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. Nonetheless, Novak credit the numbers to a extra qualitative than quantitative facet of management — creating the suitable 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 actually create a strong tradition the place everybody counts,” Novak stated. “That grew to become job primary for me as a CEO, as a result of if I can create that proper work surroundings, individuals will innovate and folks will go additional.”
Novak defined that early on, he tried to study from firms that have been profitable or persistently delivered good outcomes. He went out and visited firms together with Walmart, House Depot, and Basic Electrical.
“We met with them,” Novak stated. “Then we got here again and we codified what’s actually driving the success of those firms that enable them to get to nice outcomes 12 months after 12 months.”
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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 a single case, at KFC, Novak gave away rubber chickens and $100 as an award for a job properly performed.
Right this moment, Yum!’s tradition stays one among recognition and collaboration, per its public-facing tradition web page.
