The team wins, not individual players
Upon entering the Cavaliers’ new offices, make yourself at home on the plush, modern chairs that sit on a wood floor painted like a mini basketball court. Watch ESPN on the 61-inch plasma HDTV hanging on the wall.
Walk around the clear wall full of basketballs from floor to ceiling to grab a slushy, cappuccino or any Pepsi product from the fountain drink machine. With beverage in hand, sit down for a meeting at the high, round, metal table engraved to look like a basketball, or enter the All-Star conference room with the carpeting resembling a ball — bright orange, with black forming the seams.
The Cavaliers’ offices ooze excitement, energy and an attitude that proudly proclaims, “Yeah, we work in a fun, entertaining business — don’t you wish you did, too?” But just months ago, Gilbert could have blindfolded and transported you there, taken the blindfold off, and you’d think you were in any other boring, corporate-America office.
Employees couldn’t fully embrace the values working in dull, drab offices that could have been those of any bank or law firm, so he completely overhauled them to drive creative brainstorming.
But often when new ideas are generated in an organization, people get caught up in the political game. Gilbert says it’s not about who said what or who did what, it’s about the actual ideas and what’s best for the organization.
“It doesn’t matter if the brand new receptionist or operator or courier came up with the idea,” Gilbert says. “It doesn’t really matter. What matters is, ‘what’ is better. When an organization gets caught up in the ‘who,’ it really is compromising to what it could be.
“It’s just about hierarchy and who said what, and people are worried about what they say and how they’re going to get promoted. They’re not always going to volunteer or give feedback with what’s best and right because they know they’re not going to be judged necessarily by what’s best for the company. They’re going to be judged by how they said what in front of who.” Eliminating a “who” focus starts with how an organization treats people via its policies and perks.
“Ninety-nine percent of companies in the world, are there corporate parking spots up front for supervisors?” Gilbert says. “Meanwhile, there’s women eight months pregnant who are parking a half a mile away and walking in the cold. They’re pissed off before they even walk in the door.”
By getting away from titles and seniority and instead focusing more on problems and solutions, companies can be more efficient and cut out the politics. But even in an organization dedicated to cutting out the crap, bureaucracy still seeps in.
Gilbert says it’s important to stay close to your business and keep the doors open so people don’t start whispering and speculating about what leadership is plotting behind closed doors.
“The natural thing is for companies to become that way, so you have to constantly be aware of fighting it and setting the tone and living it yourself, or it will fall apart,” Gilbert says.
The other obstacle is converting people who come from other companies, where politics was the all-star. Gilbert compares it to “The Wizard of Oz,” with employees falling victim to Dorothy Syndrome.
“Sometimes you give it to people, and if they’re coming from other companies, they don’t believe it at first because they’re so used to being about the who and not the what,” Gilbert says. “You have to tell them not just one time or five times, but a hundred. You had the power all along. … Tap your shoes three times, and it would have been OK.”
And just as Dorothy trusted Glinda, employees have to trust management before they will take your words as truth and not throw them out as lies. Gaining that trust boils down to creating a uniform message and sticking to and living it.
Now that Gilbert has been with the Cavs for nearly two years, long-tenured employees in the franchise are beginning to see it’s not lip service, and he’s serious about the values he promotes.
“Just like Einstein discovers E=mc2 — he didn’t make it up, it’s the laws of the universe — we also like to believe that these are laws of the human interaction universe,” Gilbert says. “People who are successful in businesses and life, I think they realize the same things, most of them, and they discover them.”
And as the 300 full-time employees in the Cavs camp continue to discover these values, they will spread like fans doing the wave.
“Once you know who you are, then the who starts manifesting itself everywhere.”
HOW TO REACH: The Cleveland Cavaliers, www.cavs.com