How to Grow as a Leader: 44 Years at Chick-fil-A - Mark Miller

0:01How does a 19-year-old who was doing so badly at his Chick-fil-A restaurant job that he quit before they could fire him walk into that same company's corporate headquarters just weeks later, ask for a job, get an impromptu interview with the founder and CEO, and then get hired? it. He didn't even know anyone there. It wasn't talent that got him that job or any job after it, but what he had was a habit of showing up, staying late, and doing whatever was asked of him. And that habit turned a warehouse job into building Chick-fil-A's first corporate communication department, and then into leading their leadership development work, and then into co-writing a book that sold over a million and a half copies and is still selling 25 years later.

0:50He didn't have the resume, but he had the courage to take big swings and the discipline to make it happen. This story shows you what it looks like to bet on yourself and win. This is Mark Miller's story. Welcome to Big Swings Only.

1:08This episode is brought to you by Granola and Quint. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just head to granola.ai slash Kwame. That's granola.ai slash Kwame to get your time back. Three months free at granola.ai slash Kwame. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, let them know it was me, that's the best way to support the show.

1:44Well, about a hundred years ago, I was working in the swimming pool business as a teenager and I got laid off in the fall, my first season. And I realized that happens in Georgia. Like there aren't a lot of pools built in the winter in Georgia. So I went and got a job at a local Chick-fil-A restaurant. And my brother was a team leader there. So I felt like I could get in the door and, and I did. And the weather warmed up and I went back to, uh, the pool business and, and then I got laid off again. And I said, there's, there's a pattern emerging here. Um, so I go back to the Chick-fil-A restaurant as I recall these details, but, but I still was not good in the restaurant and I just wasn't good with my hands and I was a little bit slow, still not good with my hands all these decades later.

2:43And I felt like I was going to be fired any day, like every day. I thought it was going to be my last day. And so I made what I call a strategic career decision. And I'm quick to point out, I may have said this on your last show. I don't consider this advice to anyone, but I quit. And I felt like it would be better to quit than to have to explain the rest of my life why I got fired from Chick-fil-A. And I thought, I need a job. So I went out and I got a job and got laid off. And it's like, what's going on here? I mean, I'm a young guy, but I just seem like I can't get my footing here. And so I went to the corporate headquarters of Chick-fil-A.

3:27I thought, I can't work in the restaurant, but maybe I can work at the corporate headquarters, which of course makes no sense in any universe. I just chalk it up to the mind of a child. Again, this was a long, long time ago. And I walked in and I told the receptionist that I want a job working in their warehouse because I knew they had a warehouse. And just a few minutes later, Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-fil-A, the guy who invented the chicken sandwich, actually came out, introduced himself and took me into his office to conduct the interview, which, again, some of your listeners are thinking, well, that doesn't make any sense.

4:02Well, it didn't make any sense to me as a kid. I'm thinking, what in the world is the CEO doing interviewing a kid to work in the warehouse? Well, I got a little bit of clarity on that. Not that day, but later I learned he only had 15 corporate employees at that point. And so when your organization is that size, it makes a lot of sense for the head man or the head woman to be conducting those types of interviews. And as I look back on it, again, a long, long time ago, but my recollection is it was a combination of God's grace and lack of discernment on Truett's part, that he gave me that job working in the warehouse.

4:41And I also got to work in the mailroom because there weren't but 16 of us, right? So the first day they said, okay, you're also going to work the mailroom. And I'm going, cool, where's the mailroom? I'll do whatever you want me to do. And that was now, goodness, That was in 1978. And so I went on to work for about 44 more years on the corporate staff before I took an early retirement three years ago. So lots happened over those 48 years. But that's how I started working in the warehouse in the mailroom because I couldn't work in the restaurant. So good. See, this is why I love having you on the show, Mark.

5:25Your story and storytelling, epic, epic. This is fantastic. So a couple of things I want to make sure that we pull out for the audience here in this story. And it's first of all, you are a very humble man. I want to credit you for that, especially considering everything that you've accomplished. But one of the things that people run into a lot of times when they are trying to do something big or create a new change. They look in the mirror and they say, well, I haven't accomplished anything. Who am I to be able to do something like this? Whatever the task in front of them happens to be. But what your story shows is that you can still do incredible things if you have the courage to put yourself in a position to do incredible things.

6:05Because you had the faith in yourself and a little bit of audacity to walk into the corporate office and say, hey, listen, here I am. this is what I got for you. Let's see if we can make it happen. But if you didn't have that boldness, you wouldn't be where you are today. So can you go deeper into your psyche and walk us through what was going through your mind as you made that decision and what gave you the courage to do it? Well, yeah, I appreciate the way you framed that. Maybe there was some courage there. Maybe it was youthful exuberance. Maybe it was who knows what we could call it. Even Truett asked me, I remember not much about that interview.

