AND1
(Excerpted from an assignment in my leadership class at Fels)
In basketball, when you are shooting the ball and you get fouled and you are still able to make the shot, that is called, “And One.” As in, “you get the two points for making the shot, and you get to shoot one free throw to get another point.” On the streets, it is the ultimate in attitude: “you can’t stop me, not even by fouling.”
Attitude dominates the corporate culture of the basketball sneaker and apparel company called AND1. Started in the early 1990’s by three PENN grads, AND1 has grown to a multinational company grossing $200 million in sales. Street-ball attitude drives this dynamic company, as evidenced by their audacious goal of toppling Nike as the world’s #1 basketball company. If Nike is the lumbering Goliath, then AND1 is David, but with brand new kicks and a little bit of a mean streak.
So it is a little surprising to find in Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the founders and the current Director of Product of AND1, a quiet but powerful humility. It’s the kind of humility Jim Collins finds in the “Level 5” leaders he describes in his best-seller, “Good to Great,” the kind of humility that immediately made me think of Jay when asked to profile a positive leadership role model.
Jay is a friend of The Enterprise Center, and through Jay AND1 has been a generous and steady supporter of our work with young entrepreneurs. I’d like to illustrate four facets of effective leadership humility that I have seen in Jay in the time I’ve known him. First, his management of his staff includes caring for them. I’ve spoken to AND1 people who have told me Jay always makes sure they have somewhere to go for the holidays, and invites them over if they don’t. As we learned in last week’s featured book, effective leaders are not detached but engaged, not apathetic but compassionate.
Second, Jay takes seriously the great responsibility he has over the wellbeing of so many people. He told me that this sensitivity was deepened when he first toured AND1’s production facility in Asia a few years back. He had already felt the burden of knowing that all of AND1’s eighty employees counted on him for their paychecks and for their ability to provide for their families. But then he visited this production room in Asia, and saw hundreds of people making sneakers and apparel. When he asked the local guide how many of these people were doing work for AND1, the answer he got was, “All of them.” He told me this trip to Asia made him all the more diligent in his leadership of AND1, because he knew that hundreds of people counted on the company to support themselves and their families.
Third, Jay knows when to lead and when to follow. A couple of years ago, while Jay was still CEO of AND1, he decided that he wasn’t the best person to be CEO. He volunteered to step down, placing the interests of the company ahead of his own ego. When I asked him about the move, he acted like it was no big deal: “The team was better with me somewhere else.” As we learned in last week’s book, leadership isn’t a title and it isn’t just for the person at the top to exercise.
Fourth, Jay considers it an honor to give back. I am often embarrassed by AND1’s generosity and considerateness, and use every opportunity to gush to Jay about how wonderful his company has been to me and to our young entrepreneurs. Jay always responds with his own words of praise for my work and his own words of thanks for allowing him to participate in it. “Lee, we consider it our honor and our privilege that we can be involved in what you do.” I am humbled and challenged by the seriousness by which Jay equates leadership with service and generosity.
In the spirit of today’s book, I want to talk about a “defining moment” that sealed my admiration of Jay Coen Gilbert as a leader and role model. After 9/11, many retail companies scrambled to form contingency plans and braced themselves for difficult months ahead. AND1 was no different; they suffered financially as well. But Jay’s response to this terrible tragedy was not to see it as a hardship to overcome but as an opportunity to help. He immediately organized a warehouse sale of irregular items to raise money for American Red Cross and other charities on the front lines of the post-9/11 effort. AND1 ended up raising so much money that they called The Enterprise Center and four other charities and told us they wanted to give us big checks, too.
I like to say that who we are when the chips are down is who we really are. In that moment, Jay showed who he was: compassionate, smart, optimistic, and generous. And that’s why he’s the kind of leader I seek to be.
(Excerpted from an assignment in my leadership class at Fels)
In basketball, when you are shooting the ball and you get fouled and you are still able to make the shot, that is called, “And One.” As in, “you get the two points for making the shot, and you get to shoot one free throw to get another point.” On the streets, it is the ultimate in attitude: “you can’t stop me, not even by fouling.”
Attitude dominates the corporate culture of the basketball sneaker and apparel company called AND1. Started in the early 1990’s by three PENN grads, AND1 has grown to a multinational company grossing $200 million in sales. Street-ball attitude drives this dynamic company, as evidenced by their audacious goal of toppling Nike as the world’s #1 basketball company. If Nike is the lumbering Goliath, then AND1 is David, but with brand new kicks and a little bit of a mean streak.
So it is a little surprising to find in Jay Coen Gilbert, one of the founders and the current Director of Product of AND1, a quiet but powerful humility. It’s the kind of humility Jim Collins finds in the “Level 5” leaders he describes in his best-seller, “Good to Great,” the kind of humility that immediately made me think of Jay when asked to profile a positive leadership role model.
Jay is a friend of The Enterprise Center, and through Jay AND1 has been a generous and steady supporter of our work with young entrepreneurs. I’d like to illustrate four facets of effective leadership humility that I have seen in Jay in the time I’ve known him. First, his management of his staff includes caring for them. I’ve spoken to AND1 people who have told me Jay always makes sure they have somewhere to go for the holidays, and invites them over if they don’t. As we learned in last week’s featured book, effective leaders are not detached but engaged, not apathetic but compassionate.
Second, Jay takes seriously the great responsibility he has over the wellbeing of so many people. He told me that this sensitivity was deepened when he first toured AND1’s production facility in Asia a few years back. He had already felt the burden of knowing that all of AND1’s eighty employees counted on him for their paychecks and for their ability to provide for their families. But then he visited this production room in Asia, and saw hundreds of people making sneakers and apparel. When he asked the local guide how many of these people were doing work for AND1, the answer he got was, “All of them.” He told me this trip to Asia made him all the more diligent in his leadership of AND1, because he knew that hundreds of people counted on the company to support themselves and their families.
Third, Jay knows when to lead and when to follow. A couple of years ago, while Jay was still CEO of AND1, he decided that he wasn’t the best person to be CEO. He volunteered to step down, placing the interests of the company ahead of his own ego. When I asked him about the move, he acted like it was no big deal: “The team was better with me somewhere else.” As we learned in last week’s book, leadership isn’t a title and it isn’t just for the person at the top to exercise.
Fourth, Jay considers it an honor to give back. I am often embarrassed by AND1’s generosity and considerateness, and use every opportunity to gush to Jay about how wonderful his company has been to me and to our young entrepreneurs. Jay always responds with his own words of praise for my work and his own words of thanks for allowing him to participate in it. “Lee, we consider it our honor and our privilege that we can be involved in what you do.” I am humbled and challenged by the seriousness by which Jay equates leadership with service and generosity.
In the spirit of today’s book, I want to talk about a “defining moment” that sealed my admiration of Jay Coen Gilbert as a leader and role model. After 9/11, many retail companies scrambled to form contingency plans and braced themselves for difficult months ahead. AND1 was no different; they suffered financially as well. But Jay’s response to this terrible tragedy was not to see it as a hardship to overcome but as an opportunity to help. He immediately organized a warehouse sale of irregular items to raise money for American Red Cross and other charities on the front lines of the post-9/11 effort. AND1 ended up raising so much money that they called The Enterprise Center and four other charities and told us they wanted to give us big checks, too.
I like to say that who we are when the chips are down is who we really are. In that moment, Jay showed who he was: compassionate, smart, optimistic, and generous. And that’s why he’s the kind of leader I seek to be.
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