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- [00:00]
A
As you know, Ariat is the official Dirt Talk podcast sponsor, and at this point, we've talked plenty about their footwear, their workwear. But now it is winter, and, boy, is it cold. It was 17 degrees this morning. I had to warm the truck up. But just because it's cold does not mean the work stops. So to get the job done, you need the best, warmest workwear possible. And Ariat has a long list of outerwear, amazing jackets, pants, and other goods available now. You can shop at their website, ariat.com Dirttalk that is ariat.com DirttTalk SA Travel Travel's tricky, too, because just the more you see, the more there is to see. It's just the world only gets bigger and bigger and bigger, and it's like I'm traveling more than ever, but it's like, I don't feel like I'm making up any ground whatsoever just because there's so many incredible. And the interesting thing about traveling, too, as an American, I feel like a lot of Americans don't do it. And we were kind of fooled into thinking, like, we're on an island here, but we're 4% of the global population. And so you get out across the Pacific, across the Atlantic, you start to realize there's way more to the story.
- [02:30]
B
Than I was led to believe. The way I have explained it to folks is we don't live in the real world.
- [02:35]
A
No, no, no.
- [02:36]
B
I've spent quite a bit of time in Africa, and it's like, really? Yeah, in India and other places, and it's like, yeah, this is not the real world.
- [02:44]
A
No, no.
- [02:45]
B
Thankful for it, sure. But nonetheless, let's be clear. Yeah, it's not the real world, but people.
- [02:52]
A
And maybe this is just the people I'm around, but when I travel, the people I'm with, they travel a lot more. Or even just how we're, like, geographically situated. We're close to Canada, Mexico, you go to the Caribbean, Central America, but that's it. Whereas people in Europe, you know, just bounce around all over the place. Or even the Australians. I know. It's like, oh, yeah, we go up to Indonesia. We go to Europe all the time. India, whatever it is.
- [03:16]
B
Somebody reminded me that traveling in Europe is much akin to traveling here. Like, we go to Alabama or to Tennessee or to South Carolina. Well, for them, those represent other countries.
- [03:29]
A
You've been in Atlanta your whole life. What was your, we're gonna get into the whole Chick Fil a thing. But how did you get into all that to begin with? What was Your career path?
- [03:41]
B
My career path. I worked in a local restaurant for a season and then I quit. Cause I was awful in the restaurant. I can tell that story. People enjoy that story. And then I ended up going to the corporate headquarters and I asked if I could have a job in their warehouse. Cause I knew they had a warehouse. And I was the 16th employee corporately.
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A
How old were you?
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B
I was 19. And that was 47 years ago.
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A
And so there wasn't much going on. It wasn't the company. It is.
- [04:15]
B
It was. It was not the company. It is now.
- [04:18]
A
So was it just the next logical decision? Just a job at that point? 19 need money. What was the.
- [04:25]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, after I left the restaurant, I'd gotten another job and I got laid off about six months in. And I thought, I need a job. And I really not good at what they do in the restaurant. Maybe I could work at corporate headquarters, which of course makes no sense in any universe.
- [04:39]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [04:40]
B
That's the mind of a child. So I walked, asked for the warehouse job and just serve at the pleasure of the organization. Committed early to lifelong learning. And I think that enabled and prepared me to take on new and different roles. I think it gave the organization confidence to give me new and different roles because they could see that I was a learner and they knew I would figure stuff out. So I started several departments and then took over a few and ended up again. Had trouble holding down a job, but was there 44 and a half years?
- [05:13]
A
Yeah. That's not bad. Yeah. To your point about the mind of a child. It is. It's. It's like, at least I. I started pretty early on too. I was. I started doing this when I was 22, 23. Started in construction when I was 18. I feel like people give me way too much credit. They're like, wow, good for you. This and that. It's like, I don't think you understand. It wasn't. There wasn't this. There weren't these calculated moves. Like, I liked trucks. I liked bulldozers. I wanted to be around bulldozers. I got a job around bulldozers. That was. That was the logic. Very strategic. That was the only math I did on it. And then you just keep going with whatever you find fun and that excites you. But it's like, I think that's the advantage of being young, is it doesn't have to make sense.
- [06:04]
B
And my version of that is I stumbled on a strategy early of trying to help the people on my team learn and grow now of course I'm learning, but I said, they're doing like the work. And so in my first role 45 years ago, we started doing book studies with my team because I said if I can help them get better, everybody wins. And I just took that strategy throughout my career of trying to help the people. No matter what we were doing, no matter what the role or function or responsibility, how do we help these people grow?
- [06:41]
A
But that I think that I've been a young leader, you were a young leader. And as you get into leadership, you start to realize how much the Dunning Kruger effect starts to set in. Like, wow, I really don't know what's going on here. But then I think it's a mistake to wait 20 years into your career to start talking about leadership, teaching, helping other people. Because I feel like it's almost more valuable in some ways as you're learning it yourself. Because then, at least for me, I've been able to use myself as an example as well. Like, hey, I see you're going through this, I'm going through it too. And it makes it, it just makes it more relatable in a sense.
- [07:24]
B
Sure, sure, absolutely. So again, my career was not strategic. Yeah, it was. How can I keep learning and growing? How can I help help the people around me learn and grow? Let's be sure we're working on the right things. I think a lot of leaders don't spend enough time and energy on that. It's kind of the way I say it is. You get no credit for doing the wrong things well. And we had people who go work hard, but I felt like part of the responsibility of leadership is what are we working on? So again, that's about as strategic as my career planning was and it was more in role than career focused. And I have counseled people, which is not real popular with a lot of young people today specifically, but when they want to talk about their career, I said, well, I understand the desire. And I'm not saying you shouldn't think about it, but you should prioritize contribution over career. And if you can add value, the career will more or less take care of itself.
- [08:32]
A
I oftentimes struggle with the question when somebody asks me, what's your five year vision, ten year vision for the company? This and that, it's like, yeah, I can probably give you an answer. I know where we're going, big picture, that's fine. But I'm worried about this week, this month, this year, if I take care of the fundamentals of the business, do What I need to do this year, the next years will take care of themselves, but I'm not there yet. Just let me do what's right in front of me. And I do feel like people get too caught up in just the big, big, big picture. It's like, hey, hey, hey, fundamentals. It's right in front of you. This is all that matters right now.
- [09:09]
B
As it relates to career, we don't control our opportunities, but we control our readiness. Like, put me in, coach. Put me in, coach. Well, are you ready? Have you been in the gym? Do you know the plays? You know, I mean, are you ready? And so for young people, I always talk about, are you learning? Are you growing?
- [09:31]
A
Well, I feel like that's how, when companies are growing, that's how they promote people. We need someone to step up here. They look at their current bench. Who is the most prepared to step up? It's not like, oh, we're going to look at our bench.
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B
We're going.
- [09:47]
A
And we think you can be prepared, so we're going to put you in that role and then you can go prepare yourself within that role to be in that role. It's like, no, no, no, that's not how it works.
- [09:55]
B
Well, sometimes it does. Sometimes if they don't have a good pick, sure. Then you start. And there is a group of leaders that will promote on potential. So maybe they know you're not ready, but they see something in you. Again, maybe that was what was happening to me. I don't know that I was ready for all those roles, but they knew I was committed to learning and growing. They knew I would work hard. They knew I would be diligent. And I got some stretch assignments that you look back and go, now why did they give the kid that opportunity? And again, that would be part of it. The other part is they didn't have anybody else. There were no alternatives on the bench.
- [10:32]
A
Yeah. What did the, in the early days, what did the company look like? What was going on at the company when I started?
- [10:43]
B
Probably had 125 restaurants.
- [10:48]
A
Okay, so there was, there are quite a few restaurants at this point.
- [10:51]
B
Right. With. With 15 corporate staff.
- [10:53]
A
15. Okay. So you were part of corporate.
- [10:55]
B
I was number 16 at corporate. @ Corporate when I joined.
- [10:58]
A
Excellent, excellent.
- [10:59]
B
And so today, I don't know, it's closing in on 25 billion sales with over 3,000 restaurants. So it's, it's grown a little bit.
- [11:09]
A
Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. So it wasn't like, hey, we're going to go start a Chicken restaurant. We'd love you to be a part of it. They were. They had. They had gone down the road a little bit. They had started to build the business. So you went to. That makes sense. Because I was wondering, well, how do they have a warehouse? But they have a warehouse because they're supporting 100 plus stores.
- [11:28]
B
Right.
- [11:28]
A
Probably all in this region.
- [11:29]
B
Southeast, mostly.
- [11:31]
A
Mostly.
- [11:31]
B
There were a few random. You know, the way it worked in the beginning, we were exclusively in shopping malls. And so if we wanted to go in Linux Square in Atlanta, well, that developer, that shopping center mall developer might also have a location in Lubbock, Texas. And they'd say, if you want to get in this one, you got to go in that one.
- [11:58]
A
I see.
- [11:59]
B
And so early on, there were a few outliers, I would say, during our entire mall era, because there's still mall restaurants for chick fil A. But we moved in the 80s, end of 8, early 90s, we started building freestanding restaurants almost exclusively. But there have always been those deals when you want to go somewhere, you end up having to go somewhere else.
- [12:23]
A
I see.
- [12:23]
B
And so we had a. A restaurant in California 40 years ago, even though we didn't really move into California until 20 years ago. As a chain, as a strategic decision.
- [12:34]
A
And that's a logistical problem in itself or a challenge in itself. I know a little bit about restaurants, but I know it's not as easy as just being in Atlanta and putting a restaurant in California because then you have to stock it with everything.
- [12:50]
B
Supply chain, distribution, Supply chain. And then support. We've got field staff that supports the restaurants. And so. And that still is a challenge of a smaller scale today. I just got off the phone with a guy who works in the west region, but he's based in Atlanta. And so he said his office is at 30,000ft. Right. He flies back and forth to the West Coast. So that is why we have now built a West coast office, because we've got enough restaurants out there to support a team.
- [13:19]
A
When you were in the warehouse, what was your role early on?
- [13:25]
B
Primarily, it was to fill the orders submitted by the operator. So in those early days, if a piece of equipment needed a replacement part, assuming it was a part that we had some history with, we would keep the backups because we could dispatch them more quickly. And so if somebody needed a thermostat for the fryer, they would call us and they'd get it the next day.
