Influential Marketing Blog

How To Manage 1.4 Million People - 5 Questions with YUM! Brands CEO David Novak

No one writes a business book about leadership to help hungry children. Leadership, we usually read, is about having a grand vision. It is about the touchdown pass. No one wants to hear about the months you spent in the summer working out in the weight room. In our quarterly culture, fast results are the only thing that matters, and we expect our CEOs to be larger than life. So when David Novak, the CEO of YUM! Brands -- which owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell and employs over 1.4 million people worldwide -- first wrote a leadership book, I expected it to be about having a big vision.

Instead, Novak's newly released book Taking People With You is a surprisingly practical step by step guide on how to be a daily leader instead of an annual visionary. This week I had the chance to speak with him about the book and about why he felt it was so important to share his message with the world. His surprising answer for the first motivation to write his book is that all the proceeds from the book go to the United Nations World Food Programme (a CSR partner of YUM! Brands), so it may hopefully help feed some children. His second reason was because he felt it was time to share lessons from a management training program and philosophy he had already been using for 15 years to train over 4000 restaurant managers with huge success within YUM! Brands.

Here were five questions I asked him and his responses:

Q: How important is social media and digital tools to the way that you communicate and take people with you?

A: Even if you are in a huge company, you have to do everything you can to make the company smaller. I do a blog on my travels in the first person. Tell people what I see in each of our markets. I personalize it. I think relationships and having people feel like you are engaged and care is absolutely critical. If you are an "ivory tower leader" and never get out of your office, then you aren't going to get work environment and culture you need.

Q: In the quick service restaurant industry, there is high turnover. How important is what you do to helping address that issue?

A: Great people leave for two reasons. Money is not one of the reasons. The first real reason why people leave is because they don't get along with their boss. Second reason is where people don't feel appreciated. It may be more true in the services business, but it is true in any business.

Q: How important is likeability to leadership and taking people with you?

A: It is hard to like somebody who doesn't like you. You have to be a person that people want to be around. I don't think people follow people they don't like. They don't buy brands they don't like. But doesn't mean you need to run a popularity contest. Your aim should be to get a point where people want to be around you.

Q: What is the biggest mistake that you see other leaders and CEOs of organizations making?

A: Leaders don't tend to be self aware. They don't know how what people really think of them. Leaders are often in a cocoon, seeing themselves in a way which may not be true.  Also, a lot of times leaders will assume that people will just do their job. People want to be part of something bigger. Just because someone works for you, doesn't mean they will just do what you want them to do. That's niave. The real trick to getting results is involvement.  You need to get your people involved.

Q: One day when you one day retire or leave YUM!, how will you want people to remember you?

A: I would like them to remember me as a leader who believes in them and cared enough to pass on the learnings that I was privileged enough to gain. That I was genuinely a leader.

Disclaimer: Ogilvy, my employer, does some marketing and communications work for YUM! Brands. This interview was not solicited or granted as part of our work for them or compensated in any way. Novak's publisher (Portfolio Penguin) came to me directly to review the book, and I accepted.

Interview: 10 Insights On Enchantment With Guy Kawasaki

1. What is the big idea of Enchantment and how did you land on that word as the title?

The big idea is that if you want to change the world, you need to enchant people. Inronically, the more innovative your product, service, or idea, the more you need to enchant people. As for the title, I wanted to own a work like Tom Peters owns "excellence," Malcolm Gladwell owns "tipping," Geoffrey Moore owns "chasm," and Robert Cialdini owns "persuasion."

Too many people use "influence," and "woo" lacks depth. No one owns "enchantment," and the Facebook vanity URL Facebook/enchantment was available. I took this as a message from above that "enchantment" was the way to go.

2. Can anyone master the art of Enchantment, or do you need to have a certain type of personality or skill?

Everyone can increase their level of enchantment--it's like increasing one's level of physical fitness. Enchantment is a process that moves you along a continuum. People are not born enchanting or not. Sure, there are outliers, but if a person believes they are naturally enchanting, then they're probably not. And if a person believes he cannot be more enchanting, then he won't be.

