Keep your eye on the prize
The lights go down, and the energy level quickly soars in anticipation as the fans jump to their feet, clapping and cheering for their heroes as the swords that form the corners of the mammoth scoreboard move outward and spew fire, the heat felt even in the upper seats.
While the enthusiasm inside Quicken Loans Arena has climbed, so have revenue and ticket sales, as the Cavs have rocketed from the bottom rung of the NBA to one of the top franchises in both categories. Both the emotional and business growth are byproducts of Gilbert driving creativity and innovation instead of the bottom line. “Businesses are fooling themselves,” Gilbert says. “Time is the most valuable commodity of all, so the amount of time being spent by key people shopping coffee services or plastic forks, the gain in that is so small compared to things that are on the top line like innovation, creativity, new ideas, sales, marketing. It’s a 10-to-1, 50-to-1, 1,000-to-1 leverage.”
Gilbert prefers employees thinking of big payoff ideas that could, say, sell 3,000 more tickets — yielding thousands of dollars on the top line — instead of scrutinizing spending 27 cents on a paper plate versus 29 cents to save on the bottom line. “People can see that very clearly,” Gilbert says. “Well, if I said, ‘I didn’t spend my time doing that because today I brainstormed our five ideas I’m going to launch next year,’ although eventually that maybe works to 10,000 times that savings, you can’t immediately measure that. “You can’t go into your boss’s office and say, ‘I saved you 2 cents a paper plate.’ A lot of people have a hard time with that, but that’s one of our things, too — a penny saved is a penny. A penny saved is a penny. That’s it. Never add it up. It doesn’t add up.”
Gilbert obsesses about finding better ways, and he drives that mentality into his people by asking a simple question: How do you carve a pumpkin? The traditional approach calls for cutting the lid off the top and scooping out the insides through that hole.
But by cutting the hole in the bottom instead, the insides come out easier, you can still carry it by its stem, and then you just place the pumpkin over a candle or light instead of reaching inside.
Using a different approach generates a new way of thinking and even better ideas.
“First of all, there is no box,” he says. “Is it in the box or out of the box? You gotta throw out the box. I don’t like using it anymore. If it’s outside the box, that means it’s right near the box. There’s no box — period.
“It’s not even in or out. It’s just wide open space — a blank white board.”