- [13:50]
A
I see.
- [13:50]
B
And so it was primarily parts and marketing materials and resources. We would ship those things out. We Also prepared what we call the kitchen package. When they were going to open a new restaurant, we had this huge checklist that took days to load the truck of all the small wares basically, that a new restaurant would need for their kitchen, the pots and the pans and all the other things. And so we'd load a truck and send it out for a new restaurant. So those were the two primary functions.
- [14:21]
A
And in that role, how did leadership or your, like, opportunities to lead start to emerge?
- [14:28]
B
You know, I really didn't have any in the warehouse, but I was only there about six months. I say I didn't have an opportunity to lead. I think I had an opportunity that I didn't even recognize in the moment that enabled me to move into leadership. So I'd been there, goodness gracious, probably not 30 days. And the executive vice president, again, that may or may not have been his title. There weren't many of us, but he was the founder's son and he was responsible for pretty much everything. And he was my boss's boss's boss, right? Even though there were 15 of us. And I'd been there again a matter of days. And he called and he said, hey, can you help me with a project? And I said, well, I'd love to, and I'm new here, right? I said, but I think I need to ship these orders to the operators because I knew what I just shared with you that they might have a piece of equipment down. So if I leave those orders unfilled and go help him with the project, that might not be good. So I'm kind of getting asking him to help me figure this out. And he said, yeah, you're probably right. He said, what are you doing tonight? And I said, well, I'm going to school. I was trying to finish my degree and I had classes. And he said, what time do you get out of class? I said, 10 o'clock. He said, well, what you doing after that? I said I was going to go home 10 o'clock tonight. He said, can you come back? And I said, sure. And so I ended up helping him with this project right out of the gate at night after I got through with school. And I think that probably demonstrated something to him. Maybe it was my work ethic, I don't know, maybe it was my can do spirit. But I came back and started helping him with the project. And that project was to produce the content for the company's annual meeting, which was in February. And so this was in December and January of my very first year again, just After I started, and a few months after they returned from that meeting, I did not go with them to that meeting. He asked me to come out of the warehouse and start what is today corporate communications.
- [16:51]
A
Interesting.
- [16:52]
B
Which again makes no real sense for a 19 year old kid to be running corporate communications, but sure, but why not? Well, we needed this meeting is every February and he knew that. He had already taught me some things about creating content and we began working on the following year's meeting. Now we quickly realized at that point it was not a full time job. And so I started helping out in operations and restaurant grand openings to fill in my available time. Now over time that meeting has grown and my team had the privilege to steward that event for over 40 years, starting there and my last one, we had almost 10,000 folks for three and a half days. And we do all the content, all the staging, all the production, all the logistics and the travel and the hotel and the food and so pretty big deal. And there's a team of people now that works full time, couple of teams. There's a logistics team that works years in advance because you got to get the hotel space and so forth, so on. And then we worked on content three to five years in advance.
- [18:05]
A
When you say content for that meeting, what does that look like?
- [18:08]
B
Well, everything from.
- [18:10]
A
Or what did it look like?
- [18:12]
B
Internal speakers, external speakers, desired result, thematic entertainment, breakouts, the whole deal.
- [18:22]
A
But you had like early on, you had to pretty quickly become an expert on the company to put that stuff together.
- [18:29]
B
Sure.
- [18:30]
A
Like you had to understand, you have to understand the big picture to arrange that content in a meaningful way, to.
- [18:36]
B
Support everyone and even to figure out what should the meeting be about. Because one of my early decisions was I really think this should be a strategic event as opposed to just a very expensive party. And I love parties. But I'm thinking again, putting on my stewardship hat. If we're gonna spend all this money, what is it we'd like to accomplish? Cause if we've got three and a half days of their undivided attention and we control who speaks to a large extent, what they talk about, who are the outside speakers, what are the breakouts, what are the labs? If we're gonna do a trade show or expo, who do we feature? I mean just it's a great opportunity to influence the direction of the organization. And so my team championed that in partnership with senior leaders, we would go forth and say, here's what we think the next five meetings need to be about.
- [19:30]
A
So there was, I mean you seized the opportunity but there was quite a bit of right place, right time as well.
- [19:35]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [19:36]
A
No, of course, your timing was, let.
- [19:40]
B
The kid do it. Let the kid do it. And again, I had several roles like that throughout my career. Let the kid do it.
- [19:45]
A
I'll do it.
- [19:46]
B
What do you need? I'll do it.
- [19:47]
A
And when was the first time you went to a Chick Fil? A restaurant?
- [19:52]
B
That's a really good question. The Chick Fil? A sandwich was actually invented in a restaurant called the Dwarf House, which was our founder's first restaurant. He opened it in 1946. It was called the Dwarf House because it was so tiny. He called it the Dwarf House.
- [20:11]
A
Wow.
- [20:12]
B
And my family ate at the Dwarf House before I ever worked at Chick Fil?
- [20:20]
A
A. Wow.
- [20:21]
B
So that would have been a few years predating my time at the Chick Fil? A.
- [20:27]
A
But when you were there and you get into this role, you go to one of the restaurants at some point. What was. I guess, what were your thoughts when you went. What about this business drew you in?
- [20:43]
B
Well, initially, again, maybe low motives are better than no motives. When I went there initially, it's cause my brother was a team leader and I needed a job, and I thought I could get hired there.
- [20:56]
A
Makes perfect sense. Yeah.
- [20:57]
B
And I did get hired there. And I've already shared earlier, I didn't do particularly well in the restaurant.
- [21:05]
A
So you were working at a Chick Fil?
- [21:06]
B
A restaurant? At a Chick Fil? A restaurant before I went to corporate, I worked there about six months. And I tell people I made a strategic career decision. I quit, went and got another job, got laid off. That's when I said, I can't really do what they do. Maybe I could work at corporate headquarters. And that's what took me to ask for the job in the warehouse. Because I knew based on my time in the restaurant that they had a warehouse. Because when we were in the restaurant and we needed a part, we'd call the warehouse.
- [21:34]
A
That was what I'm tracking now. But so it was. It was a good thing. One could argue that you didn't do well in the restaurant.
- [21:41]
B
Probably.
- [21:42]
A
Why? Why what? What about what? What did you struggle with when you were at the restaurant?
- [21:47]
B
Um, I think it was really a combination of deliberateness and maybe some perfectionist tendencies. So I'll give you an example, because that's probably a strange answer.
- [22:04]
A
Yeah.
- [22:05]
B
One of the things that they do till to this day in the restaurants is they filet each chicken breast before they prepare it and checking it for bones and be sure it's Open properly. Cause they tend to curl up a little bit. And I can filet a pan of chicken and it'll take me several weeks to do it. And you're supposed to do it in about eight minutes. So I'm trying to be sure every piece of chicken is perfect. So I just was, I wasn't really good with my hands and I was a little bit slow. In fact, that followed me because for years we had a practice that corporate staff would work in the restaurants every year just to stay grounded in the real world. Right. Because Chick Fil A is not at corporate headquarters. Chick Fil A is in those restaurants.
- [22:49]
A
Well, yeah, corporate head. I feel like people in corporate just in general forget this, that corporate does not pay the bills.
- [22:55]
B
That's right. No cash registers. What we used to say all the time is just remember there are no cash registers here. And so one of the practices we instituted. Yes. Years and years ago was corporate staff working in the restaurants. And so from, you know, on a regular basis, I would go work in a restaurant. And I remember one day, this was 20 years into my career, I was working in the kitchen. And the woman who was responsible for the kitchen approached me. And she was about 4ft 5 and had a very, very strong accent. I'll not try to replicate it other than she sounded like a drill sergeant from a foreign army. And she's almost hollering at me that faster, faster, you must be much faster. Everything we do here is a race and you are losing the race. That was a direct quote from this woman. So I'm sitting there going, okay, 20 years in, I'm trying to do what I'm told. I'm trying to do it with excellence. And I'm still too slow. I'm still too slow. Yeah.
- [24:03]
A
When did you start thinking deliberately about leadership?
- [24:08]
B
About, well, almost 30 years ago now. We began to realize that we didn't have enough leaders. And we had this realization almost simultaneously corporately and for the restaurants. But they were a little bit different. So corporately it happened that we needed some leaders. I mean, I don't know about your experience, but here's what I've observed. When you have a problem to solve or an opportunity to seize, it's very common to put a leader on it. Now he or she may not single handedly address it, but. But they'll put the team together and they'll find the resources and they'll lead and you'll seize the opportunity or solve the problem. And so we had both problems and opportunities. And so we started looking over our shoulder at our leadership bench. Who do we give these things to? And we said, uh, oh, and we had conversations about, I hope this person can lead. I think this person can lead. Maybe this person will be ready in a few years to lead. And it was like, ooh, so we need to accelerate leadership development. Our bench is not that strong. Simultaneously, we were looking at the growth in the restaurants, and we. We had a. Almost an intuitive sense that based on the slope of the curve, the restaurants were going to need more leadership. Now we had an independent operator. Still, to this day, there's an independent business leader that we've selected, and they're outstanding. But the old model was they provided the leadership. And as we began to grow in scope, scale, volume, and complexity, we could already see some of them struggling because they couldn't provide enough leadership themselves. So we said, we need to help them grow leaders, and we need to grow leaders. And so I was asked by our executive committee to figure out how to accelerate leadership development. And that was about 25 years ago.
- [26:10]
A
Well, that was. I guess that would have been. My next question was, how do you know you have a leadership problem? But you explained that quite well. It's interesting, though, how you really can outpace the leadership within an organization.
- [26:24]
B
Well, you really can outpace it because things will start to plateau.
- [26:28]
A
Oh, sure.
- [26:29]
B
You can't outgrow your leadership.
- [26:30]
A
Yeah.
- [26:31]
B
And that was. Yeah, you just can't. And that was one of the things we had seen in the restaurants is restaurants plateauing, sales, profits, customer satisfaction. It's like, what's going on here? And we discovered it was a leadership capacity issue.
- [26:48]
A
Okay. So at that point, that's a pretty broad charge. Hey, Improve the leadership within our organization. There's probably a lot of people involved at this point. I mean, hundreds of stores.
