Uncommon Greatness: Transformative Leadership Insights with Chick-fil-A's Mark Miller

, Mark's journey at Chick-fil-A began over 40 years ago , starting as an hourly team member and rising to be a key figure in leadership development . He's the author of several bestselling books , including the Secret of Teams and Chestnut Checkers . His latest book , Uncommon Greatness , is already making waves in the leadership world .

In today's episode , Mark and I delve into the core principles of uncommon leadership , focusing on topics like see in the future , engaging and developing others and the importance of lifelong learning .

One topic that particularly resonated with me was Mark's discussion on cultivating a leader's heart , where he shared how your character as a leader determines 90% of your impact . So get ready to dive deep into the world of leadership with us .

Whether you're a seasoned executive or just starting out on your leadership journey , I know you'll find value in Mark's insights and experiences . Without further ado , here's my interview with Mark Miller . Mark , I'm so glad that you are here . It is just an honor to be with you today , and we're talking about your new book .

Before we jump into that , a lot of folks listening may not know who you are . I'd love for you to share a little bit of your story with our listeners , particularly around your journey and your development as a leader .

and I was awful in the restaurant . Again , we won't get into any of those details , it's still too soon to talk about it . But I made a strategic career decision and I'm quick to say this is not advice to any of your listeners but I quit . Okay , here was my thought process . Now , again , I chalked this up to the mind of a child .

This was a long , long time ago , but I said it would be better for me

to leave than have to spend the rest of my life explaining why I got fired from Chick-fil-A . I knew that that would not be a good bullet point on my resume and so I went and got another job . About six months later I got laid off from that job and I thought shoot , I need a job and I can't work in the restaurants for Chick-fil-A .

Maybe I could work at the corporate headquarters , which of course makes no sense in any universe . But again , mind of a child . So I went in and introduced myself to the receptionist and said I'd like a job working in your warehouse . Wow , and just a few minutes she said have a seat . I thought good sign she didn't call security .

She told me to have a seat and just a few minutes later Truett Cathy , the founder of Chick-fil-A , came , took me into his office to conduct this interview . Now that may not make sense to your listeners if they know who Truett Cathy was . He was the founder of Chick-fil-A . He invented the chicken sandwich . It didn't make sense to me as a kid .

I'm thinking he's the CEO . Why is he talking to me ? And I didn't learn that day . But I later learned the reason he was conducting the interview is he only had 15 corporate employees . Wow , and I was interviewing to be number 16 .

So if your team's that small , it makes a little more sense for the head man or the head woman to kind of make those decisions . And I tell people to this day . I fully believe that it was a combination of God's grace and lack of discernment on Truett's part .

He gave me that job working in the warehouse and I also got to work in the mailroom and that was 45 years ago , my good , and so again did a lot of things while I was there . I was introduced by a colleague not too long ago that Mark is a guy who can't hold down a job because I moved from place to place .

I got to start things and I don't think it had much to do with my talent , I think it was more of a let the kid do it , let the kid do it . I mean , I started our corporate communications group , I started our quality and customer satisfaction group , so forth and so on .

Lead in field operations led our training group for about a decade , started the leadership development practice within the organization , so forth , so on . And so I left Chick-fil-A about seven months ago , took an early retirement . I asked them I said how long do you have to stay to get a full retirement ? But nonetheless , that was a technicality .

As an officer I had mandatory retirement on the horizon and I left before that . So it got lumped into a bucket called an early retirement . And yeah , so I have co-founded an organization , really continuing to do what I've been doing for decades and that's trying to serve leaders and that's called lead .

Every day and I'm writing and speaking and doing podcast and training and again just trying to do what I think I'm supposed to do , and here's my last thought on that . A lot of people have challenged me that I'm not doing retirement correctly .

There's some deeply held views I have discovered about what retirement is supposed to look like , and I want to honor those people and I'm not assuming they have to see it the way I do , but I believe that you can retire from a job that you cannot retire from a calling , and my calling is to serve leaders , and so the fact I don't work at Chick-fil-A anymore

is actually irrelevant as it relates to my calling . My challenge is how do I serve leaders in my second half , and that's what I'm working on right now . I love that .

They're not enamored with this idea of just , oh just , go play golf every day . That doesn't draw them in because that's not their calling .

I think , your best so far of all the ones I've read . It's called Uncommon Greatness , and I'm going to recommend that our listeners pick this up . This is worth your time . I don't recommend a ton of books . This one is worth your time . Thank you .

