Access Their Superpowers
I have a core belief about people. I believe each and every person on this earth was created and designed to be special. They have unique gifts and talents. I want to help people reach their full potential. But even with that worldview — the strengths of a team member are not always evident to […]
The Values Lens Of Leadership
We have been talking about the importance of knowing the people we lead. This week we continue this conversation by exploring the benefit of knowing the top priority values of your individual team members. At Popeyes, we ask our team members to explore their values and share their top three priority values with their supervisor […]
Two Truths And A Lie
Several times in my career, I’ve been asked to play a “get-to-know-you” game at a business dinner. The game is called Two Truths and a Lie. The way it works? Each person states three things about their life that the rest of the people would not know. Two of them must be true. One must […]
Measures Matter
In the second year of my role at Popeyes, trust with our franchise owners remained low, data for decision-making was still limited and consistent positive sales results were not yet evident. My team and I were sitting in a meeting with skeptical franchise leaders, debating the performance results of the June promotion event. We had […]
Warning – Toxic Workplace
I am a book junkie. If you visit my home, there are certain rooms, like my home office, that are literally overflowing with books. Even my work office has at least 100 books in it. So it will not surprise you that on this Sunday afternoon, I am scanning the books available on Amazon.com. I […]
Promises, Promises
The best CEO I worked for in my career was at RJR Nabisco; his name, Lou Gerstner. He was exceptionally smart and exceptionally principled. I watched his leadership closely and found many lessons that would guide my career over the years. So when he was selected to be CEO of IBM in April of 1993, […]
Focused Or Flailing?
Apparently our human minds can only remember three or four things at once. Psychologists at the University of Missouri published a paper in 2008 entitled “An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory.”* Up until this study, most researchers thought we could remember seven things at once – like the seven digits in our phone […]
Which Way?
It is Friday night and I am headed to LaGuardia airport in New York City– in the borough of Queens. The traffic is heavy. It is raining, and chances are good flights will be delayed. If you have ever traveled through a major airport on a Friday night, you know this feeling. Your head has […]
My Favorite Things
One of my favorite childhood movies was The Sound of Music. I think it may have been the catalyst for my lifelong love of music. Maybe I was a romantic at the age of 9, but I can’t think of a more beautiful scene in a movie than where Julie Andrews sings “My Favorite Things.” As […]
Do You Love The People You Lead?
For over 18 years, I’ve been in a leadership position with small business owners, the franchisees who invest in and run restaurants. Let me share with just five things that are annoying about a small business owner: They have a lot of emotion and relatively few facts. They always want some special favor. They never […]