Jim Mellado - Well, welcome everyone to this month's edition of the Willow  Creek Association monthly webcast. So glad that you carved out some time to  be with us, and I think by the end of our time, I think you'll be glad you did before I introduce our fantastic speaker or guest, actually just wanted to let you know a  little bit of why we do these things. It's to help you and your leadership and  management. We want to tackle a leadership issue or a management issue,  invite some subject matter experts to come in and talk about that, and hopefully  all of our leadership will improve as a result and along the way, we want it to be  a conversation. So there's a place at the bottom of your screen where you can,  kind of chat interact with the others that are kind of tuning in, and also along the  way, on the right hand side of your screen, there's going to be some polls that  pop up every once in a while. If you'll go ahead and answer those, it'll give you a sense of the perspective and point of view of the other people that are tuning in  on the webcast as well, also in the chat space. If you have some questions, go  ahead and put those in that chat space. We'll collect those. Our team will look at those, serve them up to me, and then at the end of our time, I'll be able to ask  our guest some of those questions. We'll be able to interact on those so let me  introduce our guest. His name is Mark Miller. He's been a friend to me and this  ministry for almost two decades now. He has helped us in so many ways. He's  given us counsel, advice. He's been a volunteer leader in in many different roles over the years. We're very grateful to him, but his job is actually working for  Chick fil A. This is Mark Miller, and Mark you worked, started working for Chick fil A as an hourly employee in 1977 right? That's correct. And you kind of worked  your way from there to the warehouse and then up into the corporate office and  communication, training and development. And now I love your title. It's VP of  Corporate effectiveness.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Yes, sir. That's a new role. Just recently, did a reorganization.  We're trying to figure out how to help prepare the business for the growth that  we see in the next decade. And so we've dedicated a team of basically internal  consultants to help respond and hopefully proactively prepare the way.  

Jim Mellado - Yeah, well, I know that the subject matter of leadership is very  near and dear to your heart. And I know that most of you probably know Chick fil A is kind of the originator of the chicken sandwich and committed to customer  service and excellence. What you may not know is that Chick fil A is passionate  about leadership development, and this guy right here, Mark Miller has, probably more than anyone I know, has helped craft, Hone, define and help implement  the culture of leadership development inside of Chick fil A. And so that's going to be a subject matter of what we're going to talk about today. But if you wanted to  also get in touch with a lot of his thoughts about leadership, want to let you know about his website. It's greatleaderserve.org, go to that website, you'll be able to 

kind of keep up to speed with the latest of what he is thinking about leadership  development. I think you post at least three blogs a week on there, so lots of  great content. So let's start out before we get into some questions about how  Chick fil A does leadership development, let's talk about you a little bit. Okay,  when was the first time that you started to sense that maybe I'm a leader and  maybe I ought to pay attention to leadership? Well,  

Mark Miller Jr. - it actually goes way back. I think I was in the fourth grade, and I was the catcher on our baseball team, and I didn't know anything about being a  catcher. I mean, I was basically drafted to be the catcher, and so I literally went  

to the library and I got a book by Johnny Bench on how to be a catcher. And  that's my first recollection of the potential, the prospect, that I might be a leader,  because Johnny's point of view was the catcher is the leader on the field. Now  you might have some pitchers that would argue with you over that, but And so I  began to look for opportunities to serve my team in that capacity. His point was,  the catcher's the only one that can see the entire field right, and the catcher can  can designate a cut off man or where a throw should go, and actually provide on field leadership. And so as a fourth grader, I started trying to learn about how to  better serve my team.  

Jim Mellado - Wow, fantastic. So then, and then I think others started to  observe and notice that you did have some leadership gifts and abilities, and I  think that was kind of why you started being noticed and started kind of moving  up the ranks of Chick fil A  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, perhaps when I worked in the restaurant, I actually  struggled. I wasn't a great team member. Did the best I could, but just don't do  well with my hands. And so it was not until I got to the corporate office that you  could argue someone said this, young man. May have leadership potential, but I don't think it was because of that. I think it was because I was just willing to work hard. And I say that because I was working a full time job and I was going to  school, taking 20 hours a quarter at night, trying to finish my degree, and I was  asked to work on some additional project work, and I explained to them that I  was working full time, and I was going to school four nights a week, and they  said, Well, what are you doing after you finish school? And so I would come  back at 11 or 11:30 at night and work on these projects, because these were  extracurricular projects, and so, more so than being recognized for my  leadership potential, I think somebody said, Hey, this kid's willing to work hard.  And I think that has opened some doors and created some opportunities, but I'm not sure how much leadership they saw me, in me when I was 19, but I was  willing to put in the energy and the effort. 

Jim Mellado - Well, nonetheless, you have been involved in really helping craft  and hone and design Chick Fil A's leadership perspective, and what did you  notice along the way, as kind of as as this, the need for leadership grew inside of Chick fil A, you began to observe some things talk to us about the evolution of  leadership development inside of Chick fil A as it has grown unbelievably. I  mean, from, you know, 1977 to today, it's unprecedented amount of growth in  that period of  

Mark Miller Jr. - time. Yes, and I think one of the things I noticed was that the  world was changing. I was the 16th corporate employee, and so leadership  development back in the day is what we now refer to as immersion and  osmosis, and at a certain scope and scale that actually can work. But as the  organization began to grow. We began to see cracks, as I refer to them. We had leadership opportunities, and we had looked to the to the leadership bench, and  there wasn't anyone ready. And so it was about the year 2000 when we said we  need to accelerate leadership development. And I think that was a defining  moment for us. I say that began the modern era of leadership development at  Chick fil A, not that we hadn't developed leaders prior to that, but it had been  very organic, and we felt like we needed to be a little more intentional. And so  that began a journey to answer the question, how can we accelerate leadership  development? And that journey is one we're still on today.  

