Category: Positive Mindset

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Avid Learner Blog Lead Yourself Positive Mindset

How to Avoid the Leadership Learning Trap

By: David Novak Leadership

If you have been around leadership circles for very long, you’ve likely heard the term “avid learner”. Being an avid learner means you are deliberate about gaining new insights to become better at what you do. With the amount of knowledge readily available these days, anyone can be an avid learner. If you want to grow your career, you should absolutely be doing this.
Whether you are just starting out, or you’ve been working on developing your skills for a while, it’s important to beware of the leadership learning trap.
When you take in new information, does it influence your day-to-day actions? Have you spent time and energy trying to develop yourself with no noticeable results? If learning doesn’t lead to transformation, then you’ve fallen into the leadership learning trap.
To grow in your leadership, you need to be learning and developing. The two are not the same and it’s important to understand the difference if you want to be an effective leader.
Being an intentional learner isn’t just about taking in knowledge. The most important thing is what happens after you consume information. It’s absorbing new ideas and letting them change the way you believe. When your beliefs change, your behavior changes.

Intentional learning is transformational

It is taking in new information and turning it into action.

The most inspiring, dynamic leaders use learning to challenge themselves to become better. If you’re going to join their ranks, you need to be putting into practice what you learn by evolving in your leadership mindset and implementing new habits in your daily routine. Learning is only intentional when it develops you.
If you really want to excel as a leader, don’t settle for being a passive learner who remains unchanged by the knowledge you’ve gained. This happens so often to people in leadership, and it will hinder you from reaching your fullest potential.
If you want to be a leader others want to follow, don’t make the mistake of being a passive learner. Be intentional.
At David Novak Leadership, we’ve made intentional learning simple. Our Essential Leadership Traits Program is a fully interactive experience designed to help you transform your leadership. This course will challenge your beliefs and provides you with real actions to implement. We help leaders be more intentional so they can truly be effective. Click here to begin growing in your leadership today.

 

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Three Steps to Increase Employee Engagement

By: David Novak, Co-Founder & CEO of David Novak Leadership

It’s impossible. I can’t do that. The reason I missed my deadline is because… As a leader, do you get these types of excuses from those on your team? I know it can be frustrating to hear excuses because I’ve heard lots of excuses while leading teams at KFC and Yum! Brands. And while you might be tempted to blame your team for their excuses, I’d like to challenge you to adopt a different mindset when it comes to excuses. Could it be that excuses are rooted in barriers your team needs you, as the leader, to eliminate?
The Power of Eliminating Barriers
When I came into KFC, my goal was to shift the culture to empower our Restaurant General Managers. We knew that having the tools and equipment to do your job increases engagement. We also knew that it was important to equip your team by:
  • Aligning the team with common goals rather than providing no direction
  • Noticing the needs of the team and providing resources rather than ignoring needs or assuming all needs are met
  • Helping the team by eliminating barriers rather than requiring members to fend for themselves
We were passionate about learning how to better equip our managers, so we took action.
Step One: Solicit Feedback from Managers
The first step we took was to solicit feedback from our managers. We wanted to know what resources they needed to be successful and what barriers they faced so we could make changes.
I quickly discovered we were holding the managers accountable for things that were undoable because they didn’t have the tools to do their jobs. The managers described a number of barriers that directly and indirectly hindered their performance, things like:
  • Too much paperwork
  • Not enough drive-thru jackets
  • Not enough labor dollars, which prevented them from covering their shifts
This feedback was eye-opening to the Executive Team and helped us understand that our managers really didn’t have the tools they needed to be successful.
Step Two: Communicate
removing barriers and excusesStep two involved communicating with our managers. We shared our research findings and let them know we not only heard what they said, but we also took action by eliminating barriers. Based on their feedback, we reduced paperwork, provided more drive-thru jackets and increased labor dollars. We also let them know these changes put accountability back in their court and we expected them to achieve better results since the barriers were eliminated.
Step Three: Hold Your Team Accountable
Our decision to give the managers what they needed to do their jobs catapulted performance and morale for those who wanted to be empowered. Our decision was celebrated by some and they embraced receiving resources with accountability.
Not all managers were excited about this change. In fact, the decision to equip the managers exposed those who relied on the barriers to mask their poor performance. We initially experienced substantially higher Restaurant General Manager turnover because those managers who didn’t like the higher goals and accountability quit.
However, long term, the payoff for removing barriers made a positive impact at KFC. We experienced:
  • Overall higher levels of performance
  • More engaged and empowered managers
  • Reduced manager turnover after the initial fallout
Do You Need to Eliminate Barriers?
How often do you hear excuses at work? How often do you make excuses at work? Could it be that you and/or your co-workers don’t have the tools to be successful?
You can uncover barriers to success by taking action. Do your research like I did. Ask questions. Find out what resources are needed and what barriers are keeping your team from achieving results. Then provide the resources and eliminate the barriers while holding your team to higher expectations. Download this guide to learn more about equipping your team by removing barriers.
removing barriers at work and excuses
When you eliminate barriers, you might experience some turnover like we did at KFC, but don’t let that stop you from taking action. As Ben Carson said, “So after a while, if people won’t accept your excuses, you stop looking for them.” You can help your team stop looking for excuses by removing barriers. You can help your team learn to embrace accountability. Are you willing?
Do you know someone who could use help eliminating barriers? If so, pay it forward today and share this blog and guide with them. By sharing this blog and guide, you are equipping them to become a better leader.