6:47It was pretty brief, but one of the things he asked me is why do you want to work in the warehouse? And I said, well, I don't have any skills. I said, I can't ask for a job in marketing or human resources, but I know I can pack boxes. So I think from the very beginning, and maybe even to this day, I'm pretty straightforward. bored. And I wasn't going to try to blow smoke. I mean, I'm a kid who couldn't even make it in one of his restaurants. So, I mean, I'm asking for a job I believe I can do. And I think we have to be honest with ourselves. And that's not to say we shouldn't have a spirit of optimism and belief in ourself.

7:27But again, I wasn't trying to sell the man a bill of goods. I wanted and needed a job. and I asked for one that I believe I could do. Now, I didn't think I would necessarily be in that role forever, but I was looking for a job. And so I think sometimes we have to be honest with ourselves. Again, I might have loved to work in marketing or human resources 50 years ago, but I wasn't qualified. So let's ask for something that I actually felt like I could do. Brilliant. Now, one story that I may have told the last time I was with you, but people have often asked me, well, how did you move from the warehouse to your next role?

8:15And it was a crazy story. And maybe there's something in here for your listeners. They'll have to be the judge of that. But as I said, I'm working in the warehouse. and I got a call from the vice president of everything. I mean, I guess I'm not sure what his title was, but he was Truett's son, who 30, 40 years later became the CEO. And he asked me if I could help him with a project. And obviously I knew who he was. Again, it's just a handful of us working there. And he was my boss's boss's boss, right? Even with 15 people, I knew who he was. and I said, well, you're going to have to help me because I was brand new.

8:57I had been on staff 30 days and I said, I think I need to do my job. Meaning, you know, back in the day, we would ship replacement parts. So if a piece of equipment went down to one of the restaurants, they called us and we shipped them a replacement part so they could get that equipment running again. It was one of the fundamental things that we did. And I had a stack of these requests to send out parts to restaurants that needed them. And so I said to him, I said, well, you help me sort through this. I think I need to do this. And he said, well, you're right. He said, what are you doing tonight?

9:34And I went, well, I'm going to school. And he said, well, what time do you get out of class? And I said, 10 o 'clock. And he said, can you meet me back here at 1030? And I said, sure. sure and so for a month i came back i was doing as i recall i was doing 20 hours a quarter it's back when we had the quarter system so i was in school four nights a week till 10 o 'clock and i was coming back to help him with a project that and then the next morning i'm back in the warehouse packing boxes and i did that for a month and people said well why'd you do that i said well Well, he needed my help and I was just willing to help.

10:23And so I think early on, again, you'd have to ask him, but my interpretation is he picked up on the fact that I was willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done. And in fact, that is what led to my first move outside of the warehouse. I actually had the opportunity to start what became our corporate communications group at Chick-fil-A. um so which was kind of cool I don't think it had anything to do with my talent it was a you know I'm willing to do whatever it takes and it was let the kid do it let the kid do it I mean I did that for many years in my career when I was still a kid somebody needed something I'll do that I'll try that I'll make that happen and so um I've had some young people that look at me kind of funny It's like, well, why would you go back to work after you worked all day and went to school?

11:18I said, well, because they needed my help on a project. And I'm not sure that everybody looks at that as an opportunity. But I said, hey, it's a chance to add some value. So I'm going to go back after I get out of school to help with this project. It's fun to dig into the philosophy of Mark, the philosophy of success, according to Mark here. because this is great because I'm seeing some consistency here. Because one of the things that when I think about humility and being humble, a lot of times it comes to people misinterpreted as understating the value that you provide. But I think about humility more so through the lens of accuracy.

11:58We don't know everything. Let's be clear about what we do know and what we don't know. I can't do everything, but let me be clear about what I can do and what I can't do. And so you can be very confident in being able to, in saying that you can do something. Like Like at the beginning, you said, I know I might not be great in the restaurant, but I can pack boxes. If you need a guy to pack boxes, I can do that. And you weren't saying that with arrogance or pride. It's just an accurate assessment of what your capability is. So now bringing it to this, the thing that's really tough about some folks where they have a lot of value to give, it doesn't always align with a perfect metric that could be seen within an educational system or a corporate system.

12:38But you said, hey, my value is in the fact that I'm going to be a straight shooter and I will do what it takes to get the job done. And if extra work is required, I can do that, too. I'm a team player. And so that's something that doesn't really show up effectively on a stat sheet. But when an opportunity comes up, they know exactly who to call because you've been demonstrating that core competency over and over and over again, which allows that to trust you. Well, you mentioned the stat sheet. I have long said I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm going to leave it all on the court.