As I was reading through this , I'll tell you you captured me from the beginning , and that's not always something every book does . Let's just be honest . When you talked about this idea of the Latin word quantivis Right , this idea of a word that means as great as you choose or as great as you determine , man , I love that Like .

From the beginning I was like wow what does it mean to ? choose greatness . What does it mean to choose an uncommon greatness ?

They were probably right , but that is what the book is about , and I think that virtually every leader at some level is chasing greatness . I really think they are . But the premise of the book is there are two forms of greatness common or typical greatness and uncommon greatness .

And if you're just chasing the traditional run of the mill brand of greatness , it's about the achiever , it's about the recognition that you will receive . It's actually not something that's going to last and it's a really shallow victory . And I know so many leaders that have chased it , caught it and go uh-oh , this is not what I thought it was going to be .

But uncommon greatness shifts the focus . It's on helping others achieve greatness . It may or may not be recognized . It's something that's very satisfying , very fulfilling and lasts much longer than those fleeting accolades .

And so we set that up and say keep chasing greatness , because you've got to be great at what you do as a prerequisite , not that it has to be literally sequential , but you can't pursue uncommon greatness if you have a laxadaisical or if you have a mediocre intent as it relates to your work .

It gives you the moral authority to help others pursue greatness if you are pursuing excellence . And so it's not that they're mutually exclusive , it's just there's a higher bar . And so once we try to make the case for that , you have to choose , and the world is pushing you toward common greatness , because the world doesn't really understand uncommon greatness .

But once you get the concept , then the first question virtually every leader asks is yes , but how ? That sounds fantastic , but how do I do it ? And then the balance of the book is what we call the fundamentals of uncommon leadership . We think uncommon leadership is the path to uncommon greatness .

something , become something , you're actually not leading . And we could debate what you're doing . You might be managing , you might not be doing anything of value right , you might be an individual contributor with a leadership title and there is some of that out there but you're actually you're trying to create and sustain progress .

You're trying to accomplish something . I mean , if you're leading people , the assumption is those people have come together to accomplish something and the leaders are the ones that help them . See that it's got to be compelling so that people actually want to go there and they want to go with you there . So see the future .

Second fundamental is engage and develop others . It's a pretty big idea , at least the way we interpret it . Engagement has two parts . The first is who do you select and who do you recruit and who do you invite to be on your team ? And then the other .

As important as that facet is , the more challenging , or I should say the ongoing challenge with engagement is creating the context in which people will invest themselves fully in the work . Ken Blanchard and I partnered on a book 25 years ago . It's my first book and it was one he suggested that we write . That's another story for another day .

But some of your listeners don't know Ken , but 25 years ago he had three books on the best seller list at one time and I'm not sure anybody's ever done that .

He was kind of the management and leadership thinker of maybe the last 30 years Very prolific and so Ken approached me about doing that first book , and when we talked about engage and develop others , he said it's really the leadership challenge that some leaders don't fully appreciate is that when people join your team or join your organization on day one , they're

fully engaged . He said the trick and the challenge is how engaged are they six months later , six years later , 16 years later ? And leaders are responsible for the engagement of their people . So the second fundamental is engage and develop others . The third is to reinvent continuously . Now , I know this sounds like a buzzword from the 80s .

For our more mature listeners they would probably agree with that . I know I was there in the 80s Me too . But we think it's a great , great and it's a really powerful concept because leaders fundamentally understand that progress is always preceded by change . I meet far too many leaders who think change is a burden , change is an obstacle , change is a nuisance .

It's like no , no , no , no , no . Change is your job . Change in service of a preferred future is your job ? Yes , and so we think it's . It's just essential . I will say a quick word about that , because a lot of people think well , that's just too big to get my head around it .

We ask leaders to think in three domains , and you could make a longer list , but this will , this will get you most of the way there yourself . What do you need to reinvent about you , systems and work processes ?

Because if you do what you've always done , you'll probably get what you always got , or less , right , because the half life of ideas is getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter . And so I meet too many leaders that they're hoping that something's going to happen , and hope is a good thing , but hope is not a strategy .

No , I'm asking them what are you going to do if you want a different outcome ? Yeah , so self systems , and then structure , and structure is not always the problem , but structure is supposed to make it easy or to do the work .

And if it's really hard to do the work , you at least need to take a look at the structure and there any number of smarter people than me that have actually tried to put numbers on it , and I hesitate to do that because every organization is unique , but there's some . There's some .

