Notes on T. Mark Miller, Chick-Fil-A Vice President at the Leadership Forum

Really enjoyed T. Mark Miller's session at the Leadership Forum.  You can find him on Twitter here.  I'm such an admirer of Chick-Fil-A's corporate culture, it was a privilege to learn from a guy who helped build it. Check out my notes below.

T. Mark Miller – VP of Organizational Effectiveness, Chick-Fil-A

If you’d like more leaders faster, this is for you.

I was the 16^th corporate employee.  Immersion and Osmosis was our process in those days. 

We had leadership opportunities, with no leaders ready.  It’s a bad moment when you’re facing great opportunities, and you look at the bench and it’s empty. 

The lid on your organization is leadership.

Creating a leadership Culture.

Questions you have to ask and answer:

1.      DEFINE IT: Do you have a common definition of leadership?

Unless you’ve forged a consensus , you probably don’t. 

There are over 6,000 published definition of leadership.

IF you don’t, it’s difficult to understand promotion and rewards from department to department. It's difficult to transfer talent across the organization. 

It doesn’t matter if you choose one, or write your own; the important thing is agreement. 

The Secret (co-authored with Ken Blanchard) – great leaders serve.

2.      TRAIN IT: Are your current & future leaders able to deliver on the definition?

We all know that you have to do it before you really get it, but sometimes we forget that there is a knowledge and skill component to leadership, before you ever really learn it by doing it.

You have to train it.  If you want a leadership culture, you have to do leadership training.

3.      PRACTICE IT: Are you providing ample opportunities for emerging leaders to lead?

It’s not best always to give it to the proven leader.  Sometimes you have to give it to the guy who’s currently batting .100 instead of the guy batting .300.  As long as it’s not the World Series. J

What’s the best way to develop leaders?  Stephen Covey: “Give them REAL responsibility.”

Ask often: Is this an opportunity for an emerging leader?

4.      MEASURE IT: How do you measure the success of your leadership culture?

Are we making progress? 

Often, we just commit random acts of training.  We need to develop a scorecard. 

One metric: How many people have we trained?

We do a formal leadership talent review, with associated metrics.  How many people are ready NOW?  How many in 24-36 months? 

Nothing improves without measurement.

5.      MODEL IT: Are your current leaders modeling the desired behaviors?

 People always watch the leader, even when you don’t want them to.

This assessment may be who I am right now, but it’s not a measure of who I am going to become.

You can change the results in the future

QUESTION: Do you find it harder or easier to differentiate yourself in the current “customer service lacking”?

The state of the fast food industry is terrible.  We LOVE that.  It’s not easy to execute, but what an opportunity to differentiate ourselves.  In the past, we wanted to differentiate ourselves on quality.  We still believe in quality, but for this era, we differentiate ourselves with service. 

Leaders are the carriers of the culture.  Leaders get whatever they create or allow.