W.L. Gore Medical is based in Flagstaff, so they’ve given me interesting insight into how an organization run on more feminine principles might work.
It doesn’t.
In a traditional, more masculine enterprise, there would be a strict hierarchy.
At W.L. Gore everyone is an associate, so in theory, everyone is equal.
The reality is that there is very definitely a hierarchy at W.L. Gore, its just completely hidden so it takes a new employee about a year before they can become very effective if they have any large amount of responsibility so they need “buyin” from multiple people. It also means its very hard to push through any decisions there, because it requires too much consensus, so everyone has to be comfortable.
There’s a very dark side as well. Because there are no clear lines of authority at Gore, you can only be effective if everyone likes you. Now not only does that have nothing to do with how effective you are at your job, but say something happens in your personal life. Like you get divorced. Now man, woman, or beast, you’re going to be bitchy about your divorce for about a year.
The consequence of all this feminine touchy-feely stuff? You get laid off, because you’re grumpy, no matter how well you may be doing your work.
I’ve heard academia can be even worse…but they at least have the concept of tenure.
Then again, I don’t really associate any of this with the feminine. From what I’ve seen, feminine pecking orders can be pretty similar to masculine ones. Its that I’m constantly reading stuff from feminists who think that if women ruled the world, it would be this big happy place where people sit around singing Koom-By-Yah…
Not gonna happen.
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