Jim Mellado - Well, and Mark just so we get a sense of scale, how many  employees are there at Chick fil A today?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, corporate, we have 1000 but we have 1700 restaurants  and about 70,000 employees. But those 70,000 employees are not corporate  employees. They're employed by those independent operators. But all in all,  we've got over 70,000 folks in the enterprise. Annual budget revenue, about 4  billion in sales this last year. So pretty that's a lot of chicken. Yeah, it's a lot of  chicken.  

Jim Mellado - What were some of the things that you began when you said  cracks? What was one of the most significant cracks that you began to detect as you started to look at, how do we do leadership in a more intentional way would  scale.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, the first thing we realized was that we didn't have a  common language. We didn't have a common definition. When three or four  leaders would be seated around a table talking about leadership, what we  discovered is they had, in many instances, fundamentally different definitions,  and we saw that as a huge impediment to accelerating leadership development, 

because if we define it differently, it raises questions about, who do you recruit,  and who do you select, and how do you train them? How do you develop them?  Who do you recognize? Who do you promote? And we really ran into it when we started trying to move leaders across the organization. And one function would  say, Well, I've got a leader who's ready for that opportunity, and the receiving  department would say, we don't think that person has any leadership in them at  all. Like, well, whoa, wait a minute. I think they're a leader. Well, I don't think  they're a leader. Well, how do you define leadership? Well, how do you define  leadership? And we found out in the process that we couldn't accelerate  something we couldn't define  

Jim Mellado - Yeah. In fact, I would say Mark from the majority of churches,  organizations that I run into, very few of them actually have put a stake in the  ground and said this is, in fact, what we mean when we say a good leader, or  what leadership means. This is what we  

Mark Miller Jr. - mean. Well, let me tell you one other reason it's so important is  because each and every one of those leaders is correct in their own definition.  We discovered in our research that there are over 6000 published definitions of  leadership. So it's not that anyone is wrong, it's just that some of those  definitions lead you down a different path regarding the talents and skills that  you bring to the table, and how you develop those and how you deploy those.  And so we just felt like that was critical. One of the things I asked leaders to do  from time to time is to pass out a three by five card and get everybody to write  your definition of leadership and then be prepared and repeat the process until  everybody's answer is the same, and that may take months. It took us a couple  of years to figure it out. Now I tell people one reason we were so slow is we sell  chicken. We're not leadership development experts. Yes, but we spent a couple  of years trying to answer that question, what do we want leadership to look like  in our organization, right?  

Jim Mellado - And so you said, two year process trying to come up with what is  Chick Fil A's definition of leadership development. Tell us about that. What?  What did you guys end up deciding this is what leadership looks like in our in  our world? Okay,  

Mark Miller Jr. - I'll give you two parts to that answer. To start with, there's a  picture. We felt like a picture would help us to talk to people about leadership,  and we actually chose the image of an iceberg, and we think it's the perfect  metaphor for leadership. If you think back to fifth grade, and some have more  trouble doing that than others, but think back, you probably studied icebergs,  and you would know that about 10 to 15% of the iceberg is above the waterline. 

Well, that means 85-90% is below the waterline. We think that's true about  leadership. We think that 80 to 90% below the waterline is the character of the  leader, and we think that which is above the waterline are the skills of a leader.  And so this really helped us, because we had been engaged in a debate, and I  run into it still from time to time, there are those folks that think leadership is all  about character. Well, actually, I just don't think that's right. And I think I can  prove it to you if you think about someone you know with impeccable character  who couldn't lead themselves out of a room. It's not a character issue, it's they  don't have the skills of leadership. now. There are also people who believe  leadership is all about skills. Well, I think that's an equally flawed position,  because you can probably think of someone you know who has the skills of  leadership that you would choose not to follow, and you would choose not to  follow them, not because of a skill deficit, but because you have questions about their character. Yeah. So for us that that has been a very helpful picture as we  think about leadership, that it is about character and skills, the way Drucker says it is, the quality of character does not make the leader, but the absence flaws the entire process. So we're saying it's about both. Now, I presented this idea to a  group several years ago. It's one of the first times I'd ever done the iceberg, and  I had somebody who jumped right in and said, That's Biblical. Now I love group  participation. It can be a little disconcerting in a large group, as you can imagine, but I didn't even really want to go there, so I kind of said, well, I believe all truth  is God's truth. And I kind of turned away from that section of the room, and the  person shouted out, you're not listening. Well, at this point, they've got my  attention and the entire audience, so I've got to actually go find this Heckler and  try to deal with this situation. And so I said, Sir, well, I'm trying to listen. Is there  something specific you'd like to share with us? He said, I'm telling you, it's in the  Bible. Well, I've read most of the Bible, and I'm scrolling as fast as I can,  thinking, iceberg, iceberg, iceberg. I mean, where is this guy getting a verse  about an iceberg. So I said, Is there a particular verse you'd like to share with  us? And he said, Yes. He said, Psalm 78:72 and he stopped. Well, I panicked,  because it was clear he expected me to know what that said. And I said, Sir, I  need to apologize to you and to the entire audience. I don't have all the Psalms  committed to memory. And I'm guessing there's somebody else here who  doesn't as well. Would you tell us what that says? And he said, it's about King  David, and it says he shepherded his people with integrity of heart and with  skillful hands. He led them. And that's become our prayer, is that we can raise  up a generation of leaders with integrity of heart, that sounds a lot like character, and with skillful hands, he led them. Yeah. So our macro picture of leadership is, it's it's about character and skills.  

