Culture Rules With Mark Miller, Chick-fil-A

[: 00:04

Hey, there, everybody! Welcome back to Faithful on the Clock, the show where every acorn in the squirrel’s nest has been carefully gathered to get your faith and work aligned. I’m your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and today’s show is super exciting for me to introduce because this will be the first time we’ve had a guest on the show. First time ever. So I’m sharing a conversation I had with Mark Miller. He’s the Vice President of High Performance Leadership at Chick-fil-A, and he has more than 4 decades of experience to share with us. We’ll be talking about his new book, Culture Rules, and outlining how you can build a high performance culture in your own company. So come on, everybody. Let’s see what Mark had to say.

[: 00:51

(Thibodeaux)

All right, so my guest today is Mark Miller of Chick fil A. And so Mark, thank you for joining me. How are you doing today? I'm fantastic. I appreciate the opportunity, Wanda. Awesome. Thank you.

So before we really get into the book today, let — tell me a little bit more about your background and your career, which is, from what I understand, very interesting. So I understand you have 40 years with the company, is that right?

(Miller)

joined the corporate staff in: 1978

(Thibodeaux)

So you, you have definitely, then, seen every side to the culture then, right?

(Miller)

I have. I have indeed.

[: 01:59

(Thibodeaux)

Yeah, that's great. I mean, you've — so, tell me a little bit, like, so what is your perspective now? How is that different from when you first started then?

(Miller)

Wow. My perspective is informed by more than 40 years of experience. And more than 25 years of research, because about 25 years ago, I turned my attention to leadership, the organization asked me to try and help figure out how to accelerate leadership development almost 25 years ago, exactly. And I put together teams of smart people. And we've, we've been doing that for a long time now. And so I would say my perspective has changed through leading people and studying leadership. It's much more complex than I would have thought as a kid, you know, when I was in my teens joining this organization, but I am, I'm amazed at the men and women who do it well. And I'm always thankful to learn from their example.

[: 03:16

(Thibodeaux)

So, when you have been studying this culture for decades now, you know, obviously, you care a lot about it, or you wouldn't be doing the work that you're doing. And you have, I understand you have written a book about it. I've got it right here with me. Culture Rules, everybody. Okay. And so the full title is Culture Rules, the Leader’s Guide to Creating the Ultimate Competitive Advantage. And in the book, you outline what you see as three conditions for high performance culture, which are alignment, performance, and improvement. So could you just talk about those for a couple moments and tell us why they're so important and the role they play?

(Miller)

Well, the way they surfaced in the book is that we were setting up the metaphor of a game. And we said that culture building is the game that we want to help leaders play well. Well, if you look at the rules to a game, the first thing you see is what is the objective? And we said the objective is to build a high performance culture. Well, then the immediate question is, well, what does that look like? And we said, alignment means that you have the majority of people are aligned around the aspiration of the organization. And the more you have aligned, the stronger the culture. The performance piece we felt like might be obvious, but there are a lot of leaders there are far too many leaders who've created a good place to work, but they don't perform well. If you're going to be a high performance culture, you still need a good place to work, but you need those people focused on performance because ultimately greatness hinges on performance. And I say that, that culture is the oil on the hinge, right? So you've got to have performance. And you've got to sustain that over time. And so if you've got alignment, and you've got performance, the unfortunate news is that a lot of leaders think at that point they're done. That's not a high performance culture. Because a high performance culture is also one that the leaders are always working to improve. Because if you don't work to improve it, you'll stagnate or worse, right? Because cultures rarely find themselves in neutral. They're either growing and getting stronger, or they're deteriorating. And so, these are the things we wanted leaders to keep in mind as they began to play the game.

[: 06:04

(Thibodeaux)

So you know, when you're talking about, you know, you always need that performance, you always need to be improving, what would you say, are some of the biggest clues that a leader could look for to say, okay, we need to kind of switch gears and we need to, you know, step up our game here a little bit?

(Miller)

Well, I would point, the leader back to the cultural aspiration, because what you're looking for are gaps. If you say that you want to be customer-centric. How's that going, as an example? If you want to be known for safety or quality? How's that going? So I would say you always look for the gaps as it relates to the aspiration.

[: 06:50

(Thibodeaux)

Okay. So you had tied those three conditions to three rules for your organizational culture to get to an optimal level. And those are, three rules are aspire — that's the first one. And then you have amplify, and then adapt. So can you walk us through those a little bit and just kind of define them? And again, just kind of tell us why those are so, so critical to culture building?

