When I was in my late thirties, I lobbied for the opportunity to become chief operating officer of Pepsi’s beverage division in the east—and got the job. I was a little young for the role, but I had a bigger obstacle to overcome: I had almost no operational experience. Up until this point, my career was in marketing. I convinced the CEO and Chairman to take a risk with a risky offer. If I fail to prove myself in six months, I may be fired or demoted. Neither option will help my career.
Why did I feel confident enough to take risks?
I knew something important about myself: I was an active learner. Put me in almost any role or on any team and I will look for sound ideas and ideas wherever I can find them and then combine them with action and execution. This is a habit and mindset I have observed in most of the leaders I admire and learn from throughout my career.
Active learning was critical for me as I did not have the level of formal education that many of my colleagues had. I had a journalism degree from a public school and no Ivy League MBA. And because my father marked latitude and longitude with a USCG crew, I grew up moving from town to town every few months, living in over 30 trailer parks in 23 states until I graduated from high school.
This is where my active learning habits began. When I was in elementary school, my mother worried that moving frequently would harm my education. My teacher in Dodge City, Kansas, Mrs. Anschultz, calmed her down. “David has already been to more places than most of these kids will visit in their lifetime,” she said. “Your son is getting the best education of anyone I know.”
I learned to learn – as much as possible, from as many different people as possible, as quickly as possible. I’ve learned that you never know where the next big idea might come from, and you shouldn’t judge people or the value of their ideas based on their experiences.
As an active learner, I have developed a reputation for solving big problems and transforming teams and brands. This is how I found success as COO, which led me to my future role as CEO of Yum Brands. That’s how I helped grow Yum’s market capitalization from $8 billion to $32 billion during my 17-year tenure. And this is how I make positive changes in people’s lives today.
I developed the vital discipline of learning from anyone, any experience, and any new environment that had something valuable to offer.
For example, the first thing I did in my new role as COO was tour our bottling plants. I knew this was where I would learn about the root causes of our big problems and the best solutions. However, I did not contact the managers. I got up at 5 in the morning and talked with route sellers, sometimes I went with them to meet our clients. I spent hours with people working on assembly lines and in warehouses. “What do we need to do better?” I asked. “What are we doing right?” I learned that our predictions were correct. We were constantly running out of supplies. We couldn’t get the product out of the warehouse fast enough. And morale was low. When I interrogated the plant managers, they said: “How did you know this so quickly?”
I asked. I noticed. I paid attention to the ideas and lessons offered. This discipline, which I applied from the early days of my career as a newbie in marketing, helped me quickly settle into each role and make a positive impact faster. This had a big impact on my career.
One of the dangers of leadership is that as you move into more senior positions, you can lose touch with reality, allow your ego to take over, and stop listening. Given what I sometimes felt was my lack of pedigree, I could fall into this trap. But I have seen leaders like these and how it impacted their teams and their results, so I have continually worked to develop and maintain an open, curious, and humble mind.
I learned to ask better questions that could help me understand the basics, see the world as it really is, expand our capabilities, and clearly define the right actions. For example, if I were worried that we might stagnate or miss an opportunity, I would ask, “If some new leader came in and took over, what would they do?” I would ask my team: “What could we do” instead of “what must we do” to expand your thinking. In challenging situations with other teams or organizations, I have asked, “What would be possible if we built trust first?” We constantly compared ourselves to our competitors and asked the question: “What can we learn from them about how to win?” Questions like these have increased the flow of great ideas in my teams.
For example, I was hired to lead marketing at Pizza Hut, which was then owned by PepsiCo, about 10 years before I started my job as COO. Pizza Hut’s numbers needed help, so we asked one question: “How can we get weekday volumes closer to weekend volumes?” This sparked many of the team’s successful ideas, most notably Kids’ Tuesday Night. Kids received a free personal pizza and a small holiday package when they ordered a regular pizza, giving us weekend-level volumes.
Career step by step I learned by doing what needed to be done or what would make the most difference, such as taking on new challenges, doing difficult things, or doing the right thing. When we learn by doing, we discover ideas that come from doing. Two habits that I have become known for are pursuing joy and recognizing team members who contribute to our success.
We learn more when we experience positive emotions, and I consistently made career decisions that allowed me to do work I loved, with people I loved, achieve great results, and have fun doing it. A few years after I became COO, while I was president of KFC, I was offered the position of president of Frito Lay, and it was a great opportunity. However, I turned it down because I discovered how much I loved the restaurant business. And that decision ultimately led to the opportunity to lead Yum.
At Yum, we developed a culture of recognition from the very beginning. This allowed us to identify the behaviors that would lead to our success, find those behaviors in our teams, demonstrate them throughout the company, and make people feel like their contributions matter and are valued. It has put us on the map, and I attribute much of our incredible growth and success to what we have learned from it from our engaged team members.
Here’s the lesson I eventually learned as I progressed in my career: Active learning is the foundation of virtually every other important leadership habit. When you study with purpose and with the intention of achieving positive results, the result will be greater opportunities for you and the people and teams around you.
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