Jim Mellado - But now, when I because I've looked at your definition of  leadership, and we're going to go through that here in a minute, but when I 

looked at that definition of leadership. You just talked about character being the  85-90% is career, yes, but I look at that and I don't see character listed there. So if it's that important, then how are you dealing with the character side of this  thing at Chick fil A? If your definition doesn't include  

Mark Miller Jr. - it, it's interesting. You mentioned that because we get that  question often, and it actually caught us by surprise in the beginning. Quite  candidly, our response was, oh, well, you select for that. And the feedback we  got from the marketplace specifically is, not everybody selects for that, right?  But we're trying to select for character. And somebody said, Yeah, but can't you  transform and reform and reclaim and shape character. And I say, Sure, it's  called parenting, and re parenting is just messy, and they're, thankfully, they're  professionals who do that, and they're pastors and ministers and psychologists  and others and counselors, and they're in the character reformation business,  but we're in the chicken business, and so we've said we're going to work  diligently to select for character, therefore we'll focus our time, energy and effort  on helping men and women develop the skills. That's why our definition is a  working, behaviorally based definition. We are making the assumption that  we've selected folks  

Jim Mellado - based on character. In the selection process, you can't tell  character right away. You see the tip of the iceberg, not what's below the water.  So how easy is it to get hired at Chick fil A, if you're hiring for character?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, I think it's I think it's challenging. We actually borrowed  your model that we're looking for character, competence and chemistry. We just  start with character, and I don't know how others discern that. We do it by talking to people, and we talk to them a lot, and people have lots of interviews over a  prolonged period of time, and we are, in fact, trying to discern those questions of character. When you say a long period of time, what might be, what like six  months, two months, two weeks, at least, at least six months, six months? Well,  some longer, some longer than six months, four interviews, 10 interviews, six, 8, 10, 12, 15, yeah, I remember, and I'm not advocating now. I mean, I'm just  saying we're kind of over the top. But the first  

Jim Mellado - time I had this conversation with you, and I said, Well, tell me  about your leadership development process. And you said, Well, you know,  truthfully, like almost three quarters of it like 75% of it is in selection, right  selecting the right people. Now you can improve their skills, but, man, the  selection process is so significant, and that's affected us here at Willow Creek,  we're I remember I was talking to Bill the other day, and he was referring to a  meeting that he had with some recently, newly hired people, and they were 

joking with each other about how many interviews they had to go through. One  guy was saying, Oh, I topped that. I had over 20 interviews. So, I mean, that's  unbelievable in terms of the amount of conversations that it takes, because  there's not a there's not something you can tell right away, right, what  someone's character is like, all right? So we'll talk more. We'll get back into that  in just a minute. Okay, well, let's before we get into the definition of leadership.  Here, what I'd like to encourage all of you to do is to think of a leadership  challenge that you're dealing with right now, and as we go through the different  steps of leadership or the different angles of definition practices, there you go, of leadership. Try to apply them to a particular issue that you have in mind. So I  just want to challenge you to put that in your mind right now as you think about  that issue, kind of let these different leadership practices speak into that okay,  yeah.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Can I underscore that I believe that whether or not the next 20- 25 minutes have value or not hinge primarily on whether or not the participants  do this, because I'm not excited about sharing content for content sake. I'm  excited about helping leaders take a positive step forward. And so I think if you'll  articulate that challenge, it'll actually give you a backdrop with which to hear  these ideas and against which to hear these ideas. I think that's a pretty  important part of what we're going to do here this  

Jim Mellado - morning. Very cool. And so in your two year research, you ended  up landing on five behaviors, five practices. That's correct. These are the things  that great leaders inside of Chick fil A do. And so let's talk about those. What's  the first one?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Okay, well, let me say this. We ended up with hundreds,  probably over 1000 things that leaders do, which was actually quite frustrating  for us as a team as we worked on this, but we were able to distill that down to  these critical few practices. And we believe the first one is that great leaders see the future. I mean, this is really about vision. This is when you articulate for  people, what is it we're trying to achieve? What is it we're trying to become?  What is it we're trying to accomplish? Why does this matter? And we think that's, I mean, leadership always begins with a picture of the future. Yeah, and  

Jim Mellado - Bill Hybels has actually talked about the precursor to seeing the  future and a vision is, in fact, what he called, in kind of the church world holy  discontent, that the precursor to seeing a better way is being so uncomfortable  with the way things are today, that you begin to believe, and you begin to see a  vision for how it could be better in the future. And then out of that comes a deep  seated conviction that there must be a better way now. That could be a grand 

vision about it's not right that the church is not doing X and needs to do X, and  it's big and grand and all that. But it could also be as simple as our organization  stinks at leading team, at leading meetings. We don't know how to lead  meetings. You know how to facilitate them. We really are bad at that. So the  Holy discontent, or could be as simple as that, and then you start to out of that,  starts to emerge a vision and for those that have leadership gifts and abilities,  it's living in that discomfort that begins to emerge a point of view about a better  and more preferred future. That's that first one seeing  

Mark Miller Jr. - absolutely the only thing I would add to that is often things don't have to be terrible. They can be but a leader can see a better future, even if  things are good. So yes, but it's still it's a discontent. It may be discontent  because things are terrible, or it may be a discontent because there's a gap  between where we are and the potential good and great and the opportunities  the Good to Great scenario. So yeah, it could be a turnaround situation, or it  could be we can just be better. We can do better. We can accomplish more of  our redemptive potential as you guys talk  

Jim Mellado - about, well, talk about how that, because Chick fil A is a great  company, you guys could just sit on your laurels and just so what's the preferred future that's emerging at Chick fil A? You guys are a great company, good  company, growing unprecedented, all of that. How are you guys continuing to  find a well future?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, I think, I think it's probably rooted in our corporate  purpose, which is to glorify God by being a faithful steward of all this entrusted  to us and to have a positive influence on everyone who comes in contact with  Chick fil A. So if, if you articulate a purpose like that, it's hard to become  complacent. Now, we still have to fight it. I'm not saying it's a gimme. I mean,  people get comfortable. Things start working. If you're not careful, you'll move  into let's play defense versus let's play offense. But with an organization  grounded in that purpose, I find it easier to push forward than an organization  that says we're going to do whatever, some other financial metric or something  that's important, but it's not to glorify God, faithful stewardship, positive  influence. When are you finished being a good steward? When are you finished  having a positive influence? So I think that helps us stay motivated, cool.. 