(Miller)

Sure, absolutely. Aspire means to share your hopes and dreams for your culture. And I remember the conversations with our team, we said, do we really have to start there? That feels, at some level, obvious. But we encountered so many leaders who could not clearly, singly articulate their hopes and dreams for their culture. And no culture drifts to greatness, they must be led there. And if you can't articulate it, the chances of you achieving it are going to be pretty close to zero, because it can start in your head and your heart, but it can't stay there. Because you can't create it by yourself. You need others to join you on the journey to make the aspiration a reality. So you have to be able to share it. I tell people, it needs to be clear, simple, and repeatable. That's rule number one. Rule number two is to amplify, that leaders must always be looking for opportunities to amplify the aspiration. There's so much noise in the world. And people are, people are overwhelmed, often with just the day-to-day activities and responsibilities and lack of resources and completing competing priorities and any number of things. If the leaders are amplifying the aspiration, people just won't give it the attention that it deserves or demands. And if people don't put attention on it, it's not going to become the reality of the organization. So aspire, amplify. And then the fourth, the third rule, you already mentioned it but let me offer a cautionary note, this is where a lot of leaders get in trouble, because leaders love to get things done. And we love to check things off the list. And if you have a clear aspiration, and you amplify it well, the culture will begin to move toward that aspiration. If, if you're not diligent, and if you're not vigilant, you'll want to check it off and move to something else, you'll want to move into protection mode, you'll say we got it, let's just preserve it, let's hang on to it. And if you shrink wrap it, you'll suffocate it. You'll kill it. So the third rule, adapt, is for leaders to constantly be looking for ways to enhance the culture.

[: 09:36

Now when you say enhance, I'll give you three quick tips. One, the first thing I encourage leaders to do is look for critical gaps, patterns of unhealthy and unproductive behavior. We call those toxins in the book. Toxins, left unchecked, become a malady that'll kill your organization. If you've got toxins, you got to attack those. Maybe the level of toxic toxicity is not at the point that you need to spring into action. That's great. You still can't move into protection mode. The second place you look is, can you double down on any of your strengths? Can you take something you're already good at, and with intentional effort, get even better? And when you do, you've enhanced your culture. And then third and finally is, you can add new capabilities. I think this one often gets overlooked. We did this a few years back when our senior leaders decided that we needed to be more innovative. And it's not like we're strangers to innovation. Truett Cathy invented the chicken sandwich, that's pretty innovative. But if you looked at our history, we said, our innovation is somewhat sporadic and often emanates from similar places in the organization. What would happen if we enhanced our culture so that it became more of the norm as opposed to the exception? So we set that as part of our aspiration, began to amplify that. And now, 10, 12, 15 years later, we're much more innovative as an organization. That was an example of adapting, enhancing the culture. Aspire, amplify, and adapt.

[: 11:22

(Thibodeaux)

So I just want to repeat real quick what those tips were just for the listeners to make sure that they get that. So we had number one was, look for the gaps or the toxins that are there. Then we had number two, which was double down on your strengths. And number three was add new capabilities. So really, what you're saying is, any one of those, and ideally using all three of those, but any one of those would be a route to kind of get these juices flowing. Right?

(Miller)

Right. That's the adapt. That's the continuous improvement I mentioned in the beginning is, one of the things you want to see in a high performance culture is, they're always working to enhance the culture, they're always working to improve the culture.

[: 12:01

(Thibodeaux)

So, just real quick question here. So I know that there is a mentality sometimes that when you reach the top, you know, you tend to get comfortable. And you kind of think that you are invincible a little bit as a leader. So what can you say, you know, given what you have just said about, you know, how can leaders fight that tendency to make sure that they are constantly improving and that they're adapting the way they should?

(Miller)

Yeah, that's a great question. Well, first, I would, I would say that to adapt well, you must listen well, and that listening can be formal, informal, qualitative, quantitative. But our global research

over the last five or six years, multiple projects have revealed a, an alarming gap between the leader perception and the perceptions of frontline employees. And it is often 40 points. And so I would argue that those leaders, globally, many leaders globally are not listening well, simple questions, such as, we have a great place to work. Well, senior leaders usually score that 40 points higher than frontline people. And so, if you want leaders to continue to improve, I think the more they can stay in touch with the realities and the perceptions of their frontline people, that that should serve as a sufficient catalyst in many, many situations.

[: 13:37

(Thibodeaux)

Do you think that there are any, you know, organizational things that leaders can do to kind of protect them on a further level? Because I think sometimes the hierarchy that we have within business makes it really hard by default, for leaders to kind of get a sense of what's going on within their, their business, like they just don't have time to get on the floor and find out what's going on. So do you have any recommendations to kind of fight that?