- [27:00]
B
Yes.
- [27:01]
A
Thousands of people across a very large geographic region. Where do you even start?
- [27:09]
B
Well, let me quickly add one more element, maybe two that make it even harder than it might feel.
- [27:15]
A
Please.
- [27:16]
B
The operators are independent business people. They're not our employees.
- [27:21]
A
So each Chick fil a is, in theory, its own business.
- [27:24]
B
Right. With its own leader.
- [27:26]
A
Okay.
- [27:28]
B
And legally, we wouldn't want to do this, but legally, we can't tell them what they need to do. In the field of management and leadership. Really, management and leadership practices are at the sole discretion of an independent operator. The challenge there is, if we overreach and those men and women were ever deemed to be employees, we would then be joint employers with about 500,000 team members, and then we would pick up Legal, tax and pension liability. So we have worked for decades and continue, they continue to work today to maintain the independent status of that operator. So we can do a lot of selling and not much telling. And so that makes it even harder. The last piece that makes it hard is those hourly team members who are the employees of the operator. We have about 100% turnover. So you gotta raise em up and train them and develop them and you gotta do it again and you gotta do it again. You gotta do it or they do have to do it again and again and again. So it's a very challenging environment.
- [28:38]
A
100% turnover. Does that mean for every, essentially one person coming, one person's going. So you're just nonstop recruiting, training, people.
- [28:48]
B
Are leaving and some stay longer and some don't stay as long. But again, what drives that number is that the operators have the opportunity to choose their staffing strategy. And we fully support that. The vast majority of them have chosen to go for a youth oriented workforce. Teenagers. And so if a kid fails a test and the parents say, you gotta quit your job or somebody makes the cheerleading squad or the football season starts, they're gonna, there's a high likelihood they may quit. And then of course, even if you keep them for a few years, at some point a lot of them are going to quit because they're going to go off to college. And so it's almost baked into the staffing strategy. But operators like the youth, they like the vitality. They like the first job because they can train, educate and develop as opposed to with adults who might bring a lot of habits with them that you'd have trouble with.
- [29:44]
A
That the point that you made about everybody being independent, I feel like that at face value is a huge challenge. And it is a huge challenge. But it probably also helped you to be more strategic in your approach. Because I feel like the temptation, if you did have control over everybody, would have been top down. Command and control. We're rolling out a new program. This is how you're doing things now, which then creates real resentment and all kinds of issues. It doesn't work very well. Would you say that's true?
- [30:18]
B
Sure. I'll take it a half a step further. You can create compliance culture or a commitment culture. Compliance works to a point. Commitment is what you want. Our legal structure left us no choice. We can't go for a compliance culture. We have to go for a commitment culture. So we do a lot. Chick Fil A does a lot of vision casting and we're trying to win people over to the ideas that we think will serve them and the organization at large. But at the end of the day, it's the operator's choice.
- [31:02]
A
I would say, based on my observations, a compliance culture is much easier in theory, or it seems easier. I don't know.
- [31:11]
B
It's more efficient, but it's probably not more effective.
- [31:15]
A
It's definitely not more effective. But that, I would say, is the norm in business.
- [31:21]
B
It's the norm in a lot of places.
- [31:23]
A
In a lot of places in general organizations, period.
- [31:25]
B
Right.
- [31:25]
A
Yes.
- [31:25]
B
You do this or you're fired. I was with a. A Fortune. Gosh, I don't know. Fortune 50 company, recently member of their executive group, and they have a huge, huge, huge, huge problem with turnover. It's costing them tens of millions. Rumor has it, hundreds of millions.
- [31:47]
A
I believe it. Yeah.
- [31:48]
B
And we were talking about it, and I was talking about commitment, and their response was, we use checklists. And I said, well, there is a hidden cost to a compliance culture. That is one potential tax that you've incurred because you said, you follow the checklist or you're fired. And they've grown a big company like that, but now they're going, how do we get some of this money back from all this turnover? Well, you may have to change your strategy, because I don't know that that's the best way to get commitment.
- [32:25]
A
Yeah. And I would say compliance is the norm in the construction industry purely for the sake of risk. There's just massive risk on projects. We can't hurt somebody. We don't want to mess a project up.
- [32:39]
B
And I'm not saying there's not a place for compliance. There's a lot of compliance. In a Chick Fil, a restaurant, food safety is like our number one priority and has been for a long, long time. And there are compliance issues there, no doubt. But I'm talking about when you want someone to say my pleasure and really mean it, you can put that on the checklist and fire the ones who don't. Or you can build a culture where they want to say, my pleasure, but.
- [33:04]
A
I feel like there has to be the compliance stuff, but then it's just. They let it just run rampant within the company.
- [33:12]
B
And is there anything else, or is that the only. That's the only tool in their toolbox.
- [33:17]
A
Exactly.
- [33:18]
B
Right.
- [33:18]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And. And I hadn't even thought of it until I talked with another very large construction company chief executive officer, and he talked about it. With safety programs, he said, most. Once you get past a certain scale, most everybody just rules through compliance because it's just much easier, black and white, clean cut. If you, if we catch you not doing this, you're fired. It's just simple. And I've seen it quite a few times over. I've seen people, they don't do something, they're just fired right there. It's like you're not going to have a conversation with them. This isn't like there's no conversation. We're not going to talk about this. There's no learning moment here. Did you even train them up on it? I don't know. But whereas he said they've had to build a legitimate, caring culture to build their safety program, which is far more effective, believe it or not, and just way better for everybody, more safer, involves everybody, makes everybody not resentful of being told what to do, so on and so forth. When you say going back to vision casting, what does that mean? Because that's a somewhat fluffy term.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah, yeah. Well, we think leadership always begins with a picture of the future. Now it's. It's different for a frontline supervisor than a CEO. Right. Our CEO is trying Chick Fil A CEO is trying to build a multi generational business that's part of his vision. Well, that shift leader, they need to have a vision for the next four hours. What is it you're actually trying to create and then lead in such a fashion as to move toward that aspiration. And so in the context we're discussing, vision casting is showing people, people, many of whom are skeptical, why the preferred future we're advocating would be advantageous for them. I'll give you an example of that. I mentioned a few moments ago that we realized a lot of the restaurants were struggling with leadership capacity. And so we began to encourage folks to build a leadership team, which I don't know if that sounds revolutionary or not, but in Chick Fil a world, it was revolutionary because for decades, the operator was the leader, period. We even designed restaurants way back in the day, the mall restaurants, where the operator could stand at the end of the counter, they could see the dining room, they could see the front counter, and they could see the kitchen. And they would say, I need somebody from the back to come to the front because we've got a line, drop some more chicken, somebody go clean up the dining room like they were the man or the woman. And they provided leadership. And so when we started saying, hey, you may need a team to do this, people thought we had three heads. It was crazy. So in the spirit of vision casting, one of the things that we did is we brought an operator's leadership team to our annual meeting, and we put the operator and the leadership team on the stage, and we heard comments like, I don't have a single leader that I would want to put on this stage. And this guy just put six of them up there. Now, we also told him that his personal income had gone up $250,000 in one year because his profitability went up a half a million bucks. We split profits with operators. Chick Fil a does. And so by building this leadership team and recruiting and selecting men and women of that caliber, this guy made a whole lot more money. So we told that story. That's an example of vision casting. This is what is possible. This is what you could work toward. This is an aspiration for your consideration. That'd be one example of how we did that.
- [37:10]
A
Like, what you said, too, about skepticism, I think, is, I have learned that is so important, and I feel like only increasing further and further and further. Very rarely have we had a person come in day one and be like, you know what? I just trust everybody here. I trust the business. I trust that you all have my best interests in mind, and I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna do my job to the best of my. Like, it's. It's. And. And I think a lot of employers, they expect people to give them trust day one, and then they might give them trust along the way until it probably doesn't serve the business anymore, and then that's not important. And it's almost like an entitled mentality that drives me a little nuts, is because we give you a paycheck, we deserve your undying loyalty, and that's just not the world at all anymore. And I've realized too oftentimes, like, I think younger people, they're skeptical, but in a little. In a different way, they're not as abused by employers. So I think they're a little bit more malleable. They're inexperienced, but they can move a little quicker in that regard. The people that are more experienced are probably more abused by previous employers. So they have more experience, but then you're having to work on them a different way. That is, like, unwind all of that and build that trust with them, which sometimes takes a long time. But then once you build that trust by just consistent actions. Consistent actions. Consistent. No, I see, like, we really mean this. Like, I'm serious. We really mean it, and they see that, it becomes spectacular. But I see a lot of people, like, blame the individuals for their skepticism. When I'd be skeptical too of a lot of employers because a lot of people are screwed left and right. And so I'd be, yeah, I'm not going to buy what you're saying. And if you can build a, you know all this, but this is what I've learned, especially recently, is it's the more people you can bring into the fold and the more skepticism you can undo, the better. And it just, once you can figure that out, stuff starts to really make sense.
- [39:32]
B
I found I agree completely. Now I have had leaders ask me even recently, how do you build trust? My first answer is, be trustworthy.
- [39:45]
A
Sure, yeah, yeah, you go first.
- [39:50]
B
Say what you mean, mean what you say. Do what you say. I tell leaders, here's a very tactical, tactical, trivial kind of thing. I think you got to do your action items as the leader. When I'd sit with a new team, I'd say, okay, we're going to create a culture over time in this group. Here's my dream and my hope and my aspiration as it relates to accountability and trust. I want to be able to stake my life on the fact you're going to do what you say you're going to do, and I want you to be able to stake your life that I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do. And that literally starts with something. I'm going to call Joe on Thursday and when the team meets back on Friday, you just say, yeah, I didn't get to that. It's like, no, that's not how it works. You say, yes, I called Joe on Thursday, or if I'm supposed to have a PowerPoint deck done, I may have to stay up all night Thursday night, which I have had to do before because I had an action item. I mean, I think trust is, I think it's, it's wrong headed to believe it's automatic. Which is, I think the premise of your comments there is organizations just assume that you're going to trust us. I think you've got to earn it. I think you've got to earn it.
- [41:05]
A
And I think that's the older model. I think companies could get away with that in the past because there were less jobs.