3. This is your 10th book - what were some of the mistakes that you might have made with some of the earlier books that you learned from and used to make Enchantment even better?

It's not that my other nine books were perfect, but a book is a work of art. It's the best you could do at a given time. Maybe my early books had too many passive-voice sentences, adjectives, and adverbs, but they reflect what I knew at the time.

4. You talk about everything from being more trustworthy to being likeable - including directions on how to achieve the perfect handshake. If you could choose one part of the book that you'd love for everyone in the world to read, what would it be?

The single most powerful recommendation in the book is that if you want to enchant people, you should default to a "yes attitude." In other words, when you interact with people, you should assume that you will agree to their requests of you--you are always thinking of how you can help other people instead of how they could/should help you. The world would be a better place if everyone embraced this attitude.

5. A danger of enchantment that you talk about is the potential for misuse. You have a list of where people should draw the line, including at enchanting "gullible people." Doesn't that exclude a lot of people? ;-)

You're right--it does. And that's why I had the moral obligation to tell you not to abuse your enchantment skills, and I also include a whole chapter about how to resist enchantment. Everyone does not have your best interests at heart. Let's not be naive about this.

6. One thing I have always loved about your writing style is that you can write a book in a way that is easy to digest in pieces. How important do you think it is that someone read a book like Enchantment from cover to cover versus just dipping in and out of it?

One of my recommendations in the book is that if you want to be likable, you should not enforce your values on others. Diversity is good, so I would be a hypocrite to tell you that people should read my book in only a certain way. I'm a big believer in "letting a hundred flowers blossom."

7. It seemed that you chose to include many more personal elements in Enchantment, like pictures of yourself and stories of real people instead of charts and tables like you have done before. What led you towards doing it this way for this book?

I'm getting all warm and fuzzy in my old age. Plus, I love my Nikon camera. I included people's personal stories in their own words because I believe in the principle of social proof. That is, if you see that many people have been enchanted, you'll believe that enchantment is possible.

The personal stories are also a testament to the power of social media. I used Twitter and my blog to ask people to submit their personal stories. Of the twelve or so in the book, I only knew one of those people before I wrote the book: Garr Reynolds. I also used Twitter and my blog to solicit examples of enchantment techniques. Now I'm using social media to evangelize the book. This book is truly a product of social media.

8. Was there a second favourite title for Enchantment - like something the book almost was titled before you decided on the title that you went with?

You may find this ridiculous, but the first title was The Elements of Guile. It was a pun on The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. I even considered The Elements of Guyle. I wanted to own the word "beguiling" for a while. Luckily, my publisher talked me out of these.

But then the publisher wanted to call it The Yes Factor, and I didn't like that title. Finally, we settled on Enchantment, and I hope the "rest is history" as the saying goes.

9. As part of your book release, I imagine you will be heading out on a speaking tour - what is the most unexpected thing that you will be doing to promote the book this time around?

There isn't anything unexpected in the "Richard Branson parachutes in" way that you mean. I have never done a book launch with so many things in place, though. The list is long: Facebook fan page, online quiz to determine how enchanting you are, badges to promote your level of enchantment, infographic, background page for reviewers including photos of enchanting examples, and wallpapers. We also sent out review copies to about 1,500 bloggers which is the largest number I've done by a factor of four.

10. What's next for you - more books, focusing on starting new businesses like Alltop, or something else?

I don't know, and I can't even think about it right now. The proper launching of a book is an all-encompassing effort. Gone are the days when you do a two-week book tour, get on a few TV shows, and cross your fingers. This is hand-to-hand combat where every email, tweet, like, share, and update adds up.

The Women Of Personality eBook: Second Edition Launches

About six months ago, I created an ebook based on a surprising truth that I had uncovered in the year since my book had come out. Over that time, I received emails from many people talking about how they had found Personality Not Included to be useful in solving their own marketing challenges. Within them I noticed a trend ... that the majority seemed to be coming from women. Clearly, I thought, the idea of using personality to stand out in business is an idea that somehow women entrepreneurs not only understand, but were also actively using intuitively.