(Miller)

Well, again, if you, I mean, I would not take getting on the floor off the table, because I think it's really healthy and really appropriate for leaders to go to the field or get on the floor. But I don't think that's sufficient, even if a leader does that from time to time. I think that, I'll go back to the listening. But I would, I would say, more than the informal, that you, you need to supplement that with formal listening mechanisms, whether it be surveys, focus groups, any of those mechanisms that are always-on listening posts, should, should help a leader who's, who's really, really busy.

(Thibodeaux)

Yeah, and I can definitely understand that because at some point, you know, it just becomes impractical, you know, for the leader to be everywhere all at once. And I think those formal mechanisms that you're talking about are really the only way that you get a sense of the big picture of the business. That's the only way that you can do it. Would you agree?

(Miller)

I agree. I agree. I agree.

[: 15:10

(Thibodeaux)

. So, for example, you cite a: 1992

So, and there was another study from LSA global of 410 companies, I believe it was, that found that really strong cultures had a 58%, faster revenue growth and 72% more profitability. So there is really this strong business case to make that you've got to work on the culture. And I think we're kind of getting there. But you also say, like, we were talking about this gap in perception that, you know, 85% of executives will say that they thought that they were living their purpose, and just 15% of the frontline workers and lower-level managers would say the same thing. So, there's definitely this, again, this evidence of a gap there. So, based on your experience, you know, everything that you've seen over your 40 years in the industry, what do you think is the biggest hurdle that's causing that gap? You know, we know that it's there. And we talked a little bit about the organizational side of it. But is it you know, leaders having their own egos? Is it just that the leaders don't have the data? You know, what, what's contributing to all of this?

(Miller)

That is a huge question. We probably need a few days to unpack that. And I'm not a psychologist, and I want to be very careful. I try not to pretend that I'm a psychologist. There is an unacceptable gap, as we just discussed. And it even extends, let me take just a slight detour, it extends beyond what the data, third party data would indicate. When we ask leaders about culture, in the U.S., 72% of leaders say it's the most powerful tool at their disposal to drive performance. But when you ask them to rank their priorities, it comes in at number 12.

So, so the, the — there are so many questions, including the ones you just asked. And that's really why we did this book in the fashion that we did. We said, we want to help close that knowing-doing gap. And one way to do that is to make culture more approachable, more accessible, and more actionable, which is why we came up with aspire, amplify, and adapt. Because I think for many leaders, culture is too squishy. They don't think of it as strategic, but they don't know what to do with it. I mean, it's actually complicated. My hat's off to the team that helped us do this work over the last several years, because I think we really have captured the essence of it. So, roundabout way to say, I think one reason leaders don't invest more time, energy, and effort on culture is they don't know what to do. And so we were, we were actually trying to answer that question. The second reason is, they tend to over-inflate the health, vitality of their culture. Right? It's not as good as they think it is. If, if you're a B, if you think you're an A minus, or B student, and you're really a D student, you're probably not studying extra. So there's some grade inflation on one side, and even those that want to work on it, I would argue, don't know what to do.

(Thibodeaux)

That I think ties back really nicely to what you had said about the listening aspect. Because if you are not listening, you're going to have this warped perception of what the health of the organization is, I think.

(Miller)

Yeah, I think absolutely true. And it's, it's maybe it's not even today's performance, but it's the potential that leaders may lose sight of, I think the world is full of mediocre organizations. And that's, that's a function of leadership, or lack thereof.

(Thibodeaux)

Sure. Well, I mean, again, to connect it back to the book, I think, you know, we have a lot of organizations that are not doing well, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't, right, if they pay attention to these things that, that, you know, it is possible for them to do it, but it has to be an intentional choice, right, to make sure that you are looking, that — just like we take all kinds of metrics, right? And we give it that, that attention, but we need to be doing the same thing with the culture.

(Miller)

So let me mention one more reason. And I don't have data to support this. I want to be very clear, but you asked for my judgment and my opinion on this. And it, and it comes to mind when you talk about the intentionality required. So many leaders are attempting to lead from the quicksand.

You can't lead well from quicksand. And tragically, you can't help others escape the quicksand, because you're in it with them. So, I would speculate that if a leader is in quicksand, so are the people around them. And so I'll put in a shameless plug for my last book called Smart Leadership, which was about helping leaders get out of quicksand, because these culture rules are going to be irrelevant to the leader who's fighting for survival. They, they won't have the bandwidth, the mindshare, the discretionary time, energy, and effort to even think about and apply these simple rules if they're trying to stay afloat in the quicksand.

(Thibodeaux)

Right, you got to get your footing first, right before you can move forward.

(Miller)

Yes.