Jim Mellado - What's the second practice?  

Mark Miller Jr. - The second practice is great leaders, engage and develop  others, and we actually started talking about engagement before it was cool. I  mean, it's become cool recently, and we're excited, and we're glad our definition 

actually has two parts. The first part you referenced earlier this is, who do you  recruit? Who do you select, who do you invite to join you on your team? And we  take that very, very seriously. People often ask me if I can defend that. And I  said, Well, I don't know if a 96-97% retention is a defense or not, but our  corporate retention rate hovers in that range, as does the retention rate with our  restaurant operators. But  

Jim Mellado - rather, seem amazing to me, yes, in the quick serve industry to  have a 97% retention at the operator level. Yes, those are  

Mark Miller Jr. - the men and women that run the restaurants and so again, I  don't know if that's an adequate defense or not, but I think rather than defend it,  I'd like to take a quick story to try and explain it. Peter Drucker, in one of his last  public appearances, opened the floor to questions after his prepared remarks  were completed, and it was kind of an awkward moment. I mean, I guess if  you've got a chance to ask the world's leading authority on anything a question,  you want to ask a thoughtful question, it was like no one was prepared. And  finally, one brave young man stood up and he said, Dr Drucker, what's the most  important decision that a leader makes? Well, the awkwardness that had been  present was now superseded by the new level of awkwardness. Because I  guess if you're the world's leading authority on anything, you want to give a  thoughtful response, and it was as if no one had ever asked Dr Drucker that  question before. So he just kind of sat there. He was so old at the time, he  couldn't even stand up to make presentations. He was seated to begin with, and he kind of, he kind of bowed his head and closed his eyes and began to to think  about this question. He sat there so long that they thought he died. I mean, they  were really somebody was about to go poke him. It was like, Should we call 911, well, somebody needs to go check on him. I mean, he sat there that long, and  then finally he began to straighten up. And you could kind of feel it in the room.  It's like, he's going to speak. He said this, who does what? Now, I've thought  about that a lot. You think about the most important decision a leader makes. So so our explanation for why we're so diligent on selection is we believe Dr  Drucker, we don't think there's a more important decision. I mean, think about all the times that you've had to deal with issues because you missed that. Who  does what. And so that's, again, not even a justification, but I think it's an  explanation for why we spend so much time, energy and effort on selection. And I think that is, that is fundamentally why we've been successful, because we  we've developed the ability, over time, working together, to do that well, we think it's far too important for a single person. I mean, that's a team effort, that we  make those decisions, and then quickly the second half of engagement is when  you and I as leaders create the right context. An environment so that people can willingly invest themselves fully. This is, you know, you think about somebody 

their first day at work, how excited they are, we ask the question, how excited  are they six months and six years later? And if they're not, we look at the leaders and go, What have you done to create an engaging environment? And we  spend a lot of time and energy on that we think the best leaders  

Jim Mellado - do, wow. Now a huge skill that's a part of that you guys have  identified as listening. So unpack why listening is such a key part in this.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, I think one, it aids in discernment when you're trying to  make the first part of that engagement decision you're trying to decide, who do  you need to invite to join you. You've got to listen to what is said, and you've got  to listen to what is not said. You've got to ask great questions. And so listening is one of those core skills that helps you engage the right people to begin with.  Then when you move into this other phase or facet of engagement, which  actually is more challenging, I believe, and more time consuming, is creating the right context. There are some generic things that every human being needs in a  work context, things like clear expectations and boundaries and encouragement  and resources, and those things lift engagement. But the reason listening is so  important is that people value those things differently recognition as an example, different people value different forms and types of recognition. So think you've  got to listen to discern those things so that you can create not just the most  engaging workforce generically, but that you can create the most engaging  context for individuals, and if you don't listen, you'll you'll miss all that.  

Jim Mellado - Wow. So see the future, engage, develop others. What's the third  the  

Mark Miller Jr. - third practice is reinvent continuously. And unfortunately, that  sounds like a buzz word from the 80s, but we think it captures pretty well the  essence of what we're talking about when we describe this to our leaders, we've given them three hooks. And this is not exhaustive, but three hooks to think  about this. The first arena of reinvention is self. What are you doing to continue  learning and growing? It's kind of the speed of the leader, speed of the team. So you've got to be reinventing yourself. Second, you've got to be reinventing the  systems and work processes. We tell our folks, hope is not a strategy. I mean,  hope is a wonderful thing, but you don't hope for more sales or hope for better  cost control or hope for better retention or hope for better quality. It's like no you  the systems and processes that you have in place are creating a certain output  or outcome. We learned this from our engineering friends, and unless you're  willing to change input or process, you're not going to change output. So we're  telling leaders that you've got to be willing to reinvent the systems and work  processes. And third and finally, you've got to be willing to reinvent the structure 

as needed. Structure should enable, not inhibit. So if it's really hard to get the  work done, or things are falling through the crack, doesn't mean you've got a  structure problem, but it's one of the places you need to take a look, because  

that's what structure is supposed to do. Yeah? It's make things easier. Yeah? So that's what reinvention means to us at a kind of a high level.  