- [41:11]
B
But I mean, today, yeah, today it doesn't work. You got to earn it.
- [41:14]
A
No, that's out the window. But I still see companies operating on that old set of principles that is, I give you a paycheck, you give me your undying loyalty. It's like, hey, that's just not the world. It doesn't work that way, you have to earn it. Yeah. How do you get an 18 year old to say my pleasure and mean it?
- [41:39]
B
Well, first of all, we need to give full credit to the restaurant operators. I mean, part of the model. And I would say the heart of Truett Cathy's genius, yes, he invented the chicken sandwich and that's pretty cool. But the operator model, the fact that we're gonna put a high caliber business leader in each of these restaurants, I think was his greatest insight. The way he talked about that back in the day. He said to be successful, a business needs two things. He called it capital and management. He said, but if you look for both of those things in one individual, the pool becomes really small. He said, but if we provide the cash, then the pool of individuals who have the talent is huge. And so that's the model Chick Fil A uses to this day. It's a $10,000 fee and 5,000 of it's refundable if you ever leave. That's all that's required to get in. So you don't have to look for individuals with high net worth. You gotta look for people who have the leadership capacity to run these restaurants.
- [42:41]
A
Okay.
- [42:42]
B
And so, so those operators are the ones that have been able to encourage and persuade team members, not just 18, 17, 16, 15 year olds to say my pleasure. And you say and mean it. And here's part of, I think the magic. It goes back to who are you selecting to begin with? But they may not mean it in the beginning, but if you say it, you can actually grow in your commitment. There's an alignment mechanism, and I'm not a psychologist and I can't explain it, but the age old debate, do you behave your way to feeling or do you feel your way to behaving? Well, behavior is the stronger driver of feelings. If you wait till you feel like going to the gym, you might never go. But if you go, over time you'll feel good about it. And so I think the same has been true. With My Pleasure is like, well, this is what we say. And over time it begins to actually change the heart and the mind and the attitude of the individual. But it is one of our operating requirements. It is the right answer. It's not whatever and it's not no problem. When a guest says thank you, the appropriate response in a Chick Fil a restaurant, it's my pleasure.
- [44:08]
A
Is that how you explain it to a new hire? Like, if I'm a new hire and I ask you, why should I say that? What's the point?
- [44:18]
B
Well, again, the individual operation, for me, the individual operators decide how they'll explain that.
- [44:24]
A
Okay. Oh, okay.
- [44:25]
B
That's what I'm saying. But I think we would say it is emblematic of who we strive to be as a brand. Chick Fil A says they want to be the most caring company in the world. And it starts, and you might argue, ends with those one on one interactions. And so it goes. I want to say something about it's who you select really does matter. An operator told me a story about an interview he was about to conduct. And the way he. See, every operator does their own deal on this. But this operator had people move through several interviews with members of his team, and then he was the last interview. Some operators don't even do that. That's their call. I know an operator running a $40 million business. I don't know how many of those final interviews he's actually in anymore, running a $40 million business. But this operator was the last interview. And he said his team had already kind of given him the heads up, like, you're gonna love this guy. Like, he is so amazing. But it was part of the process. So the operator said, well, thanks for the heads up. I'll meet with him. And he said as soon as he shook the guy's hand, he knew what the team was talking about. He had a big smile, good presence. You know, he was articulate. I mean, it was like, this is cool. We got us a good one here. But he said, no, I need to ask him some questions. And let's. Let's. Let's work the process. And at some point, he said, tell me about your previous job. And the guy. Well, I loved it, and it was great. And it was. And the operator just kind of felt prompted to ask the question, was there anything you didn't like about your former job? He said, well, there's just one thing, operator. What was that? He said, I hated the customers.
- [46:14]
A
Mm.
- [46:17]
B
Now, I don't believe I'd have said that. But he told the truth. And I don't know. That operator, in a moment of clarity, thought, we're not gonna hire this guy.
- [46:27]
A
Yeah, this is a problem.
- [46:28]
B
Cause we're trying to build a customer centric, caring organization. It doesn't matter that he's got a good handshake and a great smile and he's articulate if he hates the people we're here to serve. So I think culture begins with the selection process. Culture begins with the selection process. So I think that's part of my encouragement to people that have a clear aspiration in mind. Don't wait till people show up to try and form them into the image of someone who can help you deliver on your aspiration. Have that in mind before you bring them on board.
- [47:05]
A
We, there's, there's been instances too where we, we're in a position where we can sometimes try people out on a contract basis because that's just the world we operate in, which is awesome. We, we're able to put them into a, a real world scenario, real world project, see how they perform and, and not just perform, but I think along the way I always try to sell the vision. You know, here's where we're going, here's what you can be a part of, here's what this can be. And there's been some times where they perform fine, they do quite well, but then they're just not into what we're doing or not at this point. It's like they should be.
- [47:43]
B
They're not aligned.
- [47:44]
A
Yeah, yeah, there should be more here and there isn't. So if on paper we should totally be hiring this person. But yeah, they're just not aligned. And this isn't. If they're not, if they're not just fixated on this one thing at this point, at this level, whoever it is that's typically not entry level, it's typically something in the middle, then that's not it. And we've made decisions I can think of recently because of that, which is I think the right call. You have how many restaurants or Chick fil a has how many restaurants?
- [48:20]
B
Over 3,000.
- [48:20]
A
Over 3,000. They're all independent. How do you get them aligned? How do you get them on board with this? Because while independent, I can go to a Chick fil a here, I can go to a Chick fil a in California. It is remarkably consistent, the interactions I'll have. And I think that is. The food's wonderful. The food's very consistent too. That's important. But just the interactions of the people. It is, it is more consistent than any other restaurant chain I've been a part of. Maybe that. And In n out I think is wildly consistent. They're an incredible organization as well. How do you get independent that many people on board when they don't have to be on board?
- [49:12]
B
Well, I've already showed my hand. It actually begins with selection. And you're gonna get like minded people different from the example you shared where you're gonna try them and see. We actually try to figure that out in the selection process. Are they like minded? I mean, it has been said that we're really looking for Chick Fil A people who don't yet work for Chick Fil A. So it starts with selection and then there are a lot of things that are done to amplify the aspiration would be some of the language we might use, not the least of which is that annual meeting. That is an alignment event. I mentioned it earlier. It's three and a half days. Started doing it in 1972 with seven operators and seven staff and seven spouses. There were 21 people at that event and this last year there were over 10,000. And so we still invite the operator, their spouse, the staff, their spouse, and it's a big deal. It is actually the strategic rudder for the business. We rebranded it a few years ago, we call it Next. And it is about the future. Now you may be having issues today. That's actually not what this meeting is about. We've got other mechanisms to deal with those things. We have a regional planning meeting. We've got staff consultants and subject matter experts to help you with your day to day. We don't want to minimize that, we don't want to trivialize that. But this is a future focused and oriented event. Are you thinking about the next three to five years? And that's when we bring content that we think will serve them over time. So that's probably the biggest, biggest alignment mechanism after selection is we're calibrating once a year and then of course all the touch points along the way and.
- [51:12]
A
You'Re calibrating where you're going. And so like you said, you brought up earlier, you know, you brought up an operator. Here's their leadership team. By the way, they're also making another, you know, quarter million dollars or whatever it is every year. That to me, as another operator would probably be very interesting.
- [51:30]
B
Absolutely. Oh, and by the way, we've got speakers who are gonna talk about it, we've got breakouts who are gonna talk about it. We've.
- [51:35]
A
Here's how you do it.
- [51:36]
B
Yeah, Here's a book, here's a field guide. You don't have to use any of it. Sure. I mean, we use that annual event to deploy content because we were limited by legal. We can't. They even said you can't mail these books out after the event. You can't mail them out before the event, you can't mail them in June, you can give them out at this event. So we had very tight boundaries when we could deploy content. So our content for the last 40 years, it's, it's targeted for that event.
- [52:08]
A
But you can, and you can look at those boundaries like boundaries or you can look at them like an asset, which you have clearly done. But I feel like oftentimes companies are just so, they're just looking at stuff like, oh, it's just another obstacle, or oh, I, what I've been reflecting on recently is, and it's starting to make me more and more upset is when an employer will complain about employing people. To me, that makes no sense whatsoever. Like I'll be frustrated with people like anybody else. I think that's normal, that's fine. But when they have such a negative attitude about people and employing people, it's just almost like, well, why do it? No one has a gun to your head. Like, then stop, stop employing people. Like, why would you not, why would you not be hopeful and optimistic? And maybe that's just 20 something year old Aaron talking. I'm not 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, maybe I just get more and more jaded as time goes on. But to me it's so frustrating. Or just the defeated attitude in the construction industry right now about how the next generation, they just don't want to work this and that, which is such an easy cop out, that's just like such an easy thing to say that absolves me of any responsibility and I can just keep on doing what I'm doing. But those are not the companies that are doing, I think, extraordinary things right now or are the future. They're not the ones that are next, to use your language. The ones that are next are saying, cool, this is how the world's changed. This is where people are at. We're going to meet them there. We're going to meet their skepticism head on. We're going to explain why this is in their best interest. We're going to train them, we're going to develop them as leaders. We're going to sell that vision as they get bigger and bigger. And I think Chick Fil A's, there's not many better examples of that in action. It's like if you do these things, if you develop your leadership, good things happen as a result, right? It's not that complicated.
- [54:15]
B
Absolutely. Well, here's one of the challenges. I think there are two predominant challenges driving what you're talking about. One is you've got a huge percentage of global leaders who've not been taught how to lead.
- [54:34]
A
Yeah, correct.