13:07You know, you talk about hustle for your listeners that pay attention to sports. Sometimes it's the men and women who demonstrate the most hustle, the most tenacity, the most heart. They might not be the lead scorer. They might not be the MVP, but they made a contribution. And I just decided early I'm never going to fall short on the hustle side. Yes, because that's a choice. That's a choice. Exactly. Yes. Exactly. Now, that leads to one other choice. And I actually believe it was probably the defining moment in my career. And it happened very shortly after I moved out of the warehouse. And so I've started now corporate communications.

14:03and now my boss is the guy who I had helped with the special projects and he came into my office and I remember parts of this quite vividly because one I'd never really had a boss in a corporate setting much less one that would come in my office and so as I recall I stood up and I think he could sense the tension and he said hey calm down no like sit down you know this you're not in trouble and I was like I guess I communicated a lot with the look on my face when my boss walked into my office I didn't know and he said um I just wanted to stop by and explain to you how life works and I remember saying I said okay say that again he said I want to explain to you how life works and I said do you know how life works I mean I'm 19 years old right It's like my first job.

15:00I'm wearing a tie now. It's like back in the day we wore ties. And he said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know how it works. I'm going to explain it to you. And I said, okay, I want to hear this. He said, if you want more influence, you want more opportunity, and you want more impact, there's only one path. And I said, okay, slow down. Say all that again. because I'm realizing he's laying something on me here. If you want more influence, you want more opportunity, and you want more impact, there's only one path. And I said, well, what's that? And he said, lifelong learning. He said, if you look at the men and women who make contributions throughout their entire life, their entire career, they all have one thing in common.

16:00They're learners. And I have since described and kind of synthesized that conversation into something that I say often, particularly to younger leaders. It's your capacity to grow determines your capacity to lead. and and that that moment that day i thought huh i mean i remember this vividly and this is a long time ago i said i want more influence i want more opportunity and i want more impact so sign me up now my parents wish that he had had that conversation with me several years earlier because I was a lousy student. But that day I said, I'm going to commit to lifelong learning and I'm still on that journey.

16:50And, you know, I'd rather listen to the radio than a podcast or an audio book or, you know, whatever. But I made a decision, a strategic choice that I think has changed the trajectory of my life and my family and my children and my grandchildren. And somebody challenged me one day. They said, well, that's probably easy for you. And I said, which part? And it was in a group setting. I love, you know, debate and conversations and hard questions, but I thought this was kind of interesting. And I said, okay, which part of that story are you referencing? And they said, oh, the learning part. They said, I bet that's easy for you.

17:34And I said, well, why would you say that? And they said, I bet you're a learner. Now, for your audience that may not be familiar with StrengthsFinders, the Gallup tool that basically, I think there are 34 different strengths. And if you take this test, they'll tell you what you're good at. And one of those 34 is learner. And I said, well, that's interesting. I said, you're probably referring to Gallup. And they said they were. I said, learner's not in my top five. I said, learner's not in my top 10. I said, I don't think learner is in my top 25. And they said, well, that's odd. I said, well, which part's odd?

18:15They said, well, you act like a learner. I said, did you not hear my story? I made a choice. I made a decision to be a learner. It's like, it may not be my natural bent, but it's a choice that I made almost 50 years ago, and I'm still living it out today because I actually believe it is the path to greater influence, greater opportunity, and greater impact. And I share that for people who aren't naturally inclined to be learners. I feel you. I got it. But again, you can choose to put on a podcast or listen to an audio book instead of listening to the radio or whatever. You can choose to go to a conference.

19:03You can choose to have a mentor. You can choose to build an annual development plan, which I've had done for decades. And by the way, I'm doing that in light of a 30 year plan that I just updated. And somebody said, well, you're probably not going to be around in 30 years. I said, yeah, but I'm going to live like I am. I'm going to live like I'm going to be here. And I want to live with purpose and intentionality. And the cornerstone of all of that is I've got to keep learning. And that's a choice. That's the key word. Nike says, just do it. But I like to say, just become it. And think about that.

19:44You said, okay, the best leaders are lifelong learners. Okay. So it's not a description of an activity. It's a description of an identity. And so once you have a clear picture on what that identity is, then the proper behaviors will flow organically from that identity, right? And so you said, that's who I need to become. That's who I will become. And a lot of folks stay in this process of overthinking, almost like they're trying to convince themselves to become something, but it comes down to that key word, this is all a choice and you can choose to be that. And the key thing about it too, is that we can often get into this pattern of performative learning to, where we listen to a podcast, we go to a conference, we hear great speakers, we read a book, and then we say, you know what I need to do again?

