David Novak is the Chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands. Yum is the parent of Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC.

In his new book Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make BIG Things Happen Novak tells us the driving force behind company succcess is its emphasis on developing people.

He states the single biggest thing I can imagine is that we continue to build the top people capability in our industry. If you get that right, you satisfy more customers, and make more money. We make upgrading that capability our highest priority. Show me a great restaurant and I’ll show you a great leader.

There is no doubt he is sincere in this statement in an industry not known for glitz and glamour. We all remember the bad fast food experience but I think there are as many good ones. It is easy to find fault with what he says as we point out people who are not great at leading and developing people. Every organization faces this challenge, so does yours.

You dont have a chance of creating a great culture with great leaders if you dont make it job one. Leaders make new leaders. It is in their DNA, if it isn’t there, they put it there. (what’s in your genes?)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 19th, 2012 at 2:00 am and is filed under Excellence, Leadership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.