- [54:37]
B
So some of that that you're hearing is, I believe, from a place of fear. Anxiety, frustration, that they actually don't know how to do what they've been asked to do. You and I can sit here and say it's simple. Not easy, but simple. So I think that's a problem. We did a global survey just a couple years ago and 60% of C level leaders around the world said that their organization had a defined point of view on leadership. Now you can debate whether that's a good number or a bad number. We asked frontline leaders and over 70% said they had no idea if their organization had it, which to me means they hadn't been taught. Not only had they not been taught how to do things, they haven't even been told how their organization defines leadership. So I think the first problem driving that attitude, it's a self defense mechanism. Well, it's gotta be them, cause I don't know what to do about it. Right. But the second, and I think it might be the biggest issue facing leaders globally is what we call quicksand. I'm talking now about the men and women who know how to lead, but they're not leading to their full potential. And there's a toxic mix and it varies from person to person and even season to season. But usual ingredients include busyness, distractions, complexity, resource scarcity, fear, fatigue, maybe even success. And that creates a quagmire that prevents leaders from leading to their full potential. And we did a project a few years ago, it was built under the banner of leadership effectiveness. And it came from our observation that we saw a lot of leaders struggling. And these weren't men and women that didn't know how to lead. These were men and women who knew how to lead, but it just wasn't happening or it wasn't working as well as it had in the past. And so we actually discovered all these things that were impediments. And we spent about maybe 30 days like how can we eliminate some of these things? And we said we can't eliminate any of this. In fact, most of those things are going to grow, the complexity and the distractions and it's not going to get better. So we identified some leaders who didn't spend much time in the quicksand and if they ever got in it, they got out. And so we ended up studying them and we wrote about it in a book called Smart Leadership. The short answer on how you get out, it's not a skill question, it's a choice question that you can make different choices that will help you get out of the quicksand. And so long answer too. A lot of those folks that are going at somebody else's problem, it's because what they've discovered is their leadership practices aren't working anymore. And they don't in many cases know why. It's because you can't lead well from the quicksand. Oh. And if you're in the quicksand, you can't help others around you out. So there's a really good chance. If you're in quicksand, the leaders around you are in quicksand. And you're in survival mode. Because leaders in quicksand, they aren't working on culture, they aren't working on execution, they're not working on any of the things they really ought to be working.
- [58:19]
A
No vision. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [58:21]
B
Because they're in survival mode. So Chick Fil A commissioned that study a few years ago and then we deployed that content to our operators because we said we got to help you get out of the quicksand.
- [58:32]
A
That's interesting.
- [58:33]
B
So you can lead better.
- [58:34]
A
I see it too. I see that in construction as well. Because it's multi generational. Oftentimes most businesses are multi generational and that is a whole other dynamic. You're taking over from dad, but the business is already 35 years old. And to get it to that point, he's developed this certain leadership skill set. But you haven't had that experience. It's not your fault. You don't choose where you're born or your situation, whatever it is. But you have to go build that skill set without some of the things that are there to help you build the skill set.
- [59:14]
B
And if you mimic his approach and style, there's a real good chance it's not going to take you where you want to go.
- [59:23]
A
Exactly.
- [59:23]
B
Because it's a new day. Yes, it's a new day. It's tricky.
- [59:29]
A
I think that's one of the hardest things to do is. Yes. To transition a business from one generation to the next. I don't envy anybody doing that because that is a hard place to be.
- [59:41]
B
And I might say, and this is just a hunch on my part, it's even harder with a small business because in a large business you would assume that if you're the new CEO that your mom or dad, they probably had systems and they had staff and they had infrastructure. If it's at scale, they have already escaped some of those habits that we're talking about of doing it yourself and being in the quicksand. But if it's a small business. Yeah, you really don't have a role model. If you're that emerging leader, that next gen leader, your role model in that regard, sure. Their work ethic, their values. Yeah, you need to be like your mom or your dad in that regard. But as far as work practices and leadership style, if you want to grow it and you want to scale it, you're going to need a new approach.
- [60:30]
A
When it comes to developing leaders, where do you start? I mean, what's some of the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to.
- [60:41]
B
Well, it's interesting because you asked a question a moment ago, and I don't think I answered it. When Chick Fil a said, how do you accelerate leadership development? Where do. Where did we start? We believed then, and I still believe today, that you have to define leadership. Because what we learned back then, again, I think it's still true today, is that when you say leadership, everybody will not. And if you ask them to write down their definition, two things will be true. Everybody can do it, and they'll all be different. They'll be different. And how do you strategically, systematically develop leaders in an organizational context? If you and I disagree on what it is? So that was Our first insight 25 years ago, is that finance was defining it one way and marketing was defining it another way. And so I think that's still our first step that we encourage organizations to take. And I would even say let's bring it down to the individual. If you say you want to be a better leader before you can be purposeful in that pursuit, how do you define it? What do you think leaders need to do? And so that actually was the primary output of that first team 25 years ago.
- [62:02]
A
Well, I think people, because of movies, television, pop culture, books, whatever it is, they have this completely skewed idea of what leadership is. Or you're born a leader or not. I'm not a confident person. I'm not a naturally confident individual. So if you would have asked me 10, 15 years ago, whatever it was, do you think you're going to be a leader? I would have said, I don't know. I don't think I have those characteristics. I don't have those traits. But then as you start to learn more about leadership, you start to realize, wait a minute, the guy that I saw on television, I thought was the leader who's kicking in all the doors and is yelling at everybody and always has the right answers or whatever it is, that's actually not it at all. That's actually perfectly wrong.
- [62:56]
B
Got it.
- [62:57]
A
But I've been conditioned to think that that's the hero of the story. That's the one that. Yeah, the individual that takes charge. But that's just. Again, that's probably not your definition.
- [63:10]
B
The term is often used for what you just described is the heroic leader.
- [63:15]
A
Yes.
- [63:16]
B
And that's a form that you may encounter from time to time in the real world. But it's not the model, it's not the paradigm.
- [63:28]
A
So how did you all, or how do you define leadership?
- [63:31]
B
Well, let me say one thing and I'll answer your question. I believe that it is fundamentally a skill set that becomes a mindset, that becomes a lifestyle. I think you become a leader after you learn the skills, you begin to think like a leader and then you can actually over time, be a leader.
- [63:51]
A
You've thought about this a little bit.
- [63:54]
B
You've thought this through. Yeah. So one more thing I'll say and then I'll answer your question directly. There are different forms of leadership. You just mentioned one. Some call it the heroic leader. We call that common leadership. But what we advocate is uncommon leadership. Common leadership is about the individual and it's about me. And it's about what I accomplished. It's what I did, it's what I achieved. But it's fleeting, it's temporary. And so we advocate uncommon leadership. And we identified five fundamentals. And the heart of this work we did 25 years ago. But before I left Chick Fil A, they asked me to actually write a book. We called it Uncommon Greatness. And it was a refresh of that work. And the fundamental change was that 25 years ago, I partnered with Ken Blanchard. You may or may not know that name. The One Minute Manager is his most famous. He's probably sold 50 million books in his career. He's older now. He's 20 years older than I am. But we partnered together for that first book 25 years ago. And his style was the parable. And so we wrote that as a parable. Chick Fil a asked me to update and refresh that in a traditional business book with the data and the case studies and all that. So that came out earlier, early in 24. It's called uncommon greatness again. And the fundamental difference, is it focused on the leader or is it focused on eliciting greatness from others? Not about being great, but helping others be great. And it's long lasting and it's often unseen. But we went back and said, okay, what do these uncommon leaders leaders do? And we came up with five things. I'll hit them really, really quick and then we can talk about any of them you want. The first is they see the future. Mentioned that earlier. Leadership always begins with a picture of the future, often referred to as vision. But that representation of that aspiration, you can use vision, mission, purpose, values, or some combination of those things. But here's where we're going, here's why it matters. That's leadership always begins there. The second thing they do is they engage and develop others. Engagement has been all the rage for the last 10 or 15 years, thanks to Marcus Buckingham and others. Unfortunately, global engagement is awful. Marcus, who used to be with the Gallup Group, now works for ADP. They just finished a study of 19 countries and found that global engagement is about 15%. Now, you mentioned earlier there's this real temptation to say that's a problem with the workforce. I'm in the camp that's a leadership problem. Leaders are the ones that control the level of engagement of the people on your team. So see the future, engage and develop others. Uncommon leaders reinvent continuously. There's this trend out there, and I'm not sure if it's increasing or my perception or my awareness has changed, but I'm meeting a lot of leaders that think change is the enemy. Change is a burden, change is a barrier, change is an obstacle, change is something to avoid. I say they don't understand their role. We're supposed to create and sustain positive change in service of the vision. As leaders, right? We're, we're supposed to help move people and organizations, and progress is always preceded by change. And so we discovered 25 years ago in our research that the best leaders reinvent continuously three primary domains. They reinvent themselves. They reinvent the systems and work processes. Because if you do what you've always done, you'll probably get what you always got or something less right? And then they reinvent structure. Structure should enable, not inhibit. And so the best leaders reinvent continuously. Number four, they value results and relationships. Which feels weird to some leaders. It's like, well, it's really about results. Well, you'll suboptimize results if you just value results. Oh, by the way, you'll suboptimize results if you just focus on relationships. Jim Collins wrote about a concept years ago called the genius of the and when you can take two things that appear to be at odds and from time to time may be at odds, and you can embrace both, you unleash tremendous power and potential. His example, one of his examples was Toyota, who said, we're going to do high quality at low cost. People said, well, you can't do that. They've done pretty good with that.
- [68:59]
A
They've done pretty good.
- [69:00]
B
Well, we think the best leaders say, yeah, there's going to be a tension there, but I'm going to value results and relationships and that's how you actually maximize results. And then fifth and finally is you embody a leader's heart. You embody a leader's heart. If your heart's not right, nobody cares about your skills. I mean, you probably know a leader in the world that has the skills that you wouldn't want to follow.
- [69:26]
A
Yeah, a lot of them on tv.
- [69:28]
B
Well, sure, but I'm talking in the real world. And a lot of people have worked for men and women who had the skill set and you followed them begrudgingly. Right. It was not a commitment situation, it was a compliance situation because you didn't trust their heart. And so we don't need to get into it unless you want to, but we've identified some heart habits that leaders can cultivate to be a leader that people actually want to follow. So that's our skill set that over time can become a mindset and over time can become a lifestyle.
- [70:04]
A
And who you are, say I'm that 18 year old, 20 year old, 22 year old in the warehouse, whatever it is, where do I start on that skill set?