Some of the most famous thought leaders would say every 35% in growth , you need a fundamentally different structure , and I know , I know organizations that have tried to double and triple their size with the same structure and it's it's the shoes just too small . It doesn't enable that's good , this excess .

So see the future , engage and develop others , reinvent continuously . Value , results and relationships is the fourth fundamental , and I would argue it's the most challenging of them all , because there's tension there , yes , and because most leaders have a bias .

They're either more results oriented or they're more relationship oriented , and I'm not suggesting that you should try and change yourself , but I'm suggesting that the best leaders find ways to compensate , yes , for that which they don't do , naturally . Well , there's tremendous power If you can figure out .

It's what Jim Collins calls the genius of the end , when you take two things that from time to time may actually be in conflict and you pursue them , both tremendous benefits to the organization .

And then , fifth and finally , is embody a leader's heart , and we find far too many men and women who who struggle to get people to follow them , regardless of their skills . Well , that's because if your heart's not right , nobody cares about your skills . That's so true . If your heart's not right , nobody cares about your skills .

And so , yeah , we think there's some heart habits that leaders need to cultivate so that you'll become a leader that people want to follow . And so that's that fifth fundamental .

And top talent are your A players , and we did some research a few years ago on how to attract more of those people . And then typical talent are kind of your B players . We don't want to talk about C and D players . You know who they are and you know you need to do something about them .

We think every organization gets to decide how many A players do you want ? How many A players do you want ? And we actually have been thinking , writing and researching on how to get more of those people . But the reason I mention it here is A players are a greater flight risk when they're not well led .

Because you might say , well , doesn't everybody want to be well led ? Well , sure , but for A players it's a condition of employment , because A players can work anywhere . Yeah , that's your typical talent . They're just going to sit around the dinner table and belly ache and complain about you .

My leader's awful , but they're going to keep coming to work A players they really do . That's their first expectation is that they would be well led . Wow , if you're having trouble keeping A players . That's A place to look . Are they being well ?

I think a lot of people will , or a lot of leaders who are not the uncommonly great leaders will blame and say oh , I've only had a better team . I've only had better customers , only the economy was better . If only it wasn't an election year , et cetera , et cetera , et cetera . It's always some other reason why they can't achieve high performance .

But what you're saying and I love this throughout the book is that these things are a choice . They are inside of your locus of control .

Wow , they just they're recruiting people and every now and then a player show up , oh my goodness . But I would argue , and I think our research substantiates , that if you create the right value proposition , you can actually attract a players If you proactively and systematically tell that story and promote what you're offering .

I mean , I was with a group last week and it happens almost all the time , Any time I'm asked to talk about talent . This is kind of we're encapsulating what that would be about . And this was an association of organizations and the guy who put the thing together he said you know , you really hit on their problem today . And I said well , what's that ?

And they are dying as an industry because they can't get help . And I said , okay . And he said and they have a value proposition that top talent is not interested in and they continue to offer the same things that don't attract top talent . In fact , their value proposition is so out of touch they're not attracting anybody . So that's what I mean it's a choice .

I mean you don't get to choose who walks in your door , but you get to choose who you go after , and most organizations are not targeting top talent .

The number one impediment when you ask people what barriers or obstacles prevent your leader from being more effective Number one ego . Wow , Wow . And that's at all levels the front line supervisors saying it about their manager , their manager saying it about their director , their director saying it about their VP , and their VP's are saying it about their CEOs .

So again , your intuition is absolutely correct . The data supports that's a huge problem . So again , to me it's a short step to say ego is a problem of the heart . It's not a skill , it's not a competency issue , it's a hard issue .

Yes , nobody's going to change your heart , yes , and so I love your point about there needs to be a growing awareness that there's an issue or there is an opportunity , because if somebody is oblivious , then you're going to get more of the same , and so I think it takes courage from a leader to have a hard conversation with another leader , whether it's a peer ,

whether it's your boss , whether it's somebody who reports to you in the organizational structure , in the hierarchy , and say hey , I think this is hurting you . I mean , I had a leader , and we're not going to debate whether my ego was a problem or not because I don't want to go there . It's too soon again . No , but about 40 years ago I got some coaching .

This is why I was just a kid and I had a senior leader say hey , I want to give you some feedback . This is over 40 years ago , maybe . Yeah , a long time ago . And he said I've noticed you use the word I a lot . He said I don't think you should do that . He said you need to think about we . Wow , and I went well , thanks , I didn't even know .

Now , was that a reflection of the fact I was a kid and I didn't know any better ? Was it pride ? Was it ego ? Was it ?