Jim Mellado - You know? Now that other word was continually. Reinvent.  Continually. Yes. Can you do too much of that?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, I think I think judgment is always part of the equation. I  think leaders have to be discerning. One of the things we've learned from the  TQM world is that focus is very important, and so can you do too much of it? I  

have seen many instances where leaders tried to reinvent too much at one time, and you dilute your energy and your effort, and you just don't get the traction  that you need. I have yet to see an organization that is focused in their  reinvention efforts that does it too much, because once they solve one problem,  they move on to another and to another and to another. And I think there's  always a problem, even if the problem is, how do we keep getting better? Yeah,  so, there's an ever present  

Jim Mellado - problem. Yeah, so, and I remember, even in Jim Collins's  research, when he looked at the organizations that were that truly great  organization that differentiated themselves, it, in fact, in many of these  industries, wasn't the most innovative, right? It was the organization that  innovated enough, right? That innovated at the right level for their industry. And I mean, zero's not the right answer, but changing everything all the time, there's  nothing solid that people can stand on and count on, you know, preserve the  core part of it that doesn't work  

Mark Miller Jr. - either. That's back to judgment, right? That's back to judgment.  Yeah, sure. Okay, next one, the fourth one value results and relationships. And  this is the one that is most difficult for me as a leader, is most difficult for us as  an organization. And based on the leaders I've interacted with around the world,  I think this is the most difficult for most leaders. Now I've got some unscientific  research based on my conversations with leaders around the world, about 95%  of the leaders struggle with this. About 5% don't, and I don't. Like them, because God made this easy for them. But here's the essence of it, most of us as leaders have a natural bias. We are either more results oriented or we are more  relationship oriented. What we've discovered is the best leaders value both, but  the majority don't do that naturally. They have to compensate, and we challenge  our leaders. We're not trying to change you. We're gonna give God the benefit of the doubt. We're gonna assume he knew what he was doing when he made us 

and when he wired us. But we still observe the best leaders value both. So does that mean 95% of the leaders can't reach their full leadership potential? We  think not. We think what it means is you learn to compensate. I often use the  example of reading glasses. I don't think that makes a leader a lesser leader. I  think that makes a leader a wise leader, because he or she has said, I'm going  to do this to compensate for something I don't do naturally well. So we just tell  our leaders, you've got to own your bias, and you've got to find ways to  

Jim Mellado - compensate. How about you personally? Which side do you lean  more?  

Mark Miller Jr. - I'm more results oriented. How have you compensated? I'm  always compensating. Always looking for ways to compensate. Give you just a  couple of examples. One is, I think you need to bring one option for leaders to  consider, is to bring people around you who have a different orientation. If you're results oriented, you bring some relationship oriented leaders around you.  Another random example from my life is I set a goal a few years ago to write  250 notes of thanks and appreciation and encouragement. So I actually took this relationship activity, made it a goal, put it in my plan, and tracked it so I could, in  my brain, twist it into a result, so that I could do that. Now, the relationship  oriented people in the audience are kind of freaking out, but all the results  oriented leaders are going, that's a pretty good idea, right? That one. So you  just, you just got to figure out how you need to compensate and what you need  to do. I got one idea from Bill years ago, and I may have taken a little out of  context. I want to give him credit, but also give that bit of grace. He was talking  about how to be more relational. He wasn't talking about it in this context. And  he said he asked himself the question from time to time, what would a great  relationally oriented leader do? He said, ideas always come to mind, and  sometimes he does those things. So I ask that question from time to time, what  would a great relationship oriented leader do? I can almost always come up with ideas, and from time to time, I will act on those things. So that's another way that I'm compensated,  

Jim Mellado - actually affected where you had your office positioned.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Yes, we were building out some new space for a number of  reasons. I won't go into. The architect had said that a particular space needed to be my office. And it was actually a very, very lovely office, about 40 feet of glass. You know, it was beautiful. It's on the corner, overlooking the creek. It was, it  was spectacular. But I told him, I didn't, I didn't think I could do that because it  was very close to the steps in the elevator, and my fear is that I would have  come down the steps or off the elevator and gone straight to my office. And I 

said, my staff is on this floor, scattered out as far as you can see. I said, I'd  rather have my office on the other end of this floor, so when I come down the  elevator or down the steps, I would at least have to move through the people to  get to my office, because that would be an ever present reminder that my staff is there and they have hopes and dreams and needs and concerns, and it would  give me at least an opportunity several times a day to connect with them, if not  deeply, at least to acknowledge their presence And glad you're back from  maternity leave and how's your son, who's sick, I think I would have missed all  that because of my bias. I would have been in a hurry. I would, you know, I  would have, I would have missed that because of the physical location. So that  was one way that I chose to compensate. Well,  

Jim Mellado - I love the way that you guys proactively talk about relationships  and results, because it makes it like it gives permission for leaders to talk to  other leaders about it. Because some of the most challenging is when you as a  leader, have leaders under you that, let's say, are awesome at results, and they  beat people up. And so this makes it like legal, hey, we're going to talk about  this. You're a results person, wonderful. You're killing your people. Terrible. That  continues. You're not gonna be able to be here. But  

Mark Miller Jr. - yeah, it's not only legal. What we say, it's a new and broader  definition of success. If you just get results, you can still fail as a leader. And if  you just have relationships and don't get results, you can fail as a leader. It's Jim Collins talks about the genius of the and from his first research study those  organizations that found a way to embrace two things that are, at least on the  surface, they're in opposition. He talks about the power you unleash if you can  embrace both. We think valuing results and relationships is a perfect example of the genius of the and  

Jim Mellado - and I love the compensation. I. To you too, because you just have some help in sight. Oh, yeah. Then, you know, because we're one or the other,  most leaders are percent of most leaders, and so let's compensate around that  and let other people hold us accountable. But you know, eventually it will be a  problem,  

Mark Miller Jr. - and I think it's a journey. I don't think you finish. I don't think you stop. Yeah, okay. You keep wearing the glasses because they help. Yeah. Final  one, okay. Last one. The last practice is great leaders embody the values. This  is about walking the talk. This is about building trust and credibility. This is about  the fact that people always watch the leader, whether we want them to or not.  Well, what are they learning? What's being reinforced? Are you in fact? Am I in  fact living in accord with the values that we say are important? You can torpedo 

all of the other practices, because it goes back to trust. It then goes back to a  character issue, and people don't follow leaders, they don't trust we think it's  critical. Yeah, wow.  