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Be Your Best Self

By: Gregg Dedrick, Co-Founder & President of David Novak Leadership

How often have you been encouraged to just be yourself? You get this coaching from others throughout your life and while it sounds good, and could even be considered helpful, it’s often easier said than done. Fear can creep in. You might feel tempted to conform and fit in rather than be true to yourself. You wrestle. I personally believe that in reality, it’s much harder to be yourself than most people are willing to admit.

But I also know that when you hide your best self to be something that you’re not, it can come across as inauthentic. Others often see right through you and you can lose trust in those relationships.

So how do you learn to be your best self when faced with the reality that it can be really difficult?

I’ve focused on being my best self throughout my career. However, I’m not perfect at it. I even learned about the importance of being my best self through an embarrassing lesson at the age of 43 while President of KFC.

My dream job was to become president of a business, and I was excited about making a positive impact on the KFC brand and people working with me.  Since the business had been in a state of decline, I had the opportunity to turn it around while incorporating some fun.  Note my emphasis on fun…

After a year as president, the business was improving and I wanted to celebrate this accomplishment with the restaurant general managers that made it happen.  More than two thousand managers came to Louisville for this celebration.  During the planning process, someone from my team pitched the idea to create a video to play on the bus ride from the hotel to our facilities.  My role in the video was to welcome the managers to Louisville and share what they could expect in the days ahead.

Insert the fun here:  I was cast as the narrator for a David Letterman spoof, complete with an opening monologue and Letterman-style Top Ten List.   The problem with this fun approach is I’m terrible at delivering one-liners.  And I prefer handwritten notes, not teleprompters.  I know this about myself, yet I went along with the plan.  Do you think I came across as my best self?  Absolutely not!  I still cringe when I watch the video and clearly see how I wasn’t my best self at all.  I was stiff, when I’m usually informal.  It was evident that I was reading off the teleprompter, which is not how I deliver the best speeches.  The only saving grace of the video was when I ditched the script, put on a pair of feathery chicken feet, and did what I naturally do best:  I walked through the KFC Headquarters talking to whoever I met along the way about everything from the history of Colonel Sanders to what we do in our research kitchen.

This lesson in being your best self became part of my leadership program.  I show the bus video (although sometimes I leave the room because I can’t bear to watch it!), to emphasize how easy it is to tell when someone isn’t being themselves.

