"SOME THINGS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN PROFIT"

By David Cabela

"Enter through the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” 
Mathew 7: 13-14

The seventh short story from David Cabela in our "Family History" series. These short stories are meant to take readers into the Cabela Family history from his perspective...

One time, Dick agreed to speak at a college lecture and a student asked about the secret to success. 

"It's no secret,” he said. “It's simple. Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are."

"Anything else?"

"Treat people the way you would want to be treated," he said.

That is all there is to it. Find good people, treat them well, and let them do their jobs.

There are many smart people who come up with transformative ideas for families, neighborhoods, companies, or countries. They know how to move numbers, how to save money, how to find loopholes. But sometimes, in their quest to do their jobs, to wow their colleagues, they fail to see the big picture. It is not their fault. They work hard and become so focused in their task they cannot see beyond the solutions they find. These are good people with excellent credentials who need other people who think a little differently to point the possible issues with their ideas. We all need people like that in our lives.

A case in point happened one time during a meeting at Cabela's shortly after the state legislature introduced a bill concerning health insurance for children.

Cabela’s had brought in an expert to help find ways to maximize profit. This individual walked into a room full of executives. Each person around the table had earned his or her spot there through years of hard work and beneficial input. They each had a personal reason for seeing the company prosper. Most of them had family who worked somewhere else in the company and all of their bonuses were influenced by the previous year’s numbers. This young, intelligent man walked in holding a folder of papers. He handed a stack to the first person at the table and waited until each person had a sheet.

This particular individual had, in a short time, gained the respect of each person at the table. He had great ideas, he worked long hours, and he found ways to maximize profit. When he spoke, everyone listened.

Dick and Jim Cabela sat across from each other with stone faces giving no indication of their thoughts. The others were used to this. Newcomers sometimes felt intimidated, but the veteran employees knew the two brothers were simply taking it all in and would only speak if the situation warranted it.

After a brief discussion on the previous month’s sales numbers, the professional laid out his new proposal. He started with his expertise—numbers. Millions of dollars in savings to be exact.

He had the room’s attention. A few executives leaned forward. Some of them jotted down notes. Millions of dollars could be used to expand in a few high-potential areas that had been on the table for a couple of years. Besides, if that kind of money hit the bottom line, it would positively impact everyone's year-end bonus.

A member of the state legislature had recently introduced a bill guaranteeing all children under eighteen health insurance. This seemed like a win-win for Cabela's. They could cut the benefits for the children of their employees without leaving them uninsured. It would save the company a fortune and nobody's kids would be without health insurance. It was inferred that Cabela’s should support this bill and put a plan in place in case the bill passed.

Dick and Jim sat quietly and listened. There were a few nodding heads, a few confused expressions, as if they knew there was a problem with the proposal, but could not quite pin it down. Then, Jerry Matzke, Dick's and Jim's trusted friend and advisor for years, spoke up.

"Are you proposing we hand over the health care of these kids to the whims of the government?" he said.

A long moment of silence followed.

Eyes shifted nervously from the executive to Dick and Jim.

Then Dick leaned forward. "We will not make our employees' children wards of the state. We owe them more than that." 

Dick said this without judgment. The person who offered that proposal had saved Cabela's a ton of money with his ideas. He had made them even more than he saved. He was doing his job. They had asked him to bring money-saving options to the table and that is what he did. It was Dick and Jim's job to decide which path to take.

When Jim said, "Is there anything else?" every person in the room knew that was the last word on the idea.

Dick and Jim had an unspoken policy of freedom. Each employee was free to do their jobs to the best of their ability. They were free to take risks. Free—encouraged even, to come up with innovative ideas. Sometimes their ideas failed, but often they became building blocks to the great strides that would take Cabela's from an up and coming sporting goods company to The World's Foremost Outfitter. 

So, when this particular idea was shot down, nobody felt too intimidated to come forward with new or fresh ideas of their own. That kind of participation was not only encouraged, it was expected. And it was usually only the big decisions, like those involving everyone in the company and large percentages of profit or revenue in which Dick and Jim felt the need to have much input. For the most part, they hired the smartest people they could find and trusted them to do their jobs. 

This kind of trust and expectation of their employees meant the company experienced its fair share of failed endeavors, but Dick and Jim valued hard work and some of those very failures produced the greatest successes. Dick and Jim had made plenty of mistakes. They failed hundreds of times, but they never let those failures dictate their future. That essentially is what they wanted for their employees. To give their best and not be defined by mistakes, but to learn from them. They also realized some things which may look like mistakes often turn out to be great success stories.

This decision on health insurance was essentially made because, for Dick and Jim, people mattered more than profit. As it turned out, simply doing the right thing also became the most profitable. 

That story may have never left the boardroom. I only heard it decades later told by an old family friend when we asked him for a birthday wish for Dick. I asked my father about it later and he said he did not even remember it. He simply said that sounded like something they might have shot down. I guess to him it was not that big of a decision. To him, it was the only decision and after making it, he probably never thought about it again. 

