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By Root 958 0

—which, he said, he does simultaneously. “I go out on the Atlantic Ocean and go fishing for days and days and days. And I go out there with my rod in my hand, throw in, and just think. What I’m thinking about is, ‘What are we doing for long-term brand recognition?’ So I’m able to think about things three or four years ahead while Victor is down [at the vineyard] clubbing the daily dragons.” Davids then offers his new ideas, “from a free thinker who has time to think,” to Gallegos and the team. He spends enough time to give them all the information he can on how these ideas comport with his evolving vision for making and selling a world-class Pinot Noir. Sometimes he gets his new ideas across internally right away; sometimes his in-house experts need more time or more information to evaluate his bone-fishing branding brainstorms. Even then, some ideas—such as giving away the entire production of Chardonnay every year—are so contrary to a winemaker’s instincts that Curran and Kennison resisted, no matter how clear the rationale was to Davids. This resistance to link it to the company’s world-class vision, in turn, precipitated their attempt to save money with the used barrels, which made Davids realize that he hadn’t fully explained the thinking behind Gratis.

Sacrificing the power to tell workers “how” and sharing your world-class vision with them are not easy to do. But they are also just the beginning—it takes more than that to truly transform and liberate a company, as Davids can attest not just from his time at the small Sea Smoke Cellars, but from his previous life at big companies.

We visited Smoke Sea Cellars in its eighth year and, so far, it has succeeded both in cultivating its freedom culture and in fulfilling its world-class wine vision. But then Davids also succeeded in growing his previous start-up, Radica Games, into the third most successful toy company in the United States, after Mattel and Hasbro.8 Not only did he continue not to tell his Radica employees—all eight thousand of them by the time he handed over the reins—what actions to take during all that growth, even after the company went public, he also did it with a workforce that lived under an oppressive political autocracy—94 percent of Radica’s employees resided and worked in mainland China. None of them had ever seen a liberated leader before in their lives. Later we’ll explore some of the methods Davids used to instill this culture in a company that was growing like mad and whose employees had even less experience with freedom—at work or elsewhere—than most in the West enjoy.

A leader’s particular tactics for changing people’s habits and assumptions depends on whether employees’ resistance or skepticism comes from work experience at other firms, cultural factors, or just plain personality. Different types of businesses likewise require different methods. Bill Gore’s approach to his engineers was different from Zobrist’s with his machinists or Davids’s with his wine experts. But one thing is always true: This change has to start with the leader himself. It’s crucial for a would-be liberator to completely refrain from telling because everybody watches to see whether he will “walk the talk,” as it were. Liberating leaders must live the values they want to instill in their businesses. What drove this group of leaders to start doing so is the subject of the next chapter.

5

WHY THEY DID IT

Two Triggers of the Liberation Campaign

IN THE PREVIOUS chapter we described a leader’s first tasks in launching a liberation campaign. However, before we discuss the next steps these leaders took to liberate their companies, we want to focus on why they did it.

This issue is easily overlooked, but it is worthy of examination. It is exciting to follow a story of achievement, such as becoming a great sports champion or even losing sixty pounds. But unless one understands what triggered people to engage in their lengthy efforts and stay the course, reading about what they accomplished will be of little help for anyone wishing to replicate the feat. Seeking