While it’s important to be your best self, I must highlight this caveat: As a leader, being your best self does NOT give you permission to treat everyone with a take me as I am or leave mindset. Instead, you have to figure out a way to be true to yourself while broadening your appeal and impact rather than turning people off or unnecessarily clashing with company culture. You engage with all kinds of people as a leader. Consider how you can be yourself while respecting the unique approaches of others too.

Do you lead while being your best self? Do you have a story like mine where you weren’t your best self and it showed? Answer these questions to help you understand how often you lead as your best self:

  • When have you struggled with being your best self?
  • Do you tend to conform based on what others want, or do you tend to stay true to yourself? Explain your answer.
  • What keeps you from being your best self?

Download this guide to dig deeper into how you can become your best self. Let’s unite around the power of being our best selves as we lead others to become their best selves because as Leo Buscaglia says: The easiest thing in the world to be is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don’t let them put you in that position.”

Do you know someone who might find these tips on being your best self helpful? Then pay it forward by sharing this blog and guide with them today. You never know how the simple act of sharing leadership tips with others can inspire them to become a better leader.

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Why You Need to Heartwire AND Hardwire Your Leadership

By: David Novak, Co-Founder & CEO of David Novak Leadership

Leadership failure is everywhere. I recently did a quick internet search on the topic and you wouldn’t believe the titles that appeared:

  • Businesses Don’t Fail, Leaders Do
  • 6 Warning Signs of a Leadership Failure
  • The Key Causes of Failure in Leadership
  • Why America’s Leadership Fails

These titles only scratch the surface! There were pages and pages of articles on leadership failure. Yet success is totally possible if you know and practice a secret I discovered while serving as Co-founder and CEO of Yum! Brands, one of the world’s largest restaurant companies, operating in over 130 countries. The secret is called Heartwiring™ AND Hardwiring™ your leadership. Lots of leaders talk about how to hardwire success through process and I’m a big supporter of that. But I know that hardwired leadership is much more effective if you combine it with Heartwired leadership™. I’m passionate about heartwiring and hardwiring leaders because I know it works. As CEO of a global company, I’ve invested significant time teaching this leadership style to thousands of leaders around the world… and it showed in the results we shared with Wall Street.

But before I explain what heartwiring and hardwiring means, let me share some of my background with you. I’ll start at the beginning…

I was anything but a born leader but I feel absolutely certain I was born to lead and teach.  My early education was far from typical when you consider I grew up in a series of trailer parks and ended up living in 23 states by the time I was in seventh grade.  Then, rather than getting an MBA or even majoring in business, I enrolled in the journalism school at the University of Missouri.  After graduation, I started my career as a $7,200 a year copywriter with the objective of one day being a creative director.  My career didn’t turn out exactly as I planned.  In fact, through a series of career “accidents,” I left the world of advertising and ended up in the restaurant industry. Over the course of my career, I’ve held many roles:

  • Copywriter
  • Account Executive
  • Head of Marketing for Pizza Hut
  • Chief Operating Officer for beverage division of PepsiCo
  • President of KFC and Pizza Hut
  • Co-Founder and CEO of Yum! Brands

Along the way, I had the privilege of learning from all kinds of leaders from all around the world, from the likes of Jack Welch, Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon and Howard Schultz. And while I was fortunate enough to learn from Fortune 500 CEOs, I equally loved learning from the restaurant front line managers and franchisees. Through it all, I have been a passionate student of leadership, constantly seeking new techniques and major insights from the smartest and best people I could go see. The lessons I learned and put into practice from this diverse group of leaders shaped me and helped me achieve a fair bit of success. I know I wouldn’t be who I am today without the people who invested in my leadership journey.

Upon retiring from Yum! Brands, I knew there was more work to be done… that my leadership journey was far from over. I became excited about investing in leaders like you by sharing what my team and I learned about leadership over the years, so David Novak Leadership was born.