- [70:15]
B
Well, keeping, keep in mind that it's not a process map. So you need to work on all of these. What I would suggest is that you need to become well versed in those five fundamentals and then look for opportunities to practice them. Always working on your heart, always working on what is it we're trying to create. We shared with some team leaders actually last year, this whole idea that I just unpacked and somebody says, yeah, but what about see the future? I'm a team leader. It's like, great. Says, what's your vision for the shift? So why don't you imagine when you start before you clock in what's going to be true over the next four hours and think about service and think about hospitality and think about food quality and then lead accordingly. So when somebody does the core four and they, you know, they make eye contact and they stay connected and they speak enthusiastically and they share a smile. If that's part of what you're trying to do, go praise that, go encourage that. And if somebody does part of it, you go to them and go, man, that's fantastic. You got two of the four, let's talk about the four. We said we think you'll lead differently if you know what you're trying to create because that's what leaders do. So we made that comment from the stage. So at the end of the day we're going to do Q and a. Got 300 these team leaders in a room and this kid raises his hand and he says, you guys changed my life today. And we went, okay, good. Was there something specific? He said, yeah, that thing about having a vision for my shift. He said, I never had a vision for my shift. The implication was I just didn't want the place to burn down. But I mean like something I was actually trying to accomplish. He said, I don't think I can ever go to work the same again. You can teach a 17 year old kid what do you want to be true in the next four hours?
- [72:26]
A
Yeah.
- [72:27]
B
Now again, as you move up in leadership, if you're a director, you're thinking about maybe the P and L for the month. And if you're the operator, you're thinking about the annual business plan. If you're the consultant, you're thinking about three to five years. And if the officers at Chick Fil A were working on 10 year plans when I left and I've already shared the CEOs working on building a multi generational business. But you got to teach these concepts and translate them to a workforce, which is why training matters. It's like just to tell somebody those five things doesn't even tell them how to do it. Like how do I engage and develop others? Well, then there's a, I mean there's a skill set. You have to learn the skill set. Which is why the organizations who do this well, they train their leaders well.
- [73:14]
A
And the vision part is extremely important too because I feel like that's a big piece of also attracting the right people is I had this conversation the other day with somebody at a company. You know, they're doing what they've always been doing, but there's not this clear vision. And it's like if I was coming into this organization, I would want to know where we're going. Like if I'm happy to, I'm going to get on your ship. I'm happy to do my part. I'll do whatever my job is on that ship. But I want to know where the ship's going. Like, where are we going? Why are we going there? Why should I care about going there? Yeah, but the more like I feel like that's been one of the biggest ways we've attracted the people we have to our business. Vision, Vision, vision, vision, vision. And Talking about it internally and externally and making sure that it's consistent. Because another thing I've heard from people, and this is where the skepticism comes into play, man, I thought you were kind of full of it. But then I talked to this guy, I talked to this woman, I talked to this person, whoever it is. I've talked with enough of you now. I've seen it enough to know this is legitimate. It's like, yes, it is legitimate, but it's taken years of repeating it and training upon it and translating it in a hundred different ways for it to get to be part of the organization.
- [74:45]
B
Yes. And so let me affirm that and say my assumption based on the work we've done is you have attracted a higher caliber individual because of what you just described. Yes, we did some work a few years back. We were trying to figure out how to help our restaurant operators and leaders globally. How do you attract and keep the best people? We call them top talent. So we commission what we're, as far as we know, the first ever study in the history of the world on what attracts top talent. And I say that because we spent six months trying to purchase some research on that topic and we couldn't find it. And we were told again and again and again and again and again nobody had ever done that research. Now, we wrote a really big check. I'm not going to tell you how big it was to commission this study. And we found that top talent, by the way, as differentiated from typical talent. Now, like A players versus B players, we figured most leaders can discern the C and D players, and if you want to hire them, you can. But we want to help you attract more and keep more of the A players, the folks you would really hate to leave. So that's the group we studied. What do they want in a job? First, they want a better boss. They want to be well led. Now you might say, doesn't everybody want a better boss? Well, at some level. But when an A player is not well led, they're an immediate flight risk. Sure, a typical talent, they'll just talk bad about you at the dinner table, but they'll keep coming to work. They want a better boss. Second, they want a brighter future. Now you're saying, well, doesn't everybody want a brighter future? Well, sorta again, but typical talent, the future for them is Friday. Top talent has a longer view. They walk into an interview with a different set of questions. Now, they may not ask them directly, but they're trying to answer questions such as, how am I going to grow. What am I going to learn? How is this going to prepare me for a future operation? Opportunity?
- [76:54]
A
Yeah. How do I earn what I want to earn one day?
- [76:57]
B
And then third and finally, top talent wants to be part of a bigger vision. They really do. And when you can provide that, you're more likely to attract and keep top talent.
- [77:12]
A
No, I think at least that's. I am in constant amazement of the people that work at our company, which is a really fun world to be in.
- [77:23]
B
I bet some of them, they're amazing people.
- [77:24]
A
They are incredible individuals. That's why we're talking. I think Dan reached. Dan connected with you originally and then you've talked to Jason and talked Randy. They're incredible. And I always sit around wondering, why are these people here? Because if it was just down to my intellect and my skill set, I'd probably struggle to talk the neighborhood raccoon into being a part of our business. It just wouldn't work. But there's other stuff, of course. But that vision has been so potent in bringing in the right people.
- [78:03]
B
Now let me say a quick word about that to the folks listening. Those were the direct findings of the research, by the way. That was a US based study, but we looked at all 50 states age 15 to 65. The reason we did that is we wanted to mitigate the effect of generational bias. Those three things across all generations. Top talent wants those things. But we stumbled. That was a direct findings. We stumbled on an indirect finding and maybe this would help some of the people out there because there may be someone listening. We do all those three things. Yay. We do those three things well. Why are we having trouble finding people? Well, we had Chick fil a operators. Some of them were a little more direct than that. They said, your model doesn't work. I'd say, excuse me, I'm not going to tell you how much money we spent for this. What do you mean it doesn't work? They said, well, we provide those things and we can't attract top talent. That's odd. So we went on this quest and we found several really good leaders who said it didn't work. And so we began to probe and we found two predominant problems. One is not telling the story proactively. I had one leader specifically that said that. He told that. I said, when do you tell the story of these three things? He said, it's in orientation. I said, well, aren't those people already on your team? He said, yeah, what's your point? I said, well, you're trying to attract People. So that was one thing I'd say to people. If you're already doing those things, fantastic, congratulations. That's really hard. Now go tell the story. I'd even ask it is that on your website that you provide those things and how many clicks does somebody have to go to find it, that they're gonna be well led, they're gonna learn and grow, and they're part of something bigger than themselves. If you're having trouble getting people, maybe that needs to be on page one so proactively. The other is we had some leaders who were doing the things we just talked about, but they were telling a different story. So I asked an operator, a leader, I said, so are you telling the story? He said, I tell the story everywhere. I said, well, give me an example. He said, I tell it at Rotary clubs and Kiwanis and church groups and job fairs. And I said, what story are you telling? And he said, well, I tell them about Truett Cathy, our founder, and selling Cokes out of a wagon when he was 6 years old. And I said, that's the wrong story. I said, that's a good story for orientation and our history and Truitt's legacy matters. But you're trying to get people who have a future orientation and you're telling them about something from a hundred year old dead guy.
- [80:43]
A
Yeah.
- [80:44]
B
Not very inspiring. So you gotta tell the right story and you'll be well led, you'll learn and grow and you'll be part of something bigger than yourself.
- [80:54]
A
Well, and you have to back those things up too.
- [80:57]
B
Oh, absolutely.
- [80:58]
A
But I feel like there's a lot of companies out there trying to do that. But it's not a very compelling story either. Or they're hiring some big consulting firm and spending tens of millions of dollars on some really catchy phrase or whatever it is that ultimately means nothing. It's like to a 20 year old kid. I don't even, I don't know what this means. Like just these big, like, we're here to just inspire the world. It's like, what does that mean?
- [81:28]
B
No, I got it. Yeah, here's where I thought you were going. The bigger challenge for some is they can actually sing the song. But it's not true. Sure, it's not true.
- [81:41]
A
People find out pretty quick.
- [81:42]
B
I had a leader tell me one time that he had decided he was gonna hack the employment world, basically. And I said, how are you going to hack it? He said, I'm going to pay ungodly wages.
- [81:51]
A
Nice.
- [81:52]
B
And I said, well, let me know how it goes. Bulletproof talked to him six months later. I said, hey, how'd that experiment go? He said, well. He said, you won't believe the team I assembled. He said, I think it might have been the greatest restaurant team in the history of the world. And I said, congratulations. He said, with. I said, so how'd it work out? He said, they all quit. I said, okay, I know why they quit. Because they were top talent. You tricked them with the money, and when they got there, they found out they may or may not be well led. They're not going to learn and grow, and they're not part of any bigger vision. You hired mercenaries, and when somebody paid them a buck more somewhere else, they left. So you gotta deliver. You gotta be able to tell people about it, and you've got to make it true. We wrote all about that in a book called Talent Magnet, if anybody's interested. But it has revolutionized the way that some organizations are thinking about and recruiting talent.
- [83:07]
A
I spend a lot of my time even just thinking about communication. And it's like, just even how these companies tell these stories. It's just like, can you just write in English? Like, no one even talks like this. No one talks like this. This is crazy. Or you'll get the executive reading off a teleprompter of a script that they didn't write. You know, they didn't write it. And it is so. And even about stuff that I've seen, like, it'll be about mental health or something like that, and their intentions are completely pure, totally pure. I get it. But then it just comes off in such a wrong way, and it's just like, I know what you're trying to do here, but this is such a miss. Like, if you would have just told me a story about some personal experience you've had along the way, that would have been a hundred times more effective, and I would have been so much more willing to come on and get on board. And I think that's part of change as well. Like, I think maybe. Maybe the perfect response would have worked at some point, or maybe that's how business was done. But now, especially, like podcasts, for example, you were talking like, long form. I think long form does better because for some ways, but I think it's so attractive to me because it's like, you can really learn about somebody. You can understand a concept. You can see how someone thinks. Only in this longer format. It's this completely new format that hasn't been available. Everything before this has been those short, quick Polished segments, so on and so forth. But it's like, I get it, you were trying to put together the perfect one and a half minute video. But if it was an eight minute video that was very heartfelt, very authentic, way more effective.