20:32I need to read another book, listen to another podcast, instead of actually becoming what they need to become and doing what they need to do. Yeah. And let me affirm that for those out there who feel that, I can get in that trap as well, because as important as learning is, learning is not the goal. And I think we have to, It's to enable contribution. It's to enable value creation. It's to enable us to serve others more effectively. So I understand that tension. And I had a mentor years ago who challenged me on that very point. And he said this, and I can't say that I live to this standard, but I think about it often and it does influence my thinking.

21:19He said, if you have an hour to read, he said, you should only read for 30 minutes. He said, the other 30 minutes, you should be trying to figure out how you're going to apply what you just read. Because it is ultimately about application. Now, I will quickly say some of it may not be immediately applicable. One of my favorite topics is creativity and creative thinking. It's another topic for another day. But we create out of those things that we have consumed, those experiences we've had, those conversations, that knowledge we've acquired. It's like paint on a palette. You can't paint with stuff that's still in the tube, right?

22:03You got to get it on the palette. And you may not need it in the moment, but you have it at your disposal. So I'm not saying that there's no value if you learn something that you can't immediately apply. but it's just been helpful for me over the years to have an application bias. Yes. To have an application bias. Go deeper into that because there's a lot of richness within even that term, like the phrase application bias. So what do you really mean by that? Have you ever walked out of a meeting feeling really good about it and then 10 minutes later someone's messaging you saying something like, wait, what did we actually decide in that meeting?

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25:20in the context of leadership specifically, leadership requires action. Now, it requires thought and it requires insight and wisdom and discernment, but you actually have to do stuff. And so if I learn about performance management and I don't have those conversations with my team members, I'm actually not leading and I may be quite knowledgeable. So it's like, well, what are you doing with what you know? because the real learning in most cases comes through application. It's when you try to apply the keys to delegation and you go, oh, this isn't quite as straightforward as those three bullet points that I just committed to memory.

26:08I'm dealing with another human being and there's nuance and there's interpretation and there's resistance. And so I had a conversation. I've had many conversations over the years with a lot of cool people. It's been one of the privileges of my role. And I was actually talking to Stephen Covey one time about the best way to teach leadership. And I know he did not originate this idea, but I was interested in his response. He said, give people real opportunities to lead. He said, that's the best way to learn leadership. And of course, that GE, Jack Welch, and they kind of popularize that, give people real opportunities to lead.

26:50That doesn't mean they don't need knowledge, but it's when the knowledge becomes real is when you actually try to apply it. And I might suggest that's where a whole lot of learning takes place. Yes, I agree 100%. And the way I often think about it, it's the distinction between being smart and wise. Smart is often just a metric of how much information you can consume and then regurgitate. But wisdom is the application of said information in appropriate ways. And the thing is, it's until you get the opportunity to get your hands dirty and actually put into practice that which you have learned, that's when it turns into wisdom and gets consolidated into something meaningful for your life.

27:33And so I love that idea of being biased toward action. Not what do I need to think about, but what do I need to do and actually make that a central part of your identity too. Yeah. And so let's go back just to connect one more dot. And I'm not sure if you want to talk about any of this today, but, but so I've talked about a 45 year career and everything we've talked about thus far happened in the first six months, right? The warehouse, the warehouse and the decision to become a lifelong learner, that was probably in the first 90 days. I mean, it was early. It was early. But I see it as a defining moment because once an individual makes that decision and makes good on that decision.

28:26I think the organization felt at liberty to give me projects, assignments, roles, and responsibilities that I was not prepared for because they said, he's demonstrated at least two things that count. One, he's willing to do the hard work and put in the hours and that's a good thing, particularly if he's going to be in an unknown space. And he's a learner. So the organization, again, my interpretation on the receiving end gave me several roles, including starting several. I mean, I started corporate communications. I already mentioned that when I was just a kid. But then I started several other departments and functions and disciplines and took over responsibilities that, again, you wouldn't look at my resume and think there's any way you'd give this guy that opportunity or that opportunity unless you say, oh, he's willing to do what it takes and he's a lifelong learner, which gives confidence to the organization.

29:36He'll figure these things out. And so I spent my career figuring stuff out. And you did it well. And this gives us an opportunity to talk about the leadership capacity that you built out within Chick-fil-A. Because Chick-fil-A is the, there are very few companies that are utilized as a case study positively as frequently as Chick-fil-A is. Because they are, they have incredibly high standards. They operate at high degrees of efficiency in so many ways. but you were able to level them up as it relates to leadership and thought leadership within the organization in a way that they hadn't been before, that wasn't even on their radar.

30:17So can you talk the listeners through that process, what that vision was and what it took to bring it into life? Sure. And it wasn't initially my vision. So it goes back to this kind of subtext that we're talking about here, the subplot. This was about 30 years ago or so. And I don't want to project, but I would make a bet that some of your listeners have been in this situation where they have problems to solve or opportunities to seize. Well, what do you typically do when you have problems to solve or opportunities to seize. In my experience, you give those to leaders. You tell the leader, solve this problem or seize this opportunity.