David Novak Leadership is about Heartwiring Leaders™ and Hardwiring Success™! Let me explain. Early in my career, I had an experience that changed how I thought about my own role as a leader and inspired me to accomplish what, for me, is my greatest example of taking people with me.  I was working for PepsiCo and recently became head of operations for Pepsi Bottling. Since I had held mainly marketing positions until then, one of the first things I did was travel to our various plants to meet with the people there and find out how things worked.

While at a plant in St. Louis, I asked what I thought was a pretty straightforward merchandising question to a group of route salesman. I wanted to know what was working and what wasn’t. Right away, someone piped up, “Bob is the expert in that area.  He can tell you how it’s done.” Someone else added, “Bob taught me more in one day than I’d learned in two years on the job.” Every single person in the room agreed:  Bob was the best there was. I looked over at Bob, thinking he must be thrilled by all this praise.  Instead, I saw he had tears running down his face. When I asked him what was wrong, Bob, who had been with the company for over forty years and was about to retire in just two weeks, said, “I never knew anyone felt this way about me.”

I’ve always believed in people, but that experience made me even more determined to be the kind of leader that would never let a person like Bob go through his entire career without being thanked for what he did and encouraged to find out how much more he could do. I wanted the people who worked for me to know that they mattered, and I wanted them to enjoy coming to work each day. I also understood it started with me. It was my job to cast the right leadership shadow, because no one else was going to live up to these principles unless I lived up to them first. This is what heartwiring is all about – becoming a leader who listens to those you lead, cares about them, recognizes them, and acknowledges that every person on your team has value.

Hardwiring Success is all about what you do as a leader: using processes, procedures and discipline to get consistent results.

Heartwiring AND Hardwiring are equally important, because who you are as a leader is just as important as what you do as a leader.

As you join me on my leadership journey to becoming the best leader you can be, I’ll share my personal leadership story – things I did well, as well as my mistakes. I’ll share lessons I learned along the way. I’ll be honest and real, because sometimes the best way to learn is from the success and mistakes of others. I want you to know you’re not alone as a leader. I’ll commit to being one of the most transparent and honest leaders and teachers you’ve ever had.

Let me share what you can expect from David Novak Leadership:

  • Profound truths, practically applied rather than textbook, theoretical answers to your leadership questions.  I’m committed to sharing what I’ve learned through my experiences (the good, bad and ugly). I’ll also introduce you to other leaders because I want you to have a diversity of wisdom and insights to apply throughout your own leadership journey.
  • Transformational change that sticks rather than checklists that fade quickly. I’ll help you think differently about people and leadership so the changes you make are sustainable.  One of the best ways to change your leadership style is by doing something different, and I’ll provide insight on actions you can take to change the way you lead.
  • Leading by taking people with you rather than the traditional top down, hierarchical leadership style. I am passionate about the importance of taking people with you every step of the way. Top down hierarchies just aren’t as effective, and I want you to have a better way to lead.

John Quincy Adams said, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” This is my goal for David Novak Leadership – to inspire you to dream more, do more and become more. Starting this month, you can stay connected with me by signing up to receive our bi-weekly blogs and podcasts. I’ll answer your leadership questions via video each month too. If you’d like to learn more about my leadership journey today, check out my books:

  • The Education of an Accidental CEO: Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office tells the story of how I became CEO and the lessons I learned along the way.
  • Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make BIG Things Happen teaches you how to hardwire success by getting your mindset right, having a plan, and following through to get results.
  • O Great One! A Little Story about the Awesome Power of Recognition tells the story of a heartwired leader who transformed an organization through the power of recognition.

I’m a firm believer that leadership is about who you are AND what you do. Heartwiring Leaders! Hardwiring Success!  That’s what David Novak Leadership is all about. Follow me @DavidNovak on social media, because together, as leaders, we can make a bigger difference! Click here to listen to my podcast with Gregg Dedrick discussing why we began David Novak Leadership.

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