# Gore Associates Organizational Model > [!summary] > W.L. Gore & Associates maintains a "lattice organization" with no traditional hierarchy and deliberately caps facility size at 150 people to preserve direct person-to-person relationships and community cohesion. W.L. Gore & Associates, founded in 1958 and maker of Gore-Tex and other innovative materials, is renowned not just for its products but for its radical approach to organizational structure. The company provides perhaps the clearest modern example of an organization that deliberately prioritizes social cohesion over economies of scale. ## The 150-Person Facility Rule Founder Bill Gore observed that something changed in organizations as they approached 150 people: "people began to lose a sense of community—they could no longer remember faces and names of all the people in the building." Rather than accept this as inevitable, Gore instituted a firm policy: whenever a facility approached 150 employees, the company would build a new factory rather than expand the existing one. This policy proved "wildly successful, with numerous articles and books written on its innovative approach and countless businesses attempting similar measures." The scheme works because workers in a 150-person unit can all know one another and share a commitment to group goals and values—cohesion that larger facilities cannot maintain. ## The Lattice Structure Gore's organizational structure is called a "lattice" rather than a hierarchy: **No traditional bosses:** The company operates as a system of intertwined associates in which "no one is anyone's boss." There are no traditional organizational charts, no chains of command, and no predetermined channels of communication. **Leaders, not managers:** Various activities have leaders who are selected based on their merits and abilities to attract followers. Leadership is earned through demonstrated expertise and willingness of others to follow, not appointed from above. **Direct person-to-person communication:** Associates communicate directly with whoever they need to, rather than going through formal channels. The lattice enables direct contact between any two people in the organization. **Team-based organization:** Work is organized around teams that form around opportunities and projects. Teams are relatively autonomous and self-organizing. ## Connection to Dunbar's Number Gore's 150-person limit directly implements the insights from [[Dunbar's Number]]. The company recognized that: - Human cognitive limits constrain how many people we can maintain meaningful relationships with - Organizations function most effectively when everyone can know everyone - Social cohesion enables informal coordination that formal hierarchy cannot replicate - Preserving community feeling requires keeping units at human scale Gore understood that exceeding 150 people would fundamentally change organizational dynamics, requiring formal hierarchies and bureaucratic procedures that would undermine the company's distinctive culture. ## How It Works at Scale Gore is not a small company—it has thousands of employees worldwide. The key is that it's organized as a network of small facilities rather than a single large organization: **Distributed facilities:** Instead of massive factories, Gore operates numerous plants, each capped at ~150 people. **Shared culture and values:** While facilities are autonomous, they share core principles and culture, creating consistency without centralized control. **Coordination through relationships:** Leaders from different facilities know each other personally and coordinate through direct communication rather than bureaucratic processes. **Accept redundancy costs:** Having multiple small facilities means some duplication of equipment, expertise, and infrastructure. Gore accepts these costs as worthwhile for maintaining social cohesion. ## Why This Model Is Rare If Gore's approach is so successful, why don't more organizations adopt it? Several factors: **Requires capital:** Building new facilities when you could expand existing ones requires significant investment that most companies are unwilling or unable to make. **Foregoes economies of scale:** Larger consolidated facilities would be more cost-efficient. Gore prioritizes social benefits over economic optimization. **Demands different management philosophy:** The lattice structure requires trusting associates to self-organize, which contradicts conventional management thinking about control and hierarchy. **Works better for some industries:** Manufacturing facilities can be replicated more easily than, say, a hospital or university. Some organizational types face harder challenges subdividing. **Requires patient capital:** The benefits of cohesion—better communication, higher trust, stronger culture—are real but diffuse, not easily measured in quarterly earnings. ## Lessons for Institutional Design Gore's model demonstrates key principles: **Deliberate subdivision is necessary:** Large institutions won't naturally subdivide ([[Why Large Institutions Don't Subdivide]]). It requires conscious design choices and willingness to accept costs. **Social structure enables informal coordination:** When units stay under 150 people, [[Formal vs Informal Organization|informal organization]] can handle coordination that would otherwise require bureaucracy. **Size constraints must be enforced:** Without a firm rule, facilities will gradually expand beyond optimal size through incremental additions that each seem reasonable. **Community feeling drives performance:** The sense of belonging to a real community—not just working for a large corporation—appears to generate innovation, commitment, and productivity that offset the efficiency costs. ## Variations on the Theme Other organizations have implemented similar principles differently: **Military companies:** Armies worldwide organize around companies of 100-200 soldiers, providing a stable social unit even within much larger forces. **Hutterite colonies:** These religious communities formalize subdivision by splitting when reaching approximately 150 members, forming new colonies. **Small office policies:** Some companies maintain small office sizes even without geographic distribution requirements, recognizing social benefits of human-scale workplaces. ## Challenges and Limitations The Gore model isn't universally applicable: **Industry-specific:** Works better for manufacturing and product development than for service industries or institutions requiring concentrated expertise. **Cultural requirements:** Requires high trust, strong shared values, and people comfortable with ambiguity and self-direction. Not all workforces or cultures support this. **Coordination complexity:** As the number of facilities grows, coordinating across them becomes more challenging. Gore has found ways to manage this, but it's a real constraint. **Not eliminating hierarchy:** Recent research suggests Gore has evolved toward more hierarchy than its early days, though still far less than conventional organizations. ## See Also - [[Dunbar's Number]] - [[Why Large Institutions Don't Subdivide]] - [[Formal vs Informal Organization]] - [[Coordination Costs and Hierarchy]] - [[Social Grooming Time Costs]]