Wanting to explore this a bit deeper - I invited 20 visionary women to each contribute a few paragraphs sharing how personality has helped them to achieve their personal success and what advice they might offer to up and coming female entrepreneurs about achieving similar success. That turned into the first edition of The Personality Project: Women of Personality, a free eBook which was released in April of 2009. Today, I'm proud to share the second edition of that ebook, with another 20 contributors bringing the total stories to 40. It's still free and available for download at www.thepersonalityproject.com/wop2.

I am also embedding it below and if you follow the links to see it on Slideshare, you can get a downloadable PDF version:

I'm really proud of this effort and though I realize it is self serving in that it promotes the idea of personality in business that I wrote a book about - but the eBook is free and the ideas and stories in it are still very inspiring. If you enjoyed this ebook, please share the link to either this post or link to download it from the online page. I'll also be compiling a list of links and mentions from the contributors and others below - so if you do happen to write about this or share it, please use the tag "wop2" or "wop" so I can easily find your post and include it here!

Posts About WOP2:

• Lynne d Johnson - "The Personality Project: Women of Personality Second Edition"
• Girls in Tech - "The Personality Project Highlights Our Founder"
• Biz Tips Blog - "Women of Personality ebook (sneak peek!)"
• More coming!

The Personality Project: Women of Personality

There are generally three kinds of ideas. The most popular two are the ones that you act on right away and those that you never do anything about. Those are the majority. Most of us love the third kind. Those are the ideas that are too big or complex or important to do quickly, but that you simply cannot let die because of how you feel about them. Today I finally launched that kind of idea. Since Personality Not Included came out about a year ago - I have been getting emails from people sharing their experience with the book and how they felt about it's main premise that businesses (like people) need to have a strong and authentic personality.

Soon after the book launched, I noticed that many of these emails were coming from women working in professional roles and those that had started their own businesses. These female entrepreneurs were responding to the message of personality in a way that I didn't expect. So since that moment I started thinking about bringing those voices together. Of course, part of the reason would be to promote my book ... but like most authors the important thing for me was for my idea to find a home and actually help people change their careers or make their business more successful.

So today, you can download a free ebook called "The Personality Project: Women of Personality." It is an extension of a site that I launched some time ago with a similar mission - to get visionary people in many industries to talk about why personality matters. This ebook features 20 business women that I respect and admire who each agreed to share their story as part of the ebook. These include founders and CEOs, best selling authors, popular bloggers and online personalities and even the first woman to ever row solo across the Atlantic Ocean (and she's now making her way across the Pacific).

See the ebook embedded below and click on it to download a free PDF copy:

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Books marketing blogs

Once you get a chance to read it, please visit each of the contributors sites and blogs, buy their books and support their efforts. The best thing you can do is to validate their ideas and use their examples to improve your own business and your career. And then let them know they made a difference.

PS - If you mention this ebook on your blog or twitter or facebook or anywhere else online, use the tag #wop (on Twitter) or "WOP" (anywhere else) as this is the one that all the contributors will be watching and responding to.

Interview: Personal Branding For The Millennial Generation

If there is one thing you can learn from Dan Schawbel, it's how to choose a niche and own it. He's a 20-something social media consultant for EMC as his day job, but over the past several years he has focused his blog and extracurricular work on becoming a personal branding expert for the millennial generation. In that time, he's launched a magazine, written a blog and even created his own awards for personal branding, which was when I first connected with him.

His first book, titled Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success came out this week where he shares his lessons for creating a strong personal brand and the impact it can have on your career. In this interview he shares some insights from the book and offers an inside look at his path to where he is today.  It's a story worth paying attention to.

1. Why is a personal brand so important to someone just starting out in their career?

A personal brand is inescapable and inevitable, whether you're a high school student, CEO or consultant.  We've already been branded by many people without even realizing it.  The three reasons why every has a brand are that we are constantly being judged based on first impressions, we have to sell ourselves in order to accomplish anything and because we can adopt the same branding strategies that companies or products use.