31:04Well, about 30 years ago, we had problems to solve and opportunities to seize, and we looked at our leadership bench, looked over our shoulder, and we said, uh-oh, uh-oh. We had some departments that didn't have any bench. We had some teams that had no bench. We had other departments where they said, I think this person can lead in the future. I believe this person will be able to lead in a few years. Well, what do you do, right? You either live with the problem, miss the opportunity, or you give those to existing leaders. Well, that's what most folks do. That's what we did. But with full credit to our executive committee, they knew that was a dead end street.

31:49You can't just keep piling stuff on your existing leaders. It doesn't work. It creates this momentary illusion of success. And then six months or a year, two years later, you burned out and destroyed all your leaders. And it just does not work. And so our executive committee knew that. And once again, let the kid do it. And I I wasn't a kid 30 years ago, but I was still earlier in my career. And I had the track record we had already talked about. He's willing to do what it takes, and he's a learner. And they said, figure this out. Figure out how do we accelerate leadership development. That was the charge in, I don't know, 1998-ish.

32:33That was the charge. How do we accelerate leadership development? and I did what you and others listening might do given a similar charge. I put together a team of really talented people. That's kind of been my MO. The other part of my philosophy is I want to surround myself with the brightest and best no matter what I'm working on. And typically, that's a combination of internal and external talent. I love working with consultants as long as they're good ones. I love bringing them in. That's another story as well. But so we started trying to figure out how to accelerate leadership development.

33:12And that we got some early traction from the work we did. And in fact, it led to the first book I ever published. I'll give you the short version of that story. We worked for a couple of years. We didn't know jack about leadership development. Our process prior to that point had been immersion and osmosis. And you just hope and trust that leaders would emerge. And I would quickly say at a certain scope, scale, and volume, that can actually work. That's what worked at Chick-fil-A in those early days. But you get to a point, you know, I had the privilege as one of those 16 employees to sit around the lunch table with some world-class leaders.

33:59Oh, by the way, I'm the one that went and got lunch, right? Because I was the guy in the warehouse. I went and picked up lunch, but I got to eat with them. And I'm sitting around the table with Truett Cathy, our founder and CEO, Jimmy Collins, our president, the head of finance, the CFO. I mean, because those were the men and women who we had on the team at that point. And again, in that context, with that level of exposure, again, because I'd committed to learning. You can pay attention. You can take good notes. And again, you can grow leaders like that to a point. But as we got to, again, approaching the year 2000, we didn't have enough leaders.

34:41And I believe, and I think there's a lot of evidence to support this, that the organization is not going to outgrow its leadership. It's just not going to happen. John Maxwell, who some of your audience will recognize that name, he says the leader is the lid. And I would even say leadership is the lid. Now, I've since adopted the philosophy that there's something that every organization needs more than leadership, which is staggering for some people that know me. I said, yeah, they need a leadership culture, which is a place where you are routinely and systematically developing leaders and you have a surplus.

35:23And the surplus lets you know that it's actually working and it provides the resource, the leaders, when you have problems to solve and opportunities to seize. You never want to let your growth be limited by the the leaders that you have to deploy. I was with a Fortune 10, I guess, company and talking to their head of training. I was in the room with them and they said they had to deliver the message to their board that they had to curtail or cut back on their growth plans for the upcoming year because they had not been able to raise up enough leaders. I mean, this is today probably close to a trillion dollar company.

36:09And I'm thinking, man, I don't want to be the guy delivering that message. We don't have enough leaders to run the play we've called. And so we went together as a team and said, how do we accelerate leadership development? And I said, it led to our first book. We didn't know anything about leadership development. We worked hard for longer than you might think, but it was a side hustle. We all had day jobs, but we worked a couple of years, global benchmarking, lots of interviews. We read a couple hundred books on leadership. I mean, we're literally trying to figure out how do you accelerate leadership development?

36:41We had no clue. And we finished our work and we had our key findings on a flip chart in five bullet points. And I'll never forget at this moment, because we're sitting there looking at it, and somebody said, what if that's not right? And I remember it sucked all the oxygen out of the room, because we didn't know if it was right. We sell chicken. I mean, what is this, right? and so we said okay how how do we build our confidence that this is in fact right and either either coincidence or divine appointment i was actually going to be with ken blanchard the next day and i said uh hey would you guys like me to run this by ken now Now, for your audience that may not know Ken, his most famous book, The One Minute Manager, has probably sold 15 million copies.

