How Chick-fil-A Created a Resilient Culture
In Dee Ann Turner’s new book, It’s My Pleasure: The Impact of Extraordinary Talent and Compelling Culture, she shares the secret sauce of Chick-fil-A’s highly effective business model that began over 60 years ago by founder Truett Cathy. Truett created something incredibly special at Chick-fil-A, but Turner also notes that he had the wisdom and humility to create something bigger than himself: an enduring culture that values people above everything else
Chick-fil-A has achieved tremendous success by any business standard. They’ve experienced a more than 10% sales increase almost every year since launching in 1946. Franchisees retention rate has been 96% for nearly 50 years, while the corporate staff retention rate has hovered at 95-97% over the same time period.
However, Turner explains the real victory for the fast food industry icon is the growth of a culture that has nurtured and impacted so many people. As Turner writes, “Culture is the soul of an organization.” And every company has a culture, whether leaders consciously mold it or not.
In this newsletter, we will review the key components of Chick-fil-A’s culture that make it resilient, and how other organizations can adapt such principles.
Engage Guest in Your Culture:
Chick-fil-A’s culture isn’t just felt and lived by Chick-fil-A employees. Chick-fil-A guests also experience the company’s compelling culture. It’s understood that every single person who walks through the doors of a Chick-fil-A restaurant anywhere in the country can expect to be treated with honor, dignity, and respect. Chick-fil-A employees have helped Chick-fil-A become just as known for its “Second-Mile Service” and delivering the signature response of “It’s my pleasure” as it is for delicious chicken.
Every time an executive chooses to be last in line, or a restaurant staff member runs out in the rain to escort a mother and her children inside under an umbrella, Chick-fil-A founder Truett’s example of servant leadership lives on.
Ultimately, Turner and others keep culture alive through inclusion and intention. In the spirit of Truett, ”It’s My Pleasure” urges organizations to think bigger than business, and to strive to build culture that reaches far beyond employees and corporate walls to improve the lives of everyone it touches.
Support Health:
How do you create an environment where it’s a sustainable environment for people to be here long term? By making sure that the work conditions and requirements are supportive of health. It’s important to keep people physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy to retain employees.
A healthy culture is cultivated by first understanding the demands that the organization puts on employees, and supporting areas that strain employees’ health/wellbeing, and making the changes whenever necessary.
Recruit for Culture:
Chick-fil-A’s proven talent selection process focuses on three C’s: character, competency, and chemistry. These qualities are harder to gauge than traditional factors, but Turner claims it is possible if you commit to deeper observation.
For example, Chick-fil-A VP and Author of “It’s My Pleasure” observes the way candidates treat other employees like receptionists who are not traditionally seen as having any sway in hiring decisions. As Turner notes, an individual with character will treat everyone they come across with respect and kindness, no matter their position.
People working in QSR have a lot of face time with the customers that they serve. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that these employee have the character, competency and chemistry to help ensure that the guests feel welcomes and comfortable.
During the selection process for store mangers it’s important to ask yourself:
Would I want my children to work for them?
Would they make our customers feel warm and welcomed?
Would they make our associates feel valued and appreciated?
Nurture Talent with Honesty:
Turner writes that nurturing both emerging and seasoned talent is key. Investing in the people already on your team is a vital piece of cultivating strong culture. Offering opportunities is important, but stewarding employees starts with one transformative practice: Tell the truth. In the midst of a world that’s grown tired of corporate doublespeak, conveying the truth in a respectful way when it comes to performance, expectations, and more is revolutionary.
It’s also the kindest thing you can do for an employee, and creates a culture of trust that prizes individuals and relationships.
Turner further states, when we start by telling the truth, other key strategies for stewarding talent, such as fostering an abundance mentality and understanding loyalty as a two-way street, fall more naturally into place.
In order to fully develop talent, they must understand, what should they should continue doing, what they should stop doing and what they should start doing?”
Overview: Chick-fil-A’s resilience culture is based upon engaging guest in their culture, supporting health, recruiting for culture, and honesty. Engraining these qualities in our culture will build a culture and better organization that is resilient against wavering circumstances.