Though it may never have left the meeting and never been retold, it was that kind of loyalty and understanding of what mattered that was at the heart of Cabela’s success. Most employees may never have known what Dick and Jim did that day, but there were too many of those kinds of stories and small assurances that they were truly valued by the company’s founders to ignore. Without having to say so in words Dick and Jim revealed to the people at Cabela’s that they mattered. Their ideas mattered. Their hard work mattered. Their families mattered. 

In turn, those employees gave the company the best they had. They chose to take calculated risks and rarely worried about someone looking over their shoulders. They came up with great ideas and led Cabela’s to new heights. 

Nobody ever heard Dick or Jim say look what we two brothers have accomplished because they both knew with certainty they accomplished nothing on their own. They had the greatest employees they could ask for and understood that ultimately they were not in control of all that much anyway.

For the most part, the good people, the smart people, the creative people, and the motivated people Dick and Jim surrounded themselves with took Dick, Mary, and Jim's humble operation and ran with it. The brothers merely tried to help steer the company away from the cliff if it ever crept too close. 

It almost always starts with a slight, seemingly innocuous veer—it is just one drink; it is just a little white lie; it is just a way to save money—nobody gets hurt. So we veer, we make a little turn, we compromise, we take a step away from the path we were meant to follow and before we know it, we are lost and do not even realize it. 

Then, when we see someone else, usually just as lost as we are, we start to walk together—almost always in the wrong direction. But the two of us, together, we do not want to appear lost, so we keep going. Over time, we find more and more folks who have stepped away from the path and all of the sudden, walking together, we seem to think we are heading in the right direction. Something feels slightly off, but everyone else is walking with us, behind us, before us. It has to be the right way. So, out of fear, ignorance, or pride, we keep going.

Every once in a while someone comes running from the other direction. They seem crazy and a little condescending when they tell us we are going the wrong way and that we should turn around. Who do they think they are? We can’t be wrong now. We don’t want to be wrong. Nobody does.

A few of us complain about the heat or the thorns or something. A few of us even hesitate or try to turn back, but the crowd shoves us and ridicules us for stepping out of line. So we get back into the current, because we think it is too hard to do otherwise. Then, when we start to hear the screams of people falling off the cliff ahead of us, we wonder if they are actually shouts for joy—if maybe we have finally reached the party. That is until we see the cliff. By then, it takes everything we have to claw our way back through the rest of the crowd pressing forward for a glimpse at all the commotion ahead.

This may seem a bit of a drastic analogy, but how many of us have convinced ourselves that whatever we are doing is not that bad because everyone else is doing it? How many times have we given in to the pressures of society? How many times have we allowed ourselves to believe that something wrong is actually right? The narrow path is usually fairly simple (though not easy) to walk down, but it is just so darn hard to resist the allure of the riches, temporary satisfactions, and self-righteousness in the easy road leading the other direction. 

All our decisions matter. Our choices either keep us on the right path or they nudge us into the shadows. It is much easier to keep from the cliff if we never veer too far from the path in the first place. 

Dick and Mary Cabela had their share of missteps. They sometimes reached for a shiny piece of gold without asking what they were leaving behind if they grasped it? They, like the rest of us, fell many times—sometimes even knowingly, but most often it was just a slight detour, a seeming shortcut, where they could still see the path. Too often, it is those minor, seemingly innocent indulgences that lead to the places we wonder how we got to.

We are all faced with these decisions every day. Too often, because we fear we might miss out on something, or others might snicker at us, or we might get left behind, or we are afraid, we make a rash choice, an easy choice, and, blindly follow the rest of humanity toward the cliff.

But here is the thing. We do not have to. We can stay the course. And if we do, our children will look back upon what we have done and honor us by their imitation. So, when we are put in a position where our decisions may affect the lives of other people, (which all decisions do) what do we do?

"It's simple really," Dick once said. "They are not just employees. They are people. They are family. They are the parents of your children's best friends. You ask yourself what you would do if it were your family. You make your decision. Then, you go look in the mirror."

Dick was a man who believed in asking himself tough questions. He understood it was easier to tell yourself lies than to seriously take a look in the mirror. 

Sometimes, when we take a hard look at who we are, what we have done, and where we are going, it can be terrifying. So we ignore it or justify it or even champion it because sometimes that makes us feel righteous.

But when we seriously look at and face the fears of what we may find, we open the door to a better, more lasting kind of satisfaction.

For most of his career, Dick Cabela kept a poem typed on the back of his business card. It is called the Guy in the Glass by Dale Wimbrow:

When you get what you want in your struggle for pelf,

And the world makes you King for a day,

Then go to the mirror and look at yourself,

And see what that guy has to say.

For it isn't your Mother, or Father, or Wife,

who judgment upon you must pass.

The feller whose verdict counts most in your life,

Is the guy staring back from the glass.

He's the feller to please, never mind all the rest, 

For he's with you clear up to the end,

And you've passed your most dangerous, difficult test

If the guy in the glass is your friend.

You may be like Jack Horner and "chisel" a plum,

And think you're a wonderful guy,

But the man in the glass says you're only a bum

If you can't look him straight in the eye.

You can fool the whole world down the pathway of years, 

And get pats on the back as you pass,

But your final reward will be heartaches and tears

If you've cheated the guy in the glass.