Yum! Brands CEO David Novak's new book offers lessons in creating a high-performance culture

Jan. 3, 2012 - PRLog -- YUM! Brands CEO and Chairman David Novak offers powerful and sincere directives for creating a cohesive, success-oriented corporate culture in his new book, TAKING PEOPLE WITH YOU: The Only Way to Make BIG Things Happen, (Portfolio Penguin, January 2012).

Over his 15 years leading the world’s largest restaurant company and owner of the brands KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, Novak made it one of his top priorities to create a recognition culture in which everyone counted and to do it so successfully that the company would become renowned for it. “It was my job to cast the right shadow of leadership, because no one else was going to live up to these principles unless I lived up to them first,” he writes in the book introduction. “As a leader, you always have to remember that people tend to follow the leader’s actions. You can’t say one thing and then do another and expect people to believe in you or follow you. As the leader, you have the opportunity to set an example of how the business should be run.”

Under his leadership, Yum! has established itself as a global powerhouse going from approximately 20 percent profits coming from outside the U.S. in 1997 to more than 65 percent in 2010, while driving one of the highest returns on invested capital in the restaurant industry.  Today, Yum! is the leading retail developer in China as well as the largest and fastest growing restaurant company in emerging markets with a two-to-one advantage over its nearest competitor.  Additionally, Novak has built Yum!’s entire global people-first culture around reward and recognition to drive results.

Novak’s goal is that the lessons of Taking People With You are embraced by individuals and organizations around the world to transform and strengthen their leadership skills and ultimately make the world a better place.

He provides a step-by-step guide to setting big goals, getting people to work together, blowing past your targets, and celebrating after you shock the skeptics. And then doing it again and again until consistent excellence becomes a core element of your culture.

Novak notes that his book also benefits from the inclusion of interactive tools, which
have been provided by two of the most notable thinkers on culture and
breakthrough thinking in business, Senn Delaney Founder and Chairman Larry Senn, co-author of Winning Teams—Winning Cultures, and John O’Keeffe (Business Beyond the Box).

“I first met and worked with Larry, founder and chairman of Senn Delaney, when I became the president of KFC in the mid-1990s. Out of the blue, I got a letter from a culture expert who said he had a process, including tools and exercises, that helped people become better leaders and work better as a team. I met with him and was so impressed that I took my KFC team to an offsite meeting in Blackberry, Tennessee, to learn from Larry. They in turn were so impressed that they took the tools to their own team members, and Larry’s influence kept spreading until it reached our front-line employees. I used Larry and the Senn Delaney process again when I took over Pizza Hut and in the first years after the spin-off when we used his tools to grow and implement our culture all around the world. Several of my favorites among Larry’s tools are included in this book.”

Book based on Novak’s unique leadership training program to get people aligned, enthusiastic and relentlessly focused on achieving big goals

Novak’s book provides 14 lessons divided into three sections with exercises, tools, worksheets, and charts throughout. Specific tools at the end of each chapter challenge leaders to reflect on how they are really doing on key aspects of leadership. Some key lessons:

Get inside the heads of your people. You can't convince them of anything until you see the world from their perspective.

Think big. Was your sales growth 3.5%? Don't aim for 4%, aim for 15%. Even if you fail, you'll probably do better than you would with a smaller goal.

Practice "extraordinary authenticity. " Show occasional vulnerability and admit when you don't have the answers.

Look for good ideas in unexpected places. Novak's team came up with Cool Ranch Doritos for Frito-Lay during a field trip to a grocery store's salad dressing aisle.
Choose a can-do mind-set. There's a huge difference between a boss who says "We can try this" and one who says "We can do this!"

Cheer for first downs, not just touchdowns. Publicly recognizing and rewarding small wins keeps everyone motivated for the long haul.

Get rid of cynics. In many teams one person will reject your values and spread negative energy. Moving that person out will show everyone else you're serious.

Senn Delaney is pleased to share an excerpt of the book. http://takingpeoplewithyou.com/pdf/excerpt.pdf

All of Novak’s proceeds from Taking People With You will be donated to the United Nations World Food Programme in conjunction with Yum! Brands global hunger relief efforts.

For more information about the book, visit http://www.takingpeoplewithyou.com/default.asp

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An international consulting firm founded in 1978, Senn Delaney is widely recognized as the leading international authority on culture change. We have worked with hundreds Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies to create healthy, high-performance cultures.