- [84:55]
B
Right. Which. Interesting. You mentioned that telepathy. For 40 years at our events, I wouldn't let our leaders use teleprompters. Just told them no.
- [85:06]
A
Well, it's a crutch and it works well.
- [85:09]
B
Yes, but I think it communicates in most cases. I have seen some people who can do it well, but most people don't do it well enough to be good at it.
- [85:18]
A
It's a skill. Yeah. Doing it well.
- [85:20]
B
And it creates almost this disingenuousness.
- [85:25]
A
Like even, even when you're genuine about.
- [85:27]
B
It, even if you wrote it, but if, then you're reading it, it's like, so, yeah, I think the message, the messenger, has to be believable, not just the message.
- [85:40]
A
Well, and I. So this is an important thing I've learned about leadership too, is that leadership is really about communication. Like everything you're talking about is communication. And I see a lot of leaders too. They have not, they're in these leadership positions, but they have not built these communication skill sets. And to me, I'm just like, I don't know how you're. I don't know how that works because everything I do is communication. Whether it's speaking with somebody, whether it's speaking publicly, whether it's writing, like every. That's probably of any skill set within leadership I've developed. The ability to communicate is the most important for me because that's the root of most everything that we've talked about. But they've never learned it or they'll, oh, I'm not a good, I'm not a good speaker. I'm not a good writer. It's like, yeah, you're not a good writer because you haven't learned how to write.
- [86:45]
B
That's how it works. Yeah. I have long been an advocate that every leader needs to have communication as part of their development plan. Public speaking specifically. And if you can't write, you need writing as part of your personal development plan. Yeah.
- [86:59]
A
Because I've been at enough company meetings now because I'm a part of some of these company meetings, which is very cool. I'm still confused as to why, but it's great. But the guy, the gal, whoever, won't take the opportunity to really cast the vision, to really explain to people where we're going and why. And I see It. And it's just like, the opportunity's there and everybody's in the room. They do this once a year. They've spent all this money to be here. I know it's terribly uncomfortable to get up in front of people, but then they don't take that opportunity and it's just like, ah, yeah, they missed it as such a. That is like the most valuable 15 minutes of this year. And it's gone. And I understand why, like, I'm not. I'm not comfortable every time, like, publicly speak, like, are you kidding me? It is the most unnerving, uncomfortable thing I've done in my life. I'd say public speaking, but I know if I want to get to the point, if I want to become the leader, I want to become worthy of the organization. I want to lead. That's an essential skill set. So it doesn't matter how I feel about it. I better figure it out.
- [88:25]
B
Right.
- [88:26]
A
And maybe, like, it doesn't have to be public speaking, but, oh, boy.
- [88:32]
B
Yeah, it's huge. It is so, so important.
- [88:37]
A
Yeah.
- [88:38]
B
So important. And, yeah, I think too many leaders have been given a pass or taken a pass and just, I mean, I mean, they're books. You can hire coaches. I mean, and there's so many ways that you can learn. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [88:58]
A
Go practice in church or something like that. You're not going to be judged there. I don't know what it is, but. Or like your kids sports practice that, you know the team. Like, all right, I'm going to learn how to.
- [89:10]
B
I've had multiple public speaking coaches over the years that I would hire for a season or a year or two and then learn what I could from them. And I. I'd get another coach.
- [89:21]
A
Well, and even just now, the information.
- [89:23]
B
On the Internet, oh, there's so much out there.
- [89:25]
A
You can. I've gotten a lot better by watching people speak and studying. I won't even really listen to what they're saying. I'll be watching, like, I'll now be, like, watching or listening to, like, their pacing, for example, or how they're using silence or humor. Like, that's the kind of stuff I'm now looking into.
- [89:48]
B
That's good.
- [89:48]
A
It's quite. I'm a long ways away, but it's like, I've gotten past the initial, holy shit. I'm speaking. Like, I'm just trying to get through this. Just get through it. Just don't look like an idiot now. I'm like, oh, oh, there's all these tools that you can Use. And there's all these different formats and different ways you can put together a message.
- [90:11]
B
And you can go back and look at the videotape of your talk.
- [90:14]
A
I was doing that yesterday and learn a lot.
- [90:16]
B
Yeah. My wife taught me a while back. She said, what are you watching? I said one of my talks. And she said, which one? And I told her. And she said, but you've done that for that same group 11 times. And I said, yeah. And I think I'm gonna do a 12th one. So I wanna make it better. And I'm still watching the game tape. Right. I mean, what great sports team doesn't look at the game film?
- [90:40]
A
Yeah, yeah. It's just. But you just. You're almost. You don't want anybody to see you watching yourself. Because it's like you're some egomaniac or something like that. I'm like, man, this guy knows what he's talking about.
- [90:51]
B
Professional. If you're watching your own footage, trying to get better, I mean, you wouldn't think that. Again, a football team, they're egotistical for watching the game film.
- [90:59]
A
Sure.
- [90:59]
B
They're watching it whether they won or lost.
- [91:01]
A
Yeah.
- [91:02]
B
They're looking at it. So they can get better.
- [91:03]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What, through all of this, what's been surprising to you about leadership along the way? Or what have you had to overcome? Like, what preconceived notions or ideas have you had to unwind along the way?
- [91:31]
B
Let me take the second question first. What have I had to unwind? And I think I haven't had as much of a challenge here as some. Because I spent 45 years in an organization who believed in and modeled uncommon leadership before we had language for it. But I think I have had to push against the conventional wisdom, the common leadership paradigm. I can give you one example. I did a 360 assessment. And I've been doing assessments. I mean, I created my first one over 40 years ago. Cause I didn't know there was such a thing. And I put a bunch of questions and I gave it to people and had them mail it to a third party who could give me the results. Cause I wanted to get better. But later in my career, I actually hired a guy. Cause I was considering their organization to help us do some 360s with our staff leaders. And so I wanted to have the experience myself. And so this was significant enough that not only did you do the 360, but then their consultant would come to the office to help you unpack what they had learned. And so this guy Walked in and he looked really bad. That's all. I'm just probably. I mean, he looked. I couldn't tell if he was sick or his mother died or what, but I mean, I could. I mean, there was something about his countenance, and I'm not real good at picking up on that kind of stuff. So this was like, something's going on here. The first thing I said was, are you okay? I mean, that was just almost a reflexive response because he looked so bad. And he said, it's about your results. And I went, really well, come in here and have a seat. And I said, what is it in my results that you find so burdensome? He said, when you walk in a room, you're not trying to take charge. I said, you're correct. He said, that's what leaders do. I said, that's your paradigm of leaders. I said, when I walk in a room, I'm trying to figure out how I can add the most value. And sometimes that's to take charge, and sometimes that's to take out the trash.
- [93:48]
A
Oh. So their thought was, a leader takes charge.
- [93:52]
B
If you don't take charge, then you're not even a leader. If that's not your bias, if that's not your mindset, I'm going to go in here and I'm going to lead. I said, no, that's common greatness, not uncommon greatness.
- [94:11]
A
I think that's what makes this. That's part of what makes this hard, though, is that uncommon is uncommon. Most of the world doesn't operate this way.
- [94:24]
B
Right.
- [94:25]
A
And so you have all of these outside forces pushing against you.
- [94:29]
B
Right.
- [94:31]
A
Especially the better you get at it, the bigger you get. And I know with Chick Fil a along the way, just. It's amazing to see a company that has notched what that company has, and there's still people, there's still these forces that are probably bigger than ever pushing against it, saying, no, that's actually not. Not the way. And I feel like that is part of what makes it harder and harder and harder, too, because the common sees it almost as a threat and wants to shove it back into submission is at least my outside perspective.
- [95:10]
B
Yeah, I think there are probably people in that camp, but I think it's really hard to argue with the results.
- [95:16]
A
It is. Well. And like, an example of Chick Fil a is like the Sundays thing that's just been steadfast. And I'm sure there's been all kinds of pressure. I can't even imagine the pressure. And even just the financial, you know, as you more and more restaurants, just the cost of that just becomes astronomical. But I feel like the best businesses also push back. They have a set of values, they draw the line in the sand. This is what we believe in. That's it. No matter what happens. And I think that is really important too, and especially for me as an individual coming into that organization to see something like the Sundays thing, that to me says this is a principled business and they don't let anything, even hundreds of millions of dollars, probably billions, probably many billions, get in the way of those principles, which is also very attractive. And that's at the big level. I don't think my logic here is very clear. That's at the biggest level. But then I think it's down to each one of those leaders too. You have to have your set of principles and you've got to stick with them because it only takes one deviation to undermine. Like you could go do the one wrong thing now to undermine your 40 something year career of notching all these wins. You've got to stick with it. But I'll also argue with myself here and argue that being consistent is easier or just being who you are, developing your skillset as a leader because then you don't have to worry about playing a game. You don't have to worry about like, well, I need to be the guy to take charge. You can just live the lifestyle like you said, of being a leader, which is so much easier because it's so consistent. You just apply it across the board. And now it's not just at work, it's in your community, it's at your home, it's across the board. You're just living it.
- [97:30]
B
That's right. That's right. Now let me go back to your other question. What has surprised me, the thing that has surprised me and I want to offer this like I hope your audience will trust my heart. This is not in offered in judgment. But it has surprised me how few organizations invest strategically in leadership development and how few individual leaders do that because since the majority of organizations don't, a lot of leaders have assumed that they don't have to or need to or want to. And I always tell men and women says you own your own development. Now I hope you're in an organization that will help you because it'll be so much easier. And I hope upon hope that your organization is even aligned because if they don't have a point of view on leadership and you go develop something, it may or may not be in Align. I mean, so I hope they'll help you, and I hope they're aligned, but you don't get a pass. If you want to maximize your contribution to the world as an individual who has chosen the profession of leadership, you need to learn how to lead. And so many leaders are not diligent in that regard. And so that's one reason that our organization does what we do, is we want to serve 100 million leaders over the next seven years, because there are a whole lot of leaders that have more capacity, they've got more opportunity, they've got more influence. They can make a bigger difference in the world. But imagine an athlete who doesn't try to master their sport. It's like, that would make no sense. But so many leaders are just. Are just winging it. And that has surprised me. Honestly, no judgment there. There are probably a thousand reasons. One we talked about earlier is they're in quicksand. Leaders in quicksand aren't working on leadership development. They're not working on culture. They're not working on any of the real important stuff because they're working on survival. Which is why I come back to our first priority is to help leaders get out of quicksand.