I don't know what it was , but I don't use the word I as often , and I've not for 40 years because a leader said to me I mean , it was a low risk conversation for a senior leader to talk to a kid , but hey , I've noticed something about you and you probably need to work on that . What a gift . I thought it was a gift .

I still remember the conversation . I went , never thought about that , I was like , thank you , I won't . Yeah , I'll stop doing that . But the first step people have to have the awareness . You just mentioned that .

And then we've also said if I have the awareness of an issue or an opportunity or a problem or a challenge , I still have to decide what I'm going to do . So I think there's that volitional will . They've got to decide . Ok , I want to work on this .

And then my favorite tactic that I encourage leaders and it will help with several of the heart habits is to try and add value to every person you encounter . Now there are skeptics in your audience that would say whoa , whoa , whoa . That's impossible . I said , ok , well , time out , let's roll the tape back .

I want you to listen to what I said Try to add value . And if I'm trying to add value to someone else , immediately my focus shifts from me to them . Yeah , now I may or may not be able to add value , but it's the trying that transforms you .

It's not your batting average , and I think you can actually cultivate the ability to think others first , which is one of our heart habits . But it also helps with things like ego . That's so good , and so I would encourage your listeners because people look at me like I've lost my mind , which is well documented that I've lost my mind .

But I challenged a group last week and I would challenge your listeners Try that for 24 hours . I think it could change your life in 24 hours , and then most people who'll do it for 24 hours they'll try a second day and a third day and at some point it'll .

It'll become a lifestyle choice , because you will gain so much from attempting to add value to others . It'll change your heart and if you change your heart , you can change your leadership . Oh , so good .

that I flagged in this book is a list , and this is . This is toward the end . When you're talking about embodying a leader's heart , how do you add value to someone else ? And you give a list of a whole lot of ways that people can add value right , encourage them , recognize them , coach them , correct them , empathize with their situation , ask their opinion .

You know the thing that stands out about everything on this list it doesn't cost anything . That's correct .

That was one sample , but it happened last week , so it's kind of top of mind . Yeah , it's like there were . I gave them 15 minutes and one one group said well , you've got four . I went there are so many ways .

So I think I encourage people to make their own list and say how could you Again and you've read part of that list I would go all the way down . If you're a person of faith , you can offer a silent prayer on their behalf . I mean you .

There are so many ways that you can attempt to add value to another human being , but you got to decide you want to do that .

I tell leaders that all the time , and and I tell them that this doesn't cost you a thing , but this is something people remember . They may remember a lot of what you say . They're not going to forget how you made them feel . Like Maya Angelou said Absolutely .

It's not an iceberg if you only have part of it , but the the first four fundamentals are above the waterline . They're about the skills of the leader .

Yeah , and this leader's heart is the 90% below , and I actually believe 90% of your impact as a leader will be determined by your heart , and I shared that recently and I was on a podcast and my host says , well , it's not quite 90 . And I said , well , that's kind of a figure of speech . I mean it's , it's conceptual .

And he said , well , it's actually 77% because we researched it . And when you ask people to rate all these different attributes of leadership , the 77 , 77% of their efficacy is determined by their character is the way he said it , and so I might should quit saying 90% and say 77% , if you're , if you're interested in the data .

It just matters so much , and far too many leaders have not given sufficient attention and care to their heart .

Often the leaders greatest contribution , after the destination is clear , will be the questions they ask , not the answers they provide . That is fascinating , because I know a whole lot of leaders who are listening , who think that their job is to define the whole thing , to answer all the questions , to be ready to just give the entire picture in full detail .

And what you're saying is you provide the destination , you show the destination , but your greatest contribution after that may be the questions . Right , questions are a leader's skill . Is that a skill that you think leaders know ?

But like any other skill , you know , choice is the theme that we keep coming back to here . There are a lot of things you and I can learn to do that would qualify as skills , but the prerequisite to learning them is choosing to learn them . Yes , and you're not just going to .

I mean , there could be some people that are naturally curious and that manifests itself in questions , but most people I know that are good at questions work at being good at questions . They collect questions , they use them , they , they make good , at least mental notes as to which questions work and which situations , in which context .

And if a question doesn't work , they don't , they don't take it out of their repertoire . They're thinking , ok , I'll save that it doesn't work in this situation , or it didn't work today but maybe it'll work later , and I would just .

The last thing I'll say about that is I think most leaders have favorite or go to questions based on circumstances or context because they've gotten good traction and value from them historically .