(Thibodeaux)

That makes perfect sense to me. I mean, it's, it seems so simple, right? But when you stop and think about it, I mean, think about how many people flounder, and can't get their footing, you know, I mean, and so again, that is real work. And you have to make sure that you are intentional about making sure that you don't leave that by the wayside and try and get out of the gate too quickly. Because otherwise, you're not, you're only going to take a couple steps, and you're not going to go anywhere.

(Miller)

Right.

[: 22:02

(Thibodeaux)

So with all this experience that you have acquired over the years, what would you say would be the biggest thing that you have learned about leadership that you'd really like to see, you know, younger leaders, or just general workers who are getting into the game, what do you want to see them understand and put into practice the most?

(Miller)

Your capacity to grow, determines your capacity to lead. Your capacity to grow, determines your capacity to lead. If you'll keep growing, you can increase your influence, you can increase your opportunity, you can increase your impact. And typically, income will, will follow. But if you can't grow, then you're, you're limiting yourself. Now, the good news is I think we all can. I think it's it's fundamentally a choice. But I would, I would suggest to young leaders, make a commitment to lifelong learning. It's the only, it's the only path to increasing influence, impact, and opportunity. It’s the only path.

[: 23:17

(Thibodeaux)

Right. So, if you can think back when you just started out, right, based on what you had just said, would you — what advice would you give to people, like, maybe they don't know what to learn? Maybe they don't know what direction to grow in? What would you say to that?

(Miller)

I'd say to start growing your leadership. I mean, I'm talking this is advice to young leaders. And you can listen to podcasts, you can listen to audiobooks, you can find a mentor,

any, any, any number of avenues, and you may not be able to narrow it early. But there is so much material out there on the topic of leadership. Most of it won't hurt you. Some of it's a bit misguided, but most of it won't hurt you. And as you grow and mature, you'll begin to understand your strengths and weaknesses. And as you try to close those critical gaps, you'll find mentors and resources and courses online and other things. You'll find those things to close critical gaps. And then you'll reach a point, I hope, in your career when you don't have critical gaps in leadership. And then I would encourage them to look for ways to leverage their strengths within the domain of leadership. I think, I think that's, that's how you do it. One day at a time.

[: 24:43

(Thibodeaux)

And so, I have to let you go pretty soon here. But obviously, you know, Faithful on the Clock. This is a Christian podcast. And so our whole goal here is to make sure that people are living their faith-oriented values as best they can. Because the idea is, when there is a conflict between what you believe and what your work is, which you spend, you know, 90% of the day at work, right? There's always going to be this really stressful conflict that you have, and I just want to try and help people eliminate that. So that is the goal of the podcast. Regardless of whatever you believe, you know, this is a Christian-centered one. But that, that concept I think applies to any religion that you might follow. So I think it's hard to balance those two sides. So if you could, if you could speak to anybody out there who's trying to operate from a more Christian angle, is there any kind of guiding value or insight from scripture or even another text that you lean on as a backbone for what you do that you think might be helpful?

(Miller)

think about leadership. Psalm: 78:72

that's the, that's the verse that, again, provides the, the overarching framework for the way I think about leadership. Leadership character, and leadership skills. And both are critical.

(Thibodeaux)

That's, I love that. Because if you know anything about me, you know that integrity is one of the core things that I keep coming back to over and over. To me, if you don't have that, if, like you said, if it's if your heart is not in the right place, everything else is kind of sprinkles, like you can't, you know, I mean, like you have no substance to what you are doing. So, I really appreciate that.

(Miller)

But let me say this, and I don't know, take this half a step further. I think that's critical. But I also want the leaders that I follow, yes, they need integrity, but they need skills. You probably know people with integrity that couldn't lead themselves out of a room. Well, they're great people. So, it, to me, it's yes. And yes, you got to have both. Peter Drucker said years ago, the quality of character doesn't make the leader, but the absence flaws the entire process. You gotta have character or the process is flawed. But it's not just character. It’s character and skill, which is why I love that description of David. That he shepherded them with integrity of heart and with skillful hands, he led them.

[: 29:02

(Thibodeaux)

Yeah, that is a beautiful note for us to end on so we can wrap this up here. So listeners, we, once again, Mark's book is called Culture Rules, the Leader’s Guide to Creating the Ultimate Competitive Advantage. I definitely want to recommend that. I'll leave a link in the show notes for you. So, if you want to check that out, definitely do that. You can also check out the other book that he mentioned. All of them are worthwhile, I promise. Okay, so, next episode, I've got something really special for you. I'm going to try to really get your brains moving, because it's about how to tell if somebody is trustworthy. So join me for that, next two weeks and I will see you then. Take care, everybody.