06/04/2024

Why CEOs Need to Check Their Blind Spots

Yum! Brands' former CEO explains how leaders can stop judging others

As the CEO of Yum!, I also had the privilege of touring our restaurants often, meeting frontline workers who were just as smart as I was but who had not had the same opportunities. Because they happened to be washing dishes, working the drive-through or standing at a grill, people automatically assumed they didn’t have much to say worth listening to. It was a big mistake that I always tried to rectify, and it saved us from making mistakes more than once.

It is also how I brought to life the defining principle of Yum!’s culture: a culture where everyone makes a difference. For instance, when we launched our oven-roasted chicken pieces at KFC, everyone at our corporate office thought the product was just great as it was. But then I talked to the cooks at a couple of our restaurants who showed me how difficult it was to make the product with consistent results in the real world. That insight sent us back to the drawing board. Thanks to those cooks, we found a quicker and simpler process for making a consistently good product, which saved us a ton of time and money in the long run. 

Bernie Marcus, who cofounded Home Depot, would do the same when he was CEO. He opened himself up to the associates on the front line, often asking, “How would you tackle this?” or “How would you do that?” It’s how he gathered some incredibly valuable ideas that helped Home Depot grow as fast as it did. 

Please select this link to read the complete article from Inc.