You know you talk about the self and how important it is that you , that you , focus on your own leadership . How do you do that ? How do you stay on top of your game and level up with the new leadership skills that your team is going to need you to have two , three , five years from now ?

I only worked in the warehouse about six months in the mailroom and my my supervisor came to me and I don't really remember what sparked the conversation , but he wanted to talk about my future . Like , I was 19 years old , might have just turned 20 . I mean , just a kid and and I don't know why we got into the conversation .

He said well , I need you to understand something . I said great , I want to understand everything I can . He said if you want more influence and if you want more impact and if you want more opportunity , there's only one path . And I said what ? What Say that ?

Again he said if you want more influence and you want more impact and you want more opportunity , there's only one path . And I said OK , what's that ? He said lifelong learning . I went , really . I said you're kidding me . There's no other way to more influence , more impact and more opportunity . He said that's the only way .

And so I now summarize that conversation and say here's what he taught me that day your capacity to grow determines your capacity to lead , and if you can keep growing and you can keep and value , if you can keep and value , you can in fact grow your influence , your impact and your opportunity .

And so I made a choice 45 years ago to commit to lifelong learning . Now my parents wish I had made that decision earlier , because I was an awful student , but nobody had ever explained to me why it mattered . I know that may sound crazy , but this guy said no , it's the single path to influence , impact and opportunity .

And I was telling that story to a group not long ago and they said well , that's probably easy for you . And I said well , why do you say that ? And they said , well , I bet you're a learner , which I was assuming was a reference to Strength Finders the 34 things Everybody loves Strength Finders .

Who doesn't want to take a test to tell you what you're good at ? Right , right , right . Most of my tests in life , I've learned what I was not good at . But they said I bet learners in your top five . And I said you know , I don't know , it's not in my top five . I don't think it's in my top 10 . I don't think learners in my top 25 .

And they said well , you act like a learner . I said , well , thanks , because I made a choice about 45 years ago that I was going to make a commitment to lifelong learning , and so that's what started my journey . And , regarding what I do , I do all the stuff you might expect and maybe a few things you wouldn't .

But I have an annual development plan that I've had for decades , trying to figure out how am I going to get better in the next 12 months . I've had coaches , I've had mentors , I still have coaches and mentors . Here's one , maybe a little bit out of the box .

We started a leadership development group 26 years ago with 10 guys , and we meet twice a month for three hours . We met last night , wow . And we've been studying leadership for 26 years , and so on and on and on . I mean I just I want more influence , I want more impact , I want more opportunity , and so I made a decision to pursue lifelong learning .

What I hear when I'm listening to you talk about this is the consistency and how consistency compounds and , as consistency has compounded over your journey , it has created the momentum that we all see now , and it's very easy to look at somebody like Mark Miller and say , oh wow , what momentum , what a gift . I could never do that . But where did it start ?

It started with a choice , and I really want to circle back to that because I think that is something every listener needs to grab onto . This began with a choice , with a choice .

It's like , no , this is not my natural temperament and my natural bend , but I want to serve others . I think that's what I'm supposed to do . We talked about that earlier , and my daddy used to say you can't sell out of an empty wagon . That's good , and so I'm trying to learn all I can so that I can serve more effectively . That's brilliant .

That's my motivation .

But with that said , I typically would say if you're going to read one , read the effective executive by Peter Drucker . It's a classic . It's the source of the Nile . It's probably 50 years old , a little paperback , but you will see threads leading to much of the popular leadership thought .

I think Drucker was the greatest management and leadership thinker of the last 2000 years . And that little book , the effective executive my book , smart Leadership , if I could be so bold was an attempt to kind of modernize that and talk about effectiveness in today's world .

But I say in the introduction of that book if you've not read the effective executive , put my book down and go get his . You should read that one first .

mark , as we wrap up , often people will walk away from an episode like this with one big idea , one big takeaway . If you could define what you want that one big idea to be , what would that be ?

Because if it's all about you , you're going to get to the end of your career or the end of your life and you're literally going to realize that you wasted so much potential . It's the overused cliche of you're going to get to the top of the ladder and realize it was against the wrong building .

Yeah , just choose the path of uncommon greatness , and it's a decision I think you'll never regret .

If you're continuing to tinker with that , you probably know that story . Maybe we'll tinker with it forever , but there's a section on there that we're building now on how to start your own leadership development group , and we've got tips and we're going to have study questions if people want to not have to write their own .

We've been writing our own study questions for 26 years , so we're going to share some of those on that site . So that's work in progress , but it'll be out there soon .

All right , thanks a lot .