An Evening With Dan Gilbert and the Revitalization of Detroit!

This past Monday night Dan Gilbert, owner of Quicken Loans, sat down with EO Detroit to talk about running his successful businesses and the revitalization of Detroit. I was impressed with Dan's down-to-earth, no-nonsense demeanor, as well as his passion for restoring the City of Detroit to its prior glory. The event was held at the Downtown Detroit m@dison, a project of his. I had a chance to see first hand what all of the buzz is about. The century old Madison Theatre and Office Building was once the center of attention in Detroit but had stood vacant for nearly 25 years. Dan and his team breathed new life into the property and in doing so, brought thousands of people back into the city to work. The m@dison has been completely renovated and the loft style offices are the perfect hip and edgy space for some of Detroit’s cutting-edge start-ups. The highlight of the evening was dinner on the roof in full view of Comerica Park where we got a great view of an ongoing Tiger’s baseball game. The sounds of the crowd, the bright lights on the field and the bright colors from the park sum up best the energy at m@dison.

Here is a panoramic picture I took while on the roof with my iphone:

Besides the fabulous new jewel of downtown Detroit, what did Gilbert himself have to say?

• Live your core values. Live your core values at work  and the money will always follow.
• Impart your core values to your people so they can make decisions on their own. This is a powerful principle for companies trying to move up to the next level of growth. Gravity and the laws of nature always pushes companies down to the size that they are setup to operate at. Empowering your people to make great decisions could be a real X Factor in driving up any company's ability to grow. 
• Not everything can be measured on a spreadsheet. When people get together and form ideas it creates synergy that goes beyond the numbers. 
• Presentation is important, people will only pay attention if you catch their attention. Dan was very proud of the Quicken Loans ISMs book he wrote about the ingredients in the "secret sauce" that forms the Quicken Loans Family of Companies. Dan gave great care to every detail right down to the page numbers which he designed himself.
• As a leader, don't ask others to do anything you wouldn't do yourself. Dan believes in getting down in the trenches and doing whatever it takes to push his business forward.
• Community involvement is very important. From his own experience, when people are involved together in the community service outside of their work, they work better inside the workplace. Over the years he has seen his team grow stronger and closer through community service.