37:47But back in the day, he had three books on the bestseller list at one time. And he's today, I guess, sold more than probably 25, 30 million books worldwide. So he's not a household name like he used to be. But however many years ago, 25 years ago, he was the man in this space. And I was going to be with him the next day. And so the team said, well, that would be fantastic to get Ken's perspective. it. And so I took the five bullet points on a sheet of paper. I'm with Ken and I said, hey, Ken, we're trying to figure out how to accelerate leadership development. I'd like you to take a look at this and tell us if you think we got it right or did we miss anything?

38:31Do you actually think this might stand the test of time? And I handed it to him and the very first words out of his mouth were, this has got to be a book. Well, I blew him off. And I said, Ken, everything looks like a book to you, which is why he sold 25 million, 30 million books, right? I said, everything looks like a book. I said, you don't understand. We're just trying to accelerate leadership development. He said, you don't understand. I said, okay, what is it I don't understand? Because I know there's a lot I don't. And he said, you guys were trying to articulate what great leaders need to do at Chick-fil-A.

39:09He said, what you've done is you've articulated what great leaders have done throughout history. And it has to be a book. And just to fast forward, he persisted. And we wrote a book called The Secret, which we just released the fourth edition of that 20 years later because it's still selling. and it's in, gosh, how many? 34 languages now. And so we got early validation from Ken that in fact, our work was valid. He thought it would stand the test of time and none of us knew that a million and a half books later, it would still be peddling. So many good things to explore here. So many good things to explore.

40:00Sure. So if you start with very low knowledge in something and a very good question and you have the grit and tenacity to work hard enough to find that answer, then you, too, could sell one point five million books on that specific topic. Well, yeah, I mean, it's impressive. Impressive. Well, okay. I mean, okay, thanks. But we've now done, I don't know, 13, 14 books in 25 years. But we started with the same question. There is a question. What is universally true about this topic? Because see, we're trying to create stuff that's evergreen. We're not trying to create stuff that's trendy. That's why we're still, all the books are still in print.

40:52All the books are still in print. Why? Because they're evergreen. They're based on truth, universal truth, which also makes them transferable to other cultures and other languages and other societies and other generations. We did work on culture, and we ended up surveying leaders around the world on culture. We did another book on leadership. We surveyed leaders around the world. What is universally true here? And then we try to take whatever is true. And we say it's a translation process. We try to make it approachable and applicable. And so that's the recipe. And I'm working on a book right now on organizational change.

41:40We talked to over 4 ,000 people in, I want to say, six countries, seven countries, leaders and individual contributors trying to figure out what's true about successful organizational change and just as important, what's true about organizational change efforts that fail. And so that's the next project. And so we will then share that and it'll be true. If we do it right, it'll be true 25 years from now and it'll still be selling. It'll still be adding value to leaders. And so you're right. There is a question. What is universally true about high-performance teams or about engagement or about execution or pick your topic?

42:23That's why we've done all these different books, because these are real felt needs that leaders and organizations are wrestling with. And we ask that same question over and over and over again. Yes. And this is the key, right? Because what you've done here is you've systematically removed hurdles, mental self-limiting beliefs that folks have when it comes to taking their big swing. Because if there's something you don't know, there is a strategic work ethic that can be applied here. We're not just working for the sake of doing work. You're saying, well, what will it take for me to answer this question and be confident in the answer that I get?

43:01You did all of the interviews. You did all of the research. You did all the surveys. And then you use the resource of as asking Ken what he thought about it. And you got validated by somebody who knows the industry exceptionally well. And so what I'm saying is here you've created an approach where you've made it incredibly difficult to fail because of the foundation that you put together. Well, again, thank you. But you overstate that just a little bit. So let me let me tell you, we have had failures along the way and we didn't do this on every project. because of, there are probably a half dozen reasons, we haven't done this on every project, but on several of the most far-reaching and consequential projects, we would also do a pilot.

43:51Now, this may be beyond the reach of some of your listeners, but I had a laboratory of 3 ,000 restaurants. And so before we would share stuff with the world, we would share it with the chicken. And we would test these things. And I'll remember it's happened more than once. Goodness, it's a little bit painful, but it's not too soon. So I'll share the story. We do all the research. We extract the truth. I've mentioned this translation phase when we're trying to make what we've learned both approachable and actionable. Right. Make it applicable. And so we'll try something. We'll put it in 30 or 40 or 50 restaurants and we'll take them on a pilot journey that might go six months, 10 months, a year.

44:43And then we bring in the business analytics people to create a control group so we can compare and contrast the results of these groups versus the ones that were not part of the pilot. And we've had a couple of times when we did not see results. And so, okay, we've got to go back to the translation phase because we believe our truth is valid. Right. It is like that's true. But what we haven't done is found a way for people to internalize it, to understand it, to apply it. And so we've had several of these projects where we had to go back to the drawing board. I remember with one pilot group, one of our consultants who happens to be a Stanford professor, we had our last project, we had three Stanford professors on our research team, which was really cool.