Jim Mellado - How in the world do you get 50,000 or 70,000 people, however  many number at Chick fil 1000 people at corporate to remember a five part  definition of leadership for Chick fil A, if you're wanting everyone to have a good  idea and run with it.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Yeah, it's funny. You ask that. It started with our original charter. When we're doing this work, our charter was to find the answer our definition of  leadership, and it needed to have only three parts. That's part of our charter. We couldn't do that. We just couldn't do that. We tried, and we even combined some things. You can look at it very carefully and go they probably got more than five  things in here. And then Ken Blanchard and I did a book around this same topic, 

and the publisher came back and said, can you reduce this to three so nobody  wants to remember five things, but it is what it is now, we did find a hook that we thought was pretty helpful, and it helped ground the idea in our culture. And it's  an idea from Jesus. We think he actually had it right in Matthew 20:26 when he  was talking to his disciples about leadership, they wanted positions of  leadership. And he said, you don't even understand leadership. He said, those  of you who want to be great leaders have got to be willing to become servants.  So we've tried to anchor this in the psyche of our organization by creating the  acrostic. Great leaders serve. S is for see the future. E, engage and develop  others. R is reinvent continuously. V value results in relationships and then E  embody the values. We wish it were three things. We really wanted it to be three things. We tried to make it three things. I even explained to the publisher, they  had the manuscript, and they said, can you make this three things? I said, well,  the secret is great leaders serve. There are five practices, and they spell serve.  And they said, Yeah, we got that. Can you make it three? I went, No, we can't  make it five letters. Insert five letters in serve. So that's how we've tried to help  the organization get it. But more than that, we're trying to teach people, we're  trying to model we're trying to build performance around it, performance  evaluations around it, and we're trying to make it part of the culture, and it's a  journey, and we've been on that journey. We're still on that journey. I'm meeting  Friday with a bunch of new supervisors. We'll do a half day session with them,  and I'll spend a couple of hours unpacking the serve model for new supervisors.  So it's becoming part of our DNA. But it's been a slow it's been a slow journey?  Yeah, now  

Jim Mellado - I just challenge you. Remember the challenge that you wrote  down and as you looked right through the serve model? Was it a vision issue of 

seeing the future? Was it an engaging and developing people issue? Was it a  reinvention issue or a valuing of results or relationship. Was an issue around  that, or was it an issue of embodying the what you're trying to do? My hunch is  almost every issue a leader is dealing with could find some solution and remedy  in one of those five, at least  

Mark Miller Jr. - that we often believe that that next step is rooted somewhere  

Jim Mellado - in that, yeah, now I know that beyond being a business person for all these years at Chick fil A again, because of our friendship along you know all  that time, I know you're a churchman as well. I mean, you're very involved. Have always been deeply involved in church life, in church work, teaching and training and being with church leaders. So you know you can speak into the church, and you have the authority to do that, and the grounding and experience. When you  look at leaders in the church of the five, which is the one that you think you tend  to see church leaders challenged the most. Having the toughest time living out  

Mark Miller Jr. - well, it's actually the same one that we see leaders struggle  with in the marketplace, and it's valuing results and relationships. Now in the  marketplace, I think you would say there's a greater number of leaders who  

have a results bias, and so they struggle on the relationship side, but in the  ministry, I see it just the opposite. I see so many leaders who are relationally  oriented. They have trouble on the results side, but it's it's still that tension. It's  that genius of the end it's elusive, both in the marketplace and in the ministry.  And so that's what I often have to encourage and challenge church leaders,  ministry leaders with yes, we need to be relationship minded, but you've also got to run a successful ministry if you want to continue to be viable. Truett Kathy, our founder, often says it like this is, there's no mission without margin. We've got to  be a successful business, or we can't do the good things that we want to do.  Well, a ministry has to be successful or it can't do the good things that it wants  and feels called to do. So I think the value results in relationships is, for most  leaders, the most challenging of the five. Now there's ample challenge in the  other that one was the one that I tend to see bubble up, a lot  

Jim Mellado - I'd resonate that with in my own leadership, and I get to play on  the church side and the association side as well, and could resonate with that,  no question. So Mark, you got it defined, wonderful, common definition.  Everybody's clear on that. But how do you actually live it out in an organization  with the scale of yours? How do you actually build a culture that embodies those five practices? 

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, we are still on that journey, but I will tell you it was, it was  a rude awakening, because naively, we we believed we were done. We were  finished. I mean, we knew we had some communication stuff, but after we  worked on this and we said, Okay, we've now got our point of view on  leadership. Like, okay, what's our next challenge? Well, what we realized we  didn't really just need a point of view on leadership, but what we needed was a  leadership culture, and we define that as a place where leaders are routinely  and systematically produced, and you have a surplus when you've actually got  more leaders than you need. And so as I have done strength, as I have done  quite a bit of work in the church world, I don't know many churches that would  say, yes, we've created a leadership culture by that definition, many churches on that journey, but routinely and systematically produced, and you have a surplus.  And so once we redefined the problem, we said, we still think the work we've  done is valid. We think the first step in that process is you've got to define it.  You've got to say what's our leadership point of view, whether it's one of the  6000 existing definitions out there, or whether you're going to create your own  But secondly, we figured you got to teach it, because for somebody to have an  understanding of your point of view is a good thing, but that doesn't mean that  they have the personal capability to execute on that definition. So we actually  had to begin training people and teaching our point of view. Third, we realized  that most of what you and I know about leadership, we're actually going to learn  it through practice. And so that's the third step, is you've got to give particularly  emerging leaders. You've got to give them opportunities to practice. I think  there's a normal and natural bias, if you or I had a leadership challenge and we  looked to our bench, we're going to probably give it to the strongest leader  available. I used the baseball analogy. You're going to put it gonna put in a pinch hitter. You've got a 200 hitter on the bench and a 300 hitter, you might put your  300 hitter up there. Well, what we found is we were always putting our seasoned leaders on the new challenges. And that was that was stealing an opportunity  from the emerging leaders. And that's where most leaders are gonna learn to  lead. So we're trying to discipline ourselves. Sometimes we'll still give it to the  seasoned leader, but more and more, we're having the discipline and the  courage to say we're going to give this leadership challenge to an emerging  leader, because we think practice it is very important,  