- [99:51]
A
Well, I spent two years there. We were raising money, and it was purely survival. We just need to survive. That was all that mattered. And it was. I took a step, you know, I've gotten much more engaged from a vision standpoint again, and it's been awesome. It's like, oh, this is what I should be spending my time on. But it's also required plenty of humility to say, wow, I have not done my job for two years. I have not developed this organization like I should have. I haven't developed myself. I've still been doing stuff along the way. But it's. Yeah, you get into this, I think a lot of it's probably financial of this just survival state. Like, all I'm worried about is the next payroll right now. If that clears, we're good. And now I'm worried about the next payroll. I don't have the time to focus on anything.
- [100:48]
B
That's a different form of quicksand. Resource scarcity is another component.
- [100:52]
A
Yeah, but that's what.
- [100:55]
B
Yeah.
- [100:55]
A
So I'm not judging.
- [100:56]
B
I'm just saying think about someone who wants to get better, hopes to get better, and is doing nothing to get better. It's like that has surprised me again, quicksand notwithstanding, if you're in quicksand, I got it. But there are a lot of leaders who aren't in quicksand, who aren't focused on becoming a better leader. And I think that's surprising to me.
- [101:21]
A
I think even, like, oftentimes people are always like, how do you find the right mentor? It was like, well, become worth mentoring. I feel like that's how it works. A lot of times is like, you need to offer something before and maybe you find the right person, like you find the right coach and everything just falls right into place for you. That happens, too. But that hasn't been my experience. I need to be worth investing in and to show someone I'm worth investing in, I need to be investing in myself. I need to show some sort of hunger so that they don't feel like their time and energy is going to be wasted.
- [102:01]
B
Right. So I follow that logic and I can fully support that. But let me add a twist. I meet people who don't have a mentor because they haven't found the right one. And what they've done is they've set the bar so high. Oh, sure, I want the world's leading authority on supply chain to be my mentor. Cause I'm in supply chain. Well, do you even know who that is? It's probably this guy in Asia. Okay, well, he may or may not be your mentor. I tell people that right mentor may be the one that's just a few steps ahead of you, who's willing to help you.
- [102:38]
A
That's great.
- [102:41]
B
And then you can get another one. When you learn what you can learn from that man or woman, then find another one.
- [102:45]
A
Or you can have multiple.
- [102:46]
B
And that was the last time. And you probably need multiple. That's another reason some people say they haven't found the right one. Because they're looking for somebody to help them with their family, their finances, their faith, their leadership. And did I mention fitness. It's like, well, no, you're not going to find that mentor. Prioritize. Pick a couple of them. I want somebody to help me with my leadership and my finances and work with them for a while and then find you another mentor or two or three. So, yeah, the right. I just don't want people to hide behind. I can't find the right one. And yes, you do need to be someone that an individual would be willing to invest in. I got that. But don't set the bar too high and don't try to expect a person to mentor you in all areas of life.
- [103:35]
A
I've also seen people, they definitely hide behind that. I've seen people also hide behind because they work for A bad company that treats them poorly. They're not developing themselves. And to me, that's also very flawed logic because it's like, hey, hey, hey, still develop yourself here because that skill set is gonna get you the right opportunities, future state.
- [104:01]
B
And learn from those bad examples that too. Figure out what are the things you're never gonna do when you get your next opportunity. You can learn a ton from bad leaders. Doesn't mean you emulate them. It may mean that you run from their example, but you are aware of.
- [104:20]
A
That, which I feel like is oftentimes like most of the stark examples I have in my mind. They're the examples of what not to do. That's perfect. That's exactly what I don't want to do. And those are the ones that oftentimes stand out a lot more than the right thing to do.
- [104:39]
B
I take it a step further. I tell people to write it down, keep a journal of do's and don'ts for your next leadership opportunity.
- [104:47]
A
Yeah. When you now you're in the consulting world, you're not with Chick Fil A.
- [104:55]
B
That's correct. I've entered my second half.
- [104:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. Yeah.
- [104:59]
B
We're gonna try to run up the score in the second half.
- [105:01]
A
You're doing fine. When did you leave Chick Fil A officially?
- [105:06]
B
Oh, goodness. How long ago? 18 months ago.
- [105:09]
A
Okay. Ish. Yeah, yeah. So you had a decent, decent run over there. Did all right. Second half, when you go in now executives are hiring you, companies are hiring you to come in and essentially do what you helped Chick Fil A do for them. What do they most commonly ask you?
- [105:33]
B
Well, that's a fantastic question. We've been trying to get our head around that too, because we get requests to do all sorts of things and we've put it into three buckets. We think that these are all felt need based, that some want to become a better leader, some want to improve team performance, and some want to strengthen their organization. And those obviously are connected, but different people will have different pain points or different points of entry. They may say, I want to strengthen my organization. What we figure out once we get in is, ah, you got some team issues, or, oh, you've got some individual leader issues. Because it actually, we describe it as an operating system with those three disciplines. Become a better leader, improve team performance and strengthen your organization. And so I know that's a wide spectrum, but we have leaders all over that need help with different things.
- [106:33]
A
Are you. You said selection was very important. Are you. Are there? Is. Is selection Also important with who you work with. Are there. Are there also, like, I know you have a very charitable view of leadership and people, but are there also times where you're like, this is just not the right fit? Or do you think you can apply this to anybody anywhere?
- [106:57]
B
Well, I'm an optimist to a fault. And yeah, in the last 18 months, we've had one client that we came this far, this close to saying no to. And we ultimately said yes in part because part of our contract with them involved individual coaches for their senior leaders. And the reason we almost said no is one of the owners doesn't want to do what we're doing. One of the owners. But we put a really good coach with that owner. Now, time will tell. Maybe we shouldn't have taken the job. But. But we believe we can have enough influence because it's not. We're just gonna do a keynote or we're gonna do a training day. This is a multi year with their entire leadership. Like, they basically have outsourced leadership development to us. And we're working with leaders at all levels and it's a big deal. But the sticking point was you really can't have an owner that doesn't support leadership development openly and publicly when you're trying to launch this massive leadership development thing.
- [108:20]
A
It is a challenge.
- [108:21]
B
Yeah, it's a challenge. But we think we've got sufficient influence because he agreed to have a coach.
- [108:27]
A
Yeah, that's. That is something we're going to see.
- [108:31]
B
And we get to the end of the year's contract, we'll decide with them. Like, is this working? Are we getting traction? Should we do this again? But I think you do need to be selective. But a combination of my optimism and the power of the content. I've never to this moment met an organization we couldn't help. And that includes all the Chick Fil A restaurants I work. Haven't met one yet.
- [108:58]
A
But when you encounter a stick in the mud, how do you approach that? Somebody that is just not maybe very jaded or just not willing to come along. What approach do you take?
- [109:10]
B
Well, I think it depends on their role and who they are. I actually had a situation on one of my leadership teams in my career where someone didn't want to be on the leadership team because they were an individual contributor. Now they led a team, but they just didn't want to be part of a team. They were not what you would call a team player. And they were pretty vocal about that. Yeah, took them off the leadership team. Now they still Maintained a job because as an individual contributor, they were still adding some value, but they couldn't sit around the leadership table and talk every week about not wanting to be on the leadership team. So, I mean, that might be an extreme example and an extreme response. But I think you fundamentally try to meet people where they are. And I will say this, people only change for one of three reasons. Vision, which we've talked about at some depth. Pain or fear of future consequences. And you can use all three of those levers, even using them in combination, but you want somebody to change. I don't think you've got a whole big bunch of options at your disposal. Vision, pain, or fear of future consequences.
- [110:25]
A
Okay, has. I know Chick Fil A is very well known for its. I don't even know how to. I don't even know what category this is. Just like religious beliefs, has that played a role in the leadership development? There's probably underlying themes to all this.
- [110:51]
B
Well, uncommon leadership is closely aligned and akin to what some would call servant leadership.
- [111:03]
A
Sure.
- [111:05]
B
So I think in that regard, there's a thread between the leadership that you see in the first century in the New Testament of the Bible and the. And the modern practices, but it's still about helping unleash the greatness in others. So I think that influence is certainly there.
- [111:30]
A
Yeah, you can consider the New Testament a lot of things, but I mean, it's a book on leadership. You could argue it's the best leadership book ever written. If people want to learn more about what you do, where can they go?
- [111:52]
B
They can go to lead everyday.com or they can call me. My sale is 678-612-8441.
- [112:04]
A
Do you tell people that when you speak, how many people actually call you?
- [112:10]
B
Not a huge number. Have you heard of the guy named Ryan Hawk?
- [112:16]
A
Vaguely.
- [112:17]
B
He does a leadership podcast. I don't even know what his distribution is, but I had about 300 texts after that.
- [112:24]
A
Oh, really?
- [112:24]
B
From his.
- [112:25]
A
Oh, wow. Wow, that's extraordinary. Okay, so people do take you up on it. Yeah. There was a guy, Joe Schoen. He was U Haul.
- [112:35]
B
Okay.
- [112:36]
A
So he built U Haul and still runs it. And he's famous for giving out his phone number. Like, if you have a problem with your truck, you can quite literally call this guy. He's CEO of the company, billionaire, whatever he is. And he'll get back to you. Cause I tried it in college. I was like, this is great. Lead everyday.com, you're all over the place. And then what were the books you referenced again?
- [112:57]
B
Well, I probably referenced several. Let me do one more thing. My personal email is Markead Everyday. So if somebody wants to send me a message directly, they can do that. I talked about Uncommon Greatness, which is the one that we released last year. We talked about Smart Leadership, which is about how to get out of the quicksand. And I think we also talked about Talent Magnet, which is about how you attract and keep the best people. So those, I think the three that we talked about today.
- [113:26]
A
Excellent. Well, Mark, I appreciate you coming over here and sitting down for a little bit.
- [113:32]
B
Thanks for the opportunity.
- [113:33]
A
Sure. Right on.