45:46One was a co-founder of the D School. So we had some really high powered men and women working on many of our projects. But she called from the field. And again, you have those moments you don't forget, even if you want to. and she called and I said, cause she's out there after the pilot, we're doing field work now to follow up in these restaurants. And she called and she said, it didn't work. And I knew I asked a lot of follow-up questions, but like, like, okay, what didn't work? And she said, none of it. She said it didn't work. She said they didn't get it because we had brought them in for training.

46:28We'd spent a couple of days with these folks from all these restaurants. And she said, they can't tell us what we talked about. They can't tell us what to do with it. They can't tell us what we were trying to accomplish. It's like she said, it didn't work. It's like, okay. And so we had to go back as a team and go, all right, let's go. Do we believe our truth that we spent all this time, energy, and effort and money? And did we extract the right truth? There's a lot of truth, right? Did we identify the right, most relevant and salient points of truth? Let's go back through our process and say, we've got to find a better and yet different way to communicate.

47:12I'll give you one more example of that. We did some work, several years of work on how to build a high performance organization. Now, we weren't the first to think about this, but we couldn't find anything in the world that we could align with or that we thought was sufficient. And we did find a few things, and I forget whether it was Bain or McKenzie or somebody had a 16-point model for high performance, and it's like, no, we sell chicken. And so we can't use a 16-point model. And again, Chick-fil-A today has the operators have about 600 ,000 team members and 80 % of them are teenagers. Oh, and they have 100 % turnover.

47:54So we got to make this really simple, but not simplistic, right? You want to make it as simple as possible and go no further because at that point you lose. And so we had done this work on what's it take to build a high-performance organization. This, we'll have to have another conversation the other day. I think it's one of the more profound projects we've done over the last 25 years. We think all high-performance organizations have four things in common. I'm not going there. But the very first Chick-fil-A operator I shared it with, someone I highly respected, which is why I went to see her. Let me tell you what we've been doing.

48:33Let me just get an initial reaction from you. And she said, that is brilliant. and I'm feeling it. And she said, and I'm not going to use any of it. And I went, tell me more, tell me more. And she said, the language is totally inappropriate for my team. Totally. The concepts are valid. And she said, I can, and she had a background. She used to be a leader at FedEx before she came to Chick-fil-A. And so she had other experience in a successful business and said, I got it. That makes perfect sense. But that language is not going to work. So what we did, that moment of failure at that point, but we've done all the research.

49:21We think we've got the right tenants. So we brought in 15, as I recall, maybe 20, 15 to 20 of our best restaurant operators. And we shared all the content with them. And then we spent all day letting them figure out how do we best communicate this to your team. Because what we found is if you can explain it to a 17-year-old, then leaders all over the world will understand it. Language barriers won't matter. Levels in an organization, because a CEO can still understand it, but so can a frontline leader. If you can explain it. So everything, we're just, we spent our life trying to make everything as simple as possible without becoming simplistic.

50:07So we actually let the users, not the ultimate users, because that book's all over the world, but the Chick-fil-A users who were the first users, they actually came in and in the course of a day, we literally spent six hours with them. The only objective was let's improve the language for these four tenets. And that is the language that we ultimately wrote about and published and have shared all over the world. Brilliant. And it sounds like that particular hardship really led to the proper language choice, but also the broad distribution as well. And so it sounds like every time there is a hardship or an obstacle, you still approach it with that humble curiosity, asking the right question until you find the right answer.

50:56And then sometimes you get an answer that you don't like, but you never stop asking those questions. And that's the key, right? Because the work and the foundation you put in place, you might not always succeed in the precise way that you went out to succeed in, but you will always find a way to even turn those failures into something that helps you move forward. So failing forward. I get an obstacle, you can still work through it. And this is actually a great opportunity to bring in Simone now because I know he's been listening in and has something delightfully insightful to say. So Simone, what's on your mind?

51:34Well, Mark, I come from South America. I lived in Venezuela. I lived in Argentina. And my only experience in a big corporation was in Argentina. I haven't had an experience in a big corporation here in North America, but I had it back then, back in the day. So I had an experience that made me change the way I saw big corporations. because when I got the job, I went through the mission and vision of the enterprise. And it was great for me. I loved it. And then when I got into the enterprise, it was completely different. They took pride on being team workers. But then when I got into the enterprise, selfishness was there every day.

52:24And the leaders were selfish people. and uh i talked to a friend i remember talking to one of my teammates saying hey this is not what i was expecting because if if you read their website it is actually very different and and he told me what were you expecting brother life is like that what did you really you were expecting the um were you expecting that there was a match between what they said and how they act? And I said, yes, of course. He said, no, because that's not financially good. So they save their face. They try to sell an image, but then they do what brings them more money. So when I lived that experience, then I asked myself, okay, is it better to be like that?

