This Is the Most Important Thing You Can Do to Improve Your Business, According to the Co-Founder of a $32 Billion Company

As the co-founder and erstwhile CEO of Yum! Brands, 1 of the world's largest edifice companies pinch a portfolio including franchises for illustration KFC and Pizza Hut, David Novak drove tangible results.

In the 17 years he was CEO, from 1999 to 2016, Novak helped standard the institution to 8 times its original size, from a marketplace capitalization of $4 cardinal to $32 billion. However, Novak credits the numbers to a much qualitative than quantitative facet of activity — creating the correct activity culture.

In a conversation pinch Masters of Scale big Jeff Berman that aired earlier this month, Novak explained really he steered Yum! Brands from the beginning.

"I made my number 1 privilege to really create a powerful civilization wherever everyone counts," Novak said. "That became occupation number 1 for maine arsenic a CEO, because if I tin create that correct activity environment, group will innovate and group will spell further."

Novak explained that early on, he tried to study from companies that were winning aliases consistently delivered bully results. He went retired and visited companies including Walmart, Home Depot, and General Electric.

"We met pinch them," Novak said. "Then we came backmost and we codified what's really driving the occurrence of these companies that let them to get to awesome results twelvemonth aft year."

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Novak, who oversaw 1.5 cardinal labor globally, began emphasizing nickname and encoding it into Yum!'s culture. In erstwhile interviews, he talked astir really he would usage nickname to motivate employees. In one case, astatine KFC, Novak gave distant rubber chickens and $100 arsenic an grant for a occupation good done.

Today, Yum!'s civilization remains 1 of nickname and collaboration, per its public-facing culture page.