“Disciplined” Leadership

One great quality of leaders is they recognize the value of their team members and continually show their appreciation for good results.  Quite often managers do things to save pennies and it winds up costing them dollars.  Last week I had the chance to meet with seven very impressive department heads of the Cleveland Cavaliers regarding the use of new media.  While there were many extremely impressive initiatives they were working on, the most impressive thing was the culture of the group.  While they all had different responsibilities, they worked together as a team.  They clearly understood how they could succeed at a much great level by working together and using each other talents to accomplish more than they could individually.

Did this just happen?  The answer is no and this culture was created as part of the message of how we are doing business by owner Dan Gilbert.  One of the first things that Gilbert did when he purchased the Cavs and Quicken Loans Arena was to move the staff into temporary office space while he reconfigured the staff office space.  The change was to knock down office wall and create big space where the only thing that separated staff was small partitions that physically required everyone to work together.  The message was loud and clear.  We are in this together.  In seeing the energy and the interaction of the staff, it was very apparent that the Cavs personnel are very much a team with clear direction as to desired outcomes.”