Jim Mellado - but I you know, because I've unpacked this a little bit with you, but you don't just let them out there all by themselves. I mean, you guys will give an  emerging leader a real task, the authority to run with it, but you don't leave them  alone either.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, we try not to. I don't want to say we're flawless on that,  but no, we want to give somebody an appropriate challenge, an appropriate next

step. You don't want to give somebody down here you think has leadership  potential this huge, huge challenge, but you give them what you feel is an  appropriate challenge, and you do it with them, or you help them, or you coach  them, and yeah, we don't want to, it's not a sink or swim mentality, at least in our context, but we think practice is critical. Next is we think to create this leadership culture, you have to measure it, and we're. Learning, and we're trying different  things. It's taking different forms over time. It's now part of our organization.  We're beginning leadership talent reviews, where we're actually evaluating every leader against the serve model. There are metrics around how many people  have been trained. I mean, so we think that when you say, measure it, there's  probably not a metric, but it's probably a family of metrics that will help you  discern the progress that you're making on creating this culture. And then fifth,  and finally, we think existing leaders have to model it. We just think that's critical. If an organization chooses to embrace and pursue this idea of servant  leadership, you need to have men and women who are at least striving to be  servant leaders, if, if you're not modeling it, then the whole thing kind of blows  up. So those are the things we're doing now that we have a leadership point of  view, to try and embed it in the culture. And it's a journey. Been on it for 12  years, and still miles to go before we reach  

Jim Mellado - it's been cool to watch you guys, and again, you've been a model  to us, and we've tried to learn from that. Let's take some questions now from  folks that have been tuning in. Here's one, how does Chick fil A do strategic  planning? What's your process for doing strategic planning? That's  

Mark Miller Jr. - probably another web event that's a big let me, let me just say,  let me say again, for us, that's a process you got to understand. I've said this  before. People think I'm kidding, but, but we're a restaurant company, you know,  and we we are learning these things, and as we are growing. You may have  commented, someone commented earlier that not only have we grown, we've  grown quickly. It took over 30 years to get to the first billion dollars in sales, and  we've added 3 billion in the last decade. So So we're at 4 billion, and the curve  looks promising. Yeah, but so we're we're learning these things, and we're our  systems and our processes are trying to catch up. The short answer to that is  we try to figure out, what are the organizational priorities. We cascade those  throughout the organization, asking the various departments and functions to  create their plans with those in sight. And at the end of the day, budgets are  assigned to departments to execute those plans, and then every department  gets to bring forward ideas that they would like to do above and beyond their  budget allocation. And we have a team of very gifted men and women who look  at those and they allocate the money that's available. It's almost a venture  capital model beyond the individual department plans, which, that's all you know.

That's kind of a pro forma. You know how much money you got, and you give it  to this department, that department, and they're trying to help execute the larger  corporate goals. But then we want to create this marketplace for ideas, because  every department is going to have some list of things they think would add value that are outside the money they've been allocated. And so those ideas come to  this group that tries to make good decisions about what are we going to fund  over the next 24 months? So that's a very simple answer. It's a pretty  

Jim Mellado - complicated process. Might have you back for that one whatever.  There's  

Mark Miller Jr. - somebody better than me on our team who could come do that  for you. Well, let me ask you  

Jim Mellado - a little bit about something that I think there's some interesting  crossover between your world and church world. In the church world, and I  would encourage all leaders in the church not just view your leadership  development paradigm with your staff, but it, in fact, is the whole congregation  you're trying to equip the whole congregation. I love hearing stories of where  leaders were intentional about leadership development, starting from when  someone comes to Christ and they grow them up, then they become volunteers, and then volunteer leaders, and then leader of volunteer leaders, and then part  time staff, then staff. I mean, it's a pretty cool process that I've, you know, seen  some churches do. In fact, one mega church in El Salvador, some 70,000 folks  go there. They put their people like when they come to Christ the very next week during the leadership development track, right away, they want to start finding  out where are the leaders, and then they begin to build off of that. But what's  interesting about the way you guys organize different quick serve companies  organize differently, but the way you guys are organized is you have 1000 in  your corporate headquarters, then you have all these stores that sell chicken.  They're independent, that is correct. They're not technically under your control.  They're not employees. Tell them that is correct to do anything, right?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, well, we have operating and brand standards. We have a  contractual agreement there two pickles or three, if they're small on a Chick fil A  sandwich. We don't discuss and debate that can't violate brand. That's part of  the brand, right? But on management and leadership practices that is their  domain,  

Jim Mellado - right? And in the church, it's like, it's hard to kind of tell volunteers certain things, like you don't have lots of leverage over them. You don't have all  leverage over your stores as well. How do you help your stores emulate these? 

Practices that you believe in so strongly, when you don't have that control lever,  can't put that into the contract. How do you do that?  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, again, I'm sorry, I have to keep coming back to this. It's a  work in progress. These are things that we don't do and say they're done.  They're things we work on. But to your question, specifically, we believe people  change for one of three reasons, vision, pain or fear of future consequences.  We've tried to play the vision card now some of our leaders will adopt new  management and leadership practices because they see pain, or they feel pain,  or they may embrace new management and leadership practices because  there's another restaurant being built several miles away, and they see, well, no, they want to. They would love to operate that restaurant, but they have a fear of  future consequences, that if they continue their current management and  leadership practices, they may not be given the opportunity we have. About 12  to 15% of our restaurant operators have two locations, and it's driven in part by  proximity, but it's driven in part by their capacity, our assessment of their  capacity, to actually operate two restaurants. But knowing that sometimes it's  vision, sometimes it's pain, you know, they're under the stress and the burden of leadership, and sometimes it's fear of future consequences, the way we try to  get folks to embrace a future is primarily through vision. As we cast vision, we  try to cast vision forever, always about a preferred future. And we share success stories and we it's the grander vision. And imagine with me, you know, what if?  And so we do that in lots of ways. One that you're familiar with is we have an  annual meeting when they all come together. That meeting is a lot of things, but  I would say at the end of the day, it's a lot about vision casting that's our primary  mechanism for change, particularly in the management and leadership arena.  