53:21or what is the merit or what is the benefit of matching what you say you are as a leader with what you actually are? Yeah. So how long were you in that job? I was there for close to six months. Yeah, six months. Here's what we've learned is that when that disconnect exists, new people become an immediate flight risk. So we can probably list a lot of unintended consequences, but one that you actually lived out, it sounds like, is maybe you would have been there for six years or 16 years if there had been alignment. Because one of the things we talk about, and I would suggest that, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but here's my, synthesis of that is that you couldn't really trust those leaders.

54:28You had questions about their integrity. You had questions about their motivation. You had questions about their heart. And we say this often, if your heart is not right, no one cares about your skills. the leaders you're going to follow the leaders that you're going to give the discretionary effort the creativity the initiative the do whatever it takes those are men and women that you trust those are men and women who are at least attempting to walk the talk and so the the upside is you'll Most people will run through a wall for a leader they trust. And one of those key indicators, or I should say drivers of trust, is alignment between what you say and what you do.

55:21So, yeah, unfortunately, your story is not unique, but it presents a huge opportunity for leaders around the world to grow the fellowship and the engagement of the folks that are on their team. Yes. And, Simone, you said you didn't work for any massive North American conglomerates. This is the American Negotiation Institute big enough. You only got millions of employees. well here i'm happy i don't have a the boss of my boss of my boss of my boss i i have kwami who is my boss and and i've been here close to seven years now say there yeah you'll see whenever simone has a problem he goes straight to the top well let me let me also say this we we did some work several years ago trying to figure out what attracts top talent to an organization and you won't be surprised by this.

56:20They want to be well-led. Now, that does not mean that they won't. I mean, you think, well, doesn't everybody want to be well-led? Well, to a point. But your best players, if they're not well-led, they're at immediate flight risk. Your typical employee, if they're not well-led, They'll just complain about you around the dinner table. But they really, the top talent, it's like it's a condition of employment for your best players. Because your best players have options and they can work other places. So they also want a brighter future. They want a place where they're going to learn and grow. They come into the interviews with a different set of questions.

57:06What am I going to learn? How am I going to grow? How is this role or this job or this opportunity going to prepare me for a brighter future? And if you can do that in an organization, you're much more likely to not only attract, but to retain those people. And then the third and final thing that top talent wants, based on the research, is they want to be part of something bigger than themselves. They really do want to be part of a bigger vision. And so when you can put those things together, you actually can create a talent magnet that attracts and retains the very best people. So good. This is just a standard Mark Miller interview with all of my notes taken of all the pages.

57:52This is great. Well, before we go, important question. Let's see how good my research is. When taking photographs in the Galapagos, what is the biggest challenge? Well, the Galapagos was a wonderful place to take photographs. And we were with the Lindblad Expeditions, which is the National Geographic Travel Company. And they make it even easier. So they divided the folks on the boat. There's not a huge boat, but I don't remember how many. There were probably 75 people on the boat. and they said, we're going to have two groups. We're going to have the naturalists and the photographers. And the naturalists were really just the tourists and the sightseers.

58:43And that's fine. And my wife was in that group. But the photographers are going to leave two hours early so we can be on shore at first light. And we're going to stay three hours longer. Whereas the naturalists could sleep late, come out, walk around, have a snack, and they could go back to the boat. So I'm a huge fan of the Lindblad Expedition Company. And I think the biggest challenge is just the patience required when you're when you're trying to photograph nature, which I've seen that in other parts of the world as well. You got to kind of wait on the animals to do what the animals do. Amazing.

59:22Amazing. Yeah, I saw that in your bio. I said, I have to ask because I remember I studied abroad in the in Ecuador and the Galapagos. That trip was one of our excursions. Yeah. Fascinating place. And fascinating place for sure. Yes. Well, Mark, pleasure as always, my friend. Thank you for coming back on the show. And before you go, I want to give you an opportunity to let folks know how they can get in touch with you. And I know you have a really special, unique offer for them that I want to give you an opportunity to share, too. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, the first thing I want to do is share with you my cell number.

59:59And if I can serve you or your team or your organization, call me or text me. That number is 678-612-8441. 678-612-8441. And if you put that in the show notes, because somebody's driving or on a treadmill and they can't take notes right now. So if I can serve you, that would be it'd be my pleasure to do so. We also have a website, LeadEveryDay.com, and that'll tell you more about what we're doing. And we do coaching and training and keynotes and resources and all the things that you would expect. We're we're just trying to serve leaders. So perfect. Mark, thank you again for coming on the show.

1:00:44Really appreciate it. Been my pleasure.