Life and lessons of an 'accidental' CEO

While David Novak may not be as famous as many of the world's top executives, his book "The Education of an Accidental CEO: Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office" is inspiring, motivating, honest, and offers a practical guide and useful tips to anyone in business and life generally.

Novak is currently chairman, chief executive and president of Yum! Brands, the home of five international fast-food brands, including KFC and Pizza Hut. It employs one million people in 112 countries.

His life story alone is inspiring: Novak lived in 32 trailer parks in 23 American states before he reached the seventh grade. He sold encyclopedias door to door, worked as a hotel night clerk, and took a job as a US$7,200 (Bt253,000)-per-year advertising copywriter in the hope of one day becoming a creative director. Instead, he became head of the world's largest restaurant company at the age of 47.

The book is co-authored by John Boswell, author of the bestseller "What They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School". It has many inspiring and motivational lessons, although one of the most memorable concerns a new KFC branch in Washington, DC.

"As the CEO of Yum! Brands … I took a trip a few years back to Washington, DC, for the opening of a KFC in one of the DC's toughest neighbourhoods," Novak writes.

"As I watched our team working together, I marvelled at the motivation and the attitude that made the launch so successful. But that was nothing compared to a surprise visit to the same store seven months later. Sales were up, the atmosphere was full of energy, and the customer service was as good as, if not better than, it had been on opening day. I asked a team member how she had managed to sustain so much in a tough environment, and she said something that I will never forget: 'You know, you never know what you're capable of."

Novak's unconventional approaches and his exceptional skills in people management make this book particularly useful. He also shares many of his execution, or "getting things done", techniques, among them the Yum system of rewards and recognition and his company's "fun culture".

Besides some insights into franchise management and his revelation of KFC fried chicken's "secret recipe", Novak tells of his experiences since childhood - during the "trailer park days". He tells of learning to "break through the clutter", then writes about his career as an ad man before working for PepsiCo, and finally about his opportunity to take a lead and set off a new culture by taking Yum public after PepsiCo decided to spin off the underperforming restaurant business.

Novak shares the lessons he learnt from many great leaders and companies including Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Southwest Airlines, UPS and Target.

Novak says that if you want people to achieve something, you can't simply tell them what to do. He recommends advice from Jack Welch.

"If you believe in quality, you can't just tell everybody: 'we believe in quality.' You've got to go bonkers on quality. You've got to measure quality. You've got to let everyone in the organisation know that they are being judged on quality," the legendary chief executive of General Electric is quoted as saying.

Being a former advertising man, Novak is a firm believer in applying marketing techniques to people management. He gives one example of what he calls "shocking the system" to get his message across. On New Year's Day 2000, his first official day as chief executive, he sent copies of "Dynasty Drivers" - his vision for the company - to the homes of around 30,000 employees. Each one was accompanied by a copy of a handwritten note from Novak.

"How often do people get a note from the CEO delivered to their homes on a holiday? My hope was that it would spur conversation around the dinner table that night, and it worked. When people came back to work after the holiday, they were talking about it around the water cooler."

This is a book worth reading.

pichaya@nationgroup.com