

“commitments”, and their managers with “leaders”.
 Robert McDermott & USAA®
 “Treating people as the unique, equally valuable human beings
they are, whether they are subordinates, colleagues, customers
or suppliers, is good for business.”

“…create a corporate environment that satisfies people’s universal

need to be treated as intrinsically equal, with fairness and respect,
so they can do a great job.” – Carney & Getz
 Instilment of Values
 Tony Hsieh & Zappos ®

 “Quit now, and not only will we not hold it against you, but we’ll
pay you to leave” (on how Zappos® is not for everyone)
 Jeff Westphal & Vertex ®

 “Welcome to Vertex. You are Free to Leave”.

(on making sure new hires agree with Vertex’s vision)
 Bob Davids & Sea Smoke Cellars
 “…It’s your charge to grow the very best grapes humanly possible
from that site. I’m not a viticulturist. I don’t know how to do that.
Your charge is to grow the very best grapes humanly possible.”
(response to Victor Gallegos on whether to drop bad grapes)
 Natural Leadership
 Lew Lewis, Manufacturing leader at Gore-Tex®
 Learned that “A leader is not just a manager with a different title.
A leader is someone who others follow naturally”

 Bill Gore’s approach for growing “natural leaders”:

 “Take a chance and give somebody an opportunity. If you took
that opportunity out of a person’s hands, he wouldn’t be self-
motivated to take part in building a freedom-based environment –
or for leading the business.” –Burt Chase

“What kind of leaders should we have to get people to self-motivate to

run and coordinate these business activities by themselves?”
-Bill Gore’s creative redefinition of management
 Self-Motivation

“How do you motivate people?”

“How do you build an environment where
people self-motivate?”
 Self-Motivation

“You don’t motivate people. Man is by nature motivated…His

behavior is influenced by relationships between his characteristics
as an organic system and the environment…Creating these
relationships is a matter of releasing energy in certain ways rather
than others. We do not motivate him because he is motivated.
When he is not, he is dead.
-Douglas McGregor
 Strengths & Weaknesses
Weaknesses
 Were/Are there any liberal
companies that didn’t
experience success with this
type of management?
 More suggestions & fewer
stories
Strengths
 Reviewed both national and
international companies
 Although each of the
managers highlighted in this
book were liberal, they all gave
different insights, strategies,
and suggestions on how to
start and maintain a successful
“free” company
 Applying “Freedom” in the
Work Place
 Refrain from always being in control
 Take risks and make mistakes
 Eliminate “entitlement”
 Listen to your peers
 Don’t be afraid to say…
“FIGURE IT OUT!”