Jim Mellado - Yeah, it's a cool event. Been to it. Here's another question. Get  real practical. How do you, in fact, deal with someone who's delivering amazing  results and they're beating up people? How do you deal with that leader? Well,  

Mark Miller Jr. - it's just unacceptable. We have a broader definition of success,  and we will, we will address those issues. Thankfully, we don't have a lot of  those now, in part because of selection, in part of we have such a strong culture, people understand early the norms, and if they don't, I remember I selected  someone. This was years ago. I was in our field operations group, and I selected someone, and they had been with us, not 30, maybe 45 days. I mean, we're  talking a brand new person. And I had probably the most harsh conversation I've had with anybody in my 35 year career. And I said, Listen, you have not gotten  off to a great start here. Issues they are going to, I mean, you're going to train  wreck yourself here in record time if you don't, I mean, you just have to have  those conversations. I mean, this is, this is that person's life, and that may have 

been perfect behavior where they were before, but as leaders, we have the  responsibility, we feel the responsibility, to help men and women who join our  team to be successful. Do everything we can to help them be successful. And so in that particular example, we just now a, PS, that person doesn't work with us.  Well,  

Jim Mellado - I'm just gonna, just gonna ask you, which side in your experience  has been more redeemable, those that are focused on relationship but a little  weak on results, or those that are heavy on results and weak on relationship  between the two is about equal in terms of we've seen turnaround, or you see  more turnaround on one well,  

Mark Miller Jr. - I speak to the challenge of valuing results in relationships for us as a an organization, our challenge has always been on the results side,  because we are so relational. We are so relational as individuals and as a as a  company, have a lot more I have in over the years, had a lot more conversations with people about, what do we do to bolster and show up results? I've had very  few conversations where I've had to deal with people on relationships, and  unfortunately, it does happen from time to time. Yeah,  

Jim Mellado - yeah. Well, and it could be different for different organizations,  that are heavy on results. Yes, that's 80% of their people. But I think the point is  being aware and being intentional about here's where we are. We have to work  on this because we're weak well and not compensate. Well,  

Mark Miller Jr. - it is awareness, but it's also and this is the irony of it is you will  produce better results over the long haul. If you value both, I mean, that's kind  of, it's almost counterintuitive. You mean, if I spend less time thinking about  results, I'll get better results. Yes, that's, that's the genius of the end. When you  put those two together, you actually get more of what many leaders want  anyway, because leaders love results. Leaders love progress. But by investing  time and energy on the relationship side, you actually will see more fruit, which  is kind of crazy.  

Jim Mellado - Well, thanks so much Mark as we close here, just want to give  you one last shot to leaders that might be tuning in, that are leading  organizations. Any final words to them, encouragement, challenge, whatever,  around leadership development.  

Mark Miller Jr. - Well, I think it starts with me and you as individual leaders. One of the big ideas that we've been exploring for many, many years is that your  capacity to grow determines your capacity to lead, and so once you and I as 

leaders embrace that, we're in a much better position to serve others and serve  our organization. Next time you're on an airplane, pay attention to what they're  saying. When they talk about the oxygen mask, they say, put yours on first. As  leaders, we've got to put our own mask on first. If we're not learning and  growing, we're of diminished service to others in our organization. So I think  that's my first word is, is, don't neglect yourself. And then I guess I would say,  make the choice every day to be a servant leader. I mean, that's one thing that  excites me about these five practices, is each and every one of them is  fundamentally a choice, if you look at them individually, am I going to pursue a  preferred future? Am I going to engage and develop others? Am I going to  reinvent continuously, starting with myself and so forth and so on, and so my  encouragement to leaders is to make the choice, you know, at the end of the  day, choose to serve?  

Jim Mellado - Yeah, well, Mark, thank you for choosing to serve us for so many  years. I really appreciate the friendship we've enjoyed over the years and the  help that you've been to me, the help you've been to us, and now the help  you've been to a lot of leaders. Thank you for giving of yourself, even through  your website. Again, I want to highlight that if you want to get a little more of  Mark's thoughts on an ongoing basis, you know, bookmark. Bookmark this  webpage. Greatleadersserve.org pick up its book as well on the secret that he  co authored with Ken Blanchard. Fantastic book. And then a second for those of you that have been to the Global Leadership Summit, wanted to let you know  before we sign off here that we're going to extend the in conference pricing that  we had, it's the best pricing we'll have for the Global Leadership Summit  throughout the year. That best pricing will end October 30. So go ahead and  reserve your spots right now at the best pricing for next year. Remember, if you  want to come on site here at Willow, it's sold out five months ahead of time. So if you want to reserve a spot here on site, you got to do that soon and early, and  now's the best time to do that, or reserve a spot in your satellite location and  lock in those those best rates. So want to let you know that October 30 that  ends. And then also want to encourage you for next month's webcast. This is  going to be a fantastic web webcast like this one. It's Thursday, November 15, at 11:30 Central Time. Excuse me, Charles Lee, he's the CEO of the ideation  consultancy and founder of the ideation conference, and he's also the author of  great idea. Now what? Here's what we're gonna talk about. We're gonna talk  about, how do you take a great idea that you came up with, or someone on your staff, great idea, how do you implement it? That's where 90% of great ideas find  their death. They don't get implemented, or they don't get implemented well. So  he spent a lot of time thinking about that. So we're going to get to pick his brain  and have a conversation with Charles about that on how do you implement  great ideas successfully? So be sure to put that into your calendar and again. 

Mark. Thanks so much for being with us today. Thanks you guys for tuning in.  Have a great day. 



Last modified: Friday, August 22, 2025, 9:18 AM