Lessons - Master Skills Through Action | David Novak - Former CEO of Yum! Brands, Podcaster & Best-Selling Author

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counts you learn by doing the things that are going to make the biggest difference so first of all I think the question that comes with that is how do you figure out what's going to move the needle the most on that urgent important on that eyes and how are matrix whatever because it's sometimes I think people do a lot of the work that maybe it's a busy work but not the most urgent important work so how do you identify that and then how does it help you learn well I think you got to really understand what really drives your business came you know I I ride about my time with Tony shoe from from door dash and this guy delivered hummus okay he knows the delivery process better than anybody in the in the business and so he he learns by doing the hard things because he knows in his business it's all about execution you know you know how does door dash you know deliver what it needs to deliver on time and with excellence so this guy he goes out every month down and he actually gets does delivery okay and he has people do delivery he does the hard stuff so that's like that's not that sexy but that's how you really drive that business it's just real hardcore execution you know I talked to Erie Levine okay who created ways okay and he learned he learned that the biggest problem that he he learned by really understanding the problems of his customers that are having and they get stuck in traffic so how do they get out of traffic and he solved that problem build the hell the business okay because he learned by you know understanding his customers and understanding what the big problems are and he wrote a great book called fall in love with the problem not the solution you know at which I love you guys a brilliant brilliant guy you know you learn by preparing okay Brian Roberts who runs Comcast this guy is a serial learner okay and one of the things that he does he talks about hanging around the rim okay just getting out there talking to people finding out what's going on hanging on the around the rim and sooner or later that ball is going to bounce your way okay but he's preparing to take action he's preparing to get the rebound and do the slam dunk okay I don't know what it's going to be but if you look at his track record you know you bought university studios you bought AT&T broadband on it is guy he knows how to play around the rim and then execute when he gets gets gets the chance so you know learning by one another one that I love on learning by is is learning by rec learn by recognizing on purpose this is really powerful for everybody out there recognition is so needed in the workplace today but if you're going to recognize somebody and you're going to recognize people on your team recognize on purpose what are the things that are going to drive performance on your team is it meeting deadlines is it coming up with breakthrough ideas is it collaboration I don't know what those things are but find out what those things are that are going to drive performance on your team and then recognize the heck out of them because that's what people will do people will do with they see getting recognition you'll get more and more of it and that's how you really build a powerful culture with your team or with your business or or whatever your work unit might be what are do you think companies miss the mark because I love that recognize on purpose so do you think companies miss the mark on this they're recognizing things that are actually not moving the needle are they recognizing non-behaviors is this sort of like uh oh that is the like said no you're good is it something along the lines of um you're focusing on like hours and seats versus like the output or the revenue or the whatever leading indicator you want to you want to manage yeah that that's that that happens all the time you know it's like it's what I talked about earlier you know people focus on the profits but they don't think about how you get there yeah when you recognize on purpose you think about the behaviors that you know will drive the performance that will ultimately get you the the profits and a lot of times people are so bottom line oriented that they don't really take the time to the think about oh okay I'm going to have to have much more collaboration to get this done well I'm going to have to have a lot bigger ideas to get this done and then you know how do the how do you recognize those things so that that that that that it enables it and facilitates it in your organization do you feel like that's a problem that starts to manifest in a company after a certain size like like post IPO when you have shareholders to answer to because I think that to get off the ground a startup has to focus on the things that move the needle but then there's this mysterious point what's the what's the size of the company when for some reason you focus on all these other metrics that are actually not moving the needle because you've worked in like the the range of companies I mean you've worked in the largest companies that exist on planet earth really I'm curious when companies lose themselves I think customer I mean companies lose themselves when they lose sight of who they're serving when they lose sight of their customers and they get so internally driven and so full of themselves that they stop listing and responding to their customers and that also happens with their people because there's an arrogance of it we do it this way that's usually when you derail you know I've gone in and I've turned around businesses with with teams before and it's always almost a bat to the basics programs and it's just people lose sight of the of the basics and you have to figure out what those basics are in every business put process and discipline around them and and and I guarantee you more times than not that'll be the key to the the turning around a business you know I I'm reading this book right now on Elon Musk which is you know I'm really enjoying this he's not the kind of leader that I would necessarily want to work for or he's not the kind of leader that has my my style but you know what he has his own style but the one thing that he always keeps running center is what's his mission you know it's like I'm gonna make a world a better place and by the things that I do and then he thinks so boldly and so incredible about those things okay that he didn't you that that he is mission drives him okay and you know but his mission is very external okay it's not oh we're going to be the the largest electrical power cop you know yeah no we're gonna we're gonna make the the planet you know green now it is guy making huge and so but he's got a noble cause to what he what what he does any stays true to it I think that's a really important thing for every company is to have something that's bigger than just making a buck a huge shout out to federated computer for supporting today's episode let me explain why I love federated computer why they are 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team grows you can use federated computer savings to grow your business rather than feed the woke silicon valley software companies the federated computer team literally invented cloud software they actually have the patents to prove it and they are taking a hammer to the ridiculously high prices of business software that all entrepreneurs are suffering from federated computer they've been a long time supportive success story they're offering 30% off they're already low prices when you use a coupon code freelance so go to www.federated.computer to begin saving 75% or more on your monthly software costs that's www.federated.computer these folks are going to do you a big favor check them out for for for yum was that because you mentioned a few times how culture was one of the most important drivers of success at yum and I think that's culture is a big word it in comes is quite a bit but I mean if I look at your tenure you grew yum for four billion to 32 billion so you did something right just a couple things right just a few things right so when you do when you have numbers like that what's the thing outside of money that enabled you to do that because there's another goal there there's another thing that you unlocked and the people that worked for you you know that the minute I became the CEO I said we were going to create the young dynasty we were going to get consistent performance year after year after year okay and I went out and I learned from the top performing companies at that time what they did and they were five dynasty drivers and that's what I built the whole company around you know one creating a culture where everyone counts competitive brand differentiation process and in both people and and and and work processes you know a beat year ago mentality competitive differentiation and everything you do these were the five things at all the great companies did when I talked them and the number one thing they did that they talked about more than anything else was creating a culture where everyone counts so that I made that what my number one thing that I focused on as a CEO is to really create that culture and because I think that was the real driver but then Scott we became very successful and we became even bigger we were getting that dynasty like performance year after year we were nailing it so then I said we're going to be the defining global company that feeds the world that was huge I said that is huge we want people coming to to visit us okay to see how we did it and how are we going to do it create a recognition culture where we're renowned recognition culture where everyone counts drive build vibrant dynamic brands everywhere we do business and then help people who can't afford our food get fed and so our corporate social responsibility effort was with the world food program okay and you know I just motivated the hell out of our people but you want to be a part of something big you know nobody wakes up Scott nobody wakes up every day wanting to be a part of something mediocre people wake up want to be a part of something great and I think a lot of the things that you know you got all these leaders are listening to this you know create get your team excited about doing something great not just doing the job or the task how do you do it in a way that's going to change change your business or change the world or whatever but but recognize that people do not want to come to work and be a part of something mediocre and then you get everybody involved in doing what they can do in their piece of the company so that you can have ultimate success and so everyone knows that their job counts whether they're a janitor or the industry of the system or a senior VP everybody needs to know that their job counts thanks for tuning in if you found this valuable don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode and if you want to dive deeper into this conversation check out the links in the description to 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