What’s the Big Idea?
To go further, think bigger and then motivate your team to help you get there, says the CEO of Yum! Brands.
Greg Ruffing
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E-mailDavid C. Novak, chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands Inc. (NYSE: YUM), says he’s so passionate about changing the way leaders view their roles within their corporation, nonprofit or other organization that he’s written a book, Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen. He talked with NYSE magazine about the art of good leadership.
READ AN EXCERPT FROM NOVAK’S BOOK
Taking People With You
1. Know your people as marketers know their target audience. Nothing gets done by itself, so you need to understand employee perceptions, habits and beliefs before you can change, build or reinforce them. To know what your staff is thinking, ask questions. My favorites are: What’s working? What’s not? What would you do if you were me? By understanding what your people are thinking, you will be better prepared to develop a plan that motivates your team to work with you.
2. Make your corporate culture a “big idea.” We have fun at our company. We identified six behaviors that drive how we win together: Be customer maniacs; believe in all people; recognize achievement; create “take-the-hill” teamwork; go for breakthrough results; and be know-how junkies. When anything good happens, I talk about it as “Sally took the hill,” or “Jonathan was a know-how junkie.” Having fun and recognizing people are very energizing for an organization.
3. Understand that “no involvement” means “no commitment.” To get my team involved, we put everything on the table. When the economy weakened, Pizza Hut was struggling because customers perceived it as a “premium” brand and felt they got better value elsewhere. Scott Bergren, CEO of Pizza Hut, shared this information with our franchisees, one of whom came up with the idea of “$10 Pizza Any Way You Want It.” That has become an incredibly successful promotion that has cascaded across the country.
Courtesy Yum! Brands
4. Try to shock the system. I use powerful word pictures. For example, we don’t say that we’re customer-focused; we say we’re customer maniacs. I don’t have corporate artwork in my office; I have pictures of all the people I’ve ever recognized for outstanding achievement on my walls — even on the ceiling.
5. Use recognition to drive performance. We have a roving recognition band that travels the office to acknowledge achievements. It even marched into a board meeting this year. It’s a shock to the system that moves the organization from being boring to being exciting and fun. And I don’t give out pens or plaques. When I was at KFC, I gave rubber chickens. When I moved over to Pizza Hut, it was cheese heads. Now I give out “Walk the Talk” teeth. People display them proudly.
6. Wipe out the “not-invented-here” mindset. Many leaders are too quick to toss out ideas because they came from someplace else. You can dramatically expand your IQ points by going to every source you can possibly find for know-how. Go to your competition. Go to other leaders. Then apply “pattern thinking.” If someone is doing this in one industry, ask yourself, “How can I do it in mine?” For example, Apple uses “Addition Through Subtraction,” which means simplifying everything. Our team at Taco Bell applied that concept to its menu and cut the number of options available. That made it easier for our customers to order and improved our speed of service.
