As co-founder and former CEO of Yum! Brands, one of the world’s largest restaurant corporations whose portfolio includes franchises like KFC and Pizza Hut, David Novak has achieved tangible results.
During his 17 years as CEO, from 1999 to 2016Novak helped the company grow eightfold, from a market capitalization of $4 billion to $32 billion. But Novak attributes those numbers to a qualitative quite than quantitative aspect of leadership—creating the right culture.
IN conversation with the Masters of Scale host Jeff Berman, which aired earlier this month, Novak explained how he led Yum! Brands from the starting.
“I made it my number one priority to really create a strong culture where everyone matters,” Novak said. “That became my number one job as CEO because if I can create the right environment, people will innovate and people will go further.”
Novak explained that in the starting, he tried to learn from corporations that were winning or consistently doing well. He went out and visited corporations like Walmart, Home Depot and General Electric.
“We met with them,” Novak said. “Then we went back and codified what really drives the success of these companies, what allows them to achieve great results year after year.”
Novak, who supervised 1.5 million employees worldwidebegan to emphasize recognition and encode it in the Yum! culture. In previous Interviewstalked about how he would use recognition to motivate employees. In one caseat KFC, Novak handed out rubber chickens and $100 as a reward for a job well done.
Today, Yum!’s culture is based on recognition and collaboration, as its aimed at the audience website dedicated to culture.