Notes and thoughts from the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast – Friday, May 4, 2012

Last Friday, I attended the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast event, which was held in Atlanta, GA but simulcast to several hundred locations throughout the United States. Our church, The Crossing, was the chosen location for Columbia, MO. I was pretty impressed with the overall event and wanted to share my notes and thoughts on the overall event. You can find more information about the event, including some of the video highlights, here.

First, I thought the lineup of speakers were pretty impressive – John Maxwell, the dean of leadership thought today, at the head of the list. However, I was also impressed with Andy Stanley, Marcus Buckingham and Patrick Lencioni. I also thought some of the program integration needed some polish. For example, for a professional interviewer, I thought Soledad O’Brien could have rehearsed her interview with NFL player Tim Tebow and Ohio State Football Coach Urban Meyer and delivered a sharper interview.

And while thinking of O’Brien, I also thought it was pretty clear who was a professional speaker. Maxwell, Stanley, Buckingham and Lencioni each delivered their presentations with few, if any, notes and their personalities clearly came through with their material. However, O’Brien spent most of her speaking time reading her speech verbatim from her notes, rarely looking up. While she may have an engaging story, I thought her delivery made it difficult to focus on her message. Perhaps a teleprompter would have helped, but I thought it was clear she is a professional “reader” versus a professional speaker.

Andy Stanley’s Presentation

Stanley had three excellent questions for forcing perspective when making a decision:

1. What would my replacement do? If the Board of Directors replaced me tomorrow, what decision would my replacement make? Am I letting my current perspective get in the way of a great decision? 
2. What would a great leader do? If I aspire to make a great leader someday, what decision would a great leader make today in my position?
3. What story do I want to tell? The decisions I make today is only a story tomorrow-make sure it’s a story worth telling and not a story I’m embarrassed to share. In everything we do, make the decision as if everyone will see everything I see today and don't choose anything that will make you a liar for life or that you will be afraid of telling to your children.

Stanley also shared a story of Truett Cathy, founder of Chick-Fil-A, during an important decision in the history of Chick-Fil-A. While debating how to respond to a competitor’s decision on hyper-growth, CFA had an opportunity to revisit their growth strategy to determine if they should grow faster to meet this competitor head on. Cathy interrupted the debate to state, “If we get better, customers will demand we get bigger.”

Marcus Buckingham’s Presentation

Although I’ve seen Marcus Buckingham a couple of times, I was really impressed by his delivery today. He was engaging and had an extremely effective use of humor in his presentation. I thought his perspective that leadership is idiosyncratic in that the techniques of one leader aren't easily transferred to another was an interesting position. It seems like everyone wants leaders today to conform to leadership norms. He went on to provide his perspective on the seven different types of leadership he captures in his new situational profile tool called Standout. However, while this is an interesting perspective on profiling, he was wrapped by saying there is no perfect profile-only perfect practices that fit your profile. 

My main takeaway from Buckingham’s presentation was the importance of authenticity, which is a leader’s most precious commodity.

John Maxwell’s Presentation

I’ve been reading Maxwell since I was in college and I’m impressed with his level of passion for communicating leadership perspectives and actions. It is clear he is absolutely driven by raising up new leaders and engaging the audience with his leadership message. Maxwell reviewed three leadership laws but started with a story about the importance of establishing a personal growth life plan. Although I created my own life plan in 2001 (perhaps I got the idea from Maxwell?), here is a link to a much better process through Michael Hyatt. Personal growth is a critical component of a life plan.

Maxwell’s Three Leadership Laws for personal growth were:

1. Law of Intentionality - Life and growth require work, a choice and that requires an intention. The only thing certainty in life is death. An important quote was - The choice you make, makes you. The secret to growing is to grow every day. 

The secret of success is dictated by our daily agenda that requires us to be intentional, every day.

2. Law of Awareness – there is a difference between knowing myself and growing myself. I need to understand what is required, what is expected. Also, what gives me the greatest return?

This requires one to focus on our greatest strength, what we do well. We focus on imporing our strengths and not our weaknesses. Focusing on improving our weaknesses makes us average.

Maxwell even talked here about the importance of being a workafrolic, not a workaholic, injecting his humor into his passion.

3. Law of environment-Personal growth thrives in conducive surroundings. 

Conducive surroundings are a place where:

§       Others are ahead of me - I won't be at the head of the class

§       I'm continually challenged

§       My focus is forward (I can't change yesterday for good or bad)

§       The atmosphere is affirming, people want to grow 

§       I am often out of my comfort zone. I'm not wading, I'm swimming. You want to be out if your comfort zone but not out of your strength zone

§       Failure is not my enemy

§       Other people are growing

§       People desire change

§       Growth is modeled and I’m expected to grow

§       We visit places of greatness

Patrick Lencioni’s Presentation

Lencioni’s presentation focused on culture, beginning by saying the most important competitive advantage is free, accessible and virtually untapped in most organizations. This advantage is, of course, culture.

From Lencioni’s perspective, great cultures require both organizational health and organizational intelligence. Most companies focus on intelligence because it's easier to get our arms around. Most MBAs can develop a list of metrics to focus on and measure the organization by. However, Lencioni believes it is  more difficult today to build competitive advantage based on intelligence. Most leadership teams are smart but few are healthy enough to tap into amazing culture. 

In order to develop organizational health through culture, Lencioni believes an organization must embrace four disciplines:

1.    Build cohesive management teams

Great leaders are vulnerable and vulnerability is based in trust. This has to start with the senior leader, who has to be comfortable admitting he/she does not have all the answers. 

2.    Create clarity

Great organizations create the 2-3 things (absolutely NOT 10) that make the org what it is and are culturally intolerant of transgressions against those things. Lencioni gave an example of Herb Keller, the former CEO of Southwest Airlines, who “fired” a customer because they wanted Southwest to change their culture of humor. Since humor is a core value, Kelleher was unwilling to change and let the customer go.

3.    Over-communicate clarity

Once clarity is established, great organizations have leaders who do not get tired of repeating themselves. They don’t more on to the next agenda, they stay true to the organization and clarity of mission, vision, values and strategy.

4.    Reinforce clarity

Great organizations have leaders who reinforce clarity at every opportunity, institutionalizing the culture without bureaucratizing it. 

Great leaders are comfortable doing things that work w the culture 

Great leaders are humble and willing to do things that show their vulnerability

Key Takeaways

I thought this was a well-produced series of presentations overall. I found significant value in at least four of the ten presentations and thought most of the presentations were at least as valuable as the average conference lineup of speakers.

Not coincidentally considering the conference theme, the speakers each focused on leadership, but consistent themes of personal development, culture and personal responsibility weaved through the presentations. Although the afternoon was not quite as good as the morning session, I thought the overall pace of each speaker was good.

Every conference today engages the attendees through social media both before and during the conference and the CFA Leadercast did this as well. I thought perhaps an iPad app that was available for each participant that also included broadcast for later replay and an in-app notes section could improve the experience.