Because the co-founder and former CEO of Yum! Manufacturers, one of many world’s largest restaurant firms with a portfolio together with franchises like KFC and Pizza Hut, David Novak drove tangible outcomes.
Within the 17 years he was CEO, from 1999 to 2016, Novak helped scale the corporate to eight occasions its authentic dimension, from a market capitalization of $4 billion to $32 billion. Nevertheless, Novak credit the numbers to a extra qualitative than quantitative facet of management — creating the appropriate work tradition.
In a dialog with Masters of Scale host Jeff Berman that aired earlier this month, Novak defined how he steered Yum! Manufacturers from the start.
“I made my primary precedence to essentially create a strong tradition the place everybody counts,” Novak mentioned. “That turned job primary for me as a CEO, as a result of if I can create that proper work surroundings, individuals will innovate and other people will go additional.”
Novak defined that early on, he tried to be taught from firms that had been profitable or persistently delivered good outcomes. He went out and visited firms together with Walmart, Residence Depot, and Basic Electrical.
“We met with them,” Novak mentioned. “Then we got here again and we codified what’s actually driving the success of those firms that permit them to get to nice outcomes 12 months after 12 months.”
Novak, who oversaw 1.5 million staff globally, started emphasizing recognition and encoding it into Yum!’s tradition. In earlier interviews, he talked about how he would use recognition to inspire staff. In one case, at KFC, Novak gave away rubber chickens and $100 as an award for a job properly finished.
At this time, Yum!’s tradition stays certainly one of recognition and collaboration, per its public-facing tradition web page.