When you're just starting out in your career, you have the opportunity to define your brand before others do it for you.  In Me 2.0, the first step in the personal branding process is called "discover your brand."  Without investing time in figuring out who you are, what you're capable of, what you're passionate about and establishing goals, you're truly lost.  The sooner you can get a grip on what your brand is, and how you want to position yourself in the marketplace, the more time you'll have to prepare for the real world if you're a college student and the less time you'll waste jumping from one career path to the next aimlessly.

2. Do you always need to know what you want to do in life in order to have a strong personal brand?

Rohit, understanding your brand is mandatory for your business success and overall happiness.  Being able to align your passion with expertise in a specific area is the key to living a great life.  Passion is the fuel that will push you through adversity and expertise allows you to fulfill customer needs (clients, teachers, etc).  The value you provide is a reflect of your brand and the reputation you build up by providing that value over the course of time, is what will allow you to become more successful.  Without cementing your brand in the first place, you'll waste your time on social networks, a blog, on a resume, etc.  Everyone needs to be able to write their own personal brand statement, which consists of "what you do" and "who you serve," and it better be a niche if you want to stand out among everyone else.

3. How do you effectively balance your work in building your own brand with your day job at EMC?

EMC has supported me from day one actually.  They've give me some additional flexibility to speak to organizations, colleges and to appear in the media on various occassions.  I'm in a very interesting situation because I was recruited by EMC, after being a product markter for a little over a year, for a brand new position that I got to co-create with the PR organization, called "social media specialist."  I've become the go-to-person for social media at EMC, so I get to work on some amazing projects, such as blogs, social media press releases and our various social accounts.  There is a mutual agreement and kinship between EMC and I, where EMC's brand helps build my credibility and in return, I help advance the brand with new social technologies.

I don't believe in work/life balance at all.  I think our professional and personal lives are converging as such a fast pace, that it's gauranteed that there will be no separation in the future.  I was telling a bunch of college seniors today at Boston University that when they enter the workforce, their co-workers and management will be friending them on Facebook.  Everyone just has to be wiser on how they support and project a positive personal brand.  Being associated with other brands means you have to think twice before you update Twitter or your Facebook status.

I put in over 100 hours of work a week.  I would say at least 50 hrs for EMC and at least 50 hrs for my other projects, such as my blog, magazine, and book.

4. Before getting the book deal, you launched your own blog and magazine. What did you learn from those experiences that helped you when it came to writing a book?

Rohit, this is a great question.  The second I launched my Personal Branding Blog back in March of 2007, was when I started marketing Me 2.0, without even knowing I was goin to write it.  The blog has build a solid reputation over time, being the #1 job blog by Careerbuilder last year and an AdAge top blog, like you have. Both the blog and magazine are assets that have thousands of subscribers each.  When the book came out, I notified subscribers of both, in addition to the rest of my marketing plan, that the book was available.  The blog and the magazine qualified the buyers of the book because they were interested in personal branding.  Each asset that I own helps promote another asset that I own.  It's one big happy family!

5. What is the biggest lesson college students usually take away from your presentations?

The main theme of my presentation and Me 2.0 is "command your career."  It's the idea that college students need to take ownership of their career and stop relying on everyone else to drive it.  Instead of being in the passenger seat, it's time to take the wheel and press on the gas.  At the end of the day, career success or failure lies in their hands.  They shouldn't be what their parents or teachers want them to be.  Brand YOU is independent.  "Command your career" was my books original title because it was the feeling I had after I was recruited based on my passion.  Instead of being asked to do things, people were coming to me for expertise in social media.

6. Now that you have a book out and are doing all this speaking, what's next for you?

I need to unwind a little because I'm very stretched right now and it's probably not healthy.  I have to take a hard look at everything I'm doing and focus on the areas that will help me the most.  I'm also thinking of writing another book for a different age group on the topic of personal branding.  I'll continue speaking to gain more experience and I'll continue to think of new theories and applications, while keeping up-to-date with technology.  I have a plan, sure, but things are so unpredictable that it's hard to be specific.  My end goal with the book (and in life) is to get every college onboard to have a personal branding course.