Taking People With You: The Only Way to Make Big Things Happen Paperback Read Online Free PDF Page A

restaurant business and a company others strive to emulate. But to get there, we must continue to get results. I want to make sure that Yum! Brands is on a trajectory for growth, so that our next ten years are at least as good, if not a whole lot better than my first ten years as CEO.
Who do I need to take with me?
In the case of our annual investors meeting, the answer is ourexisting shareholders, potential new shareholders, and the sell-side analysts, the experts who write the analyst reports that tell investors to buy, hold, or sell your stock. I realize that in order to meet my goal, I first have to convince people that it’s possible. Without the faith of the investment community, it just won’t happen.
What are they thinking?
Here’s where I asked my outstanding investor relations leader, Tim Jerzyk, what he’d been hearing from our target audience. He told me the biggest concern has been whether our company has hit its limit for growth and therefore whether it’s the right time to buy our stock, given all our success. This is the perception problem that we’ve been up against, and we have to answer it.
Leadership is the art of getting someone to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
    — DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
    To counteract this notion, the first thing I wanted to reinforce for investors was that we have a track record for driving results year after year. Here’s where I pointed out that we’ve generated at least 13 percent earnings-per-share growth for each of the last nine years. This gives us credibility and gives investors a basis to believe that we will do what we say.
    We wanted to change the perception that we may not be able to keep it going, so we elected to emphasize for investors the segment of our business that is growing the fastest: our international business. The focus of our presentation was “On the Ground Floor of Global Growth” and we found exciting ways to show that even though our restaurant brands are already thriving in global markets like China, India, and Russia, we have just hit the tip of the iceberg. China, which is a hugely profitable segment of our business, currently has just 3 restaurants per million people. Compare that to 60 restaurants per million in the United States, then factor in the growing population in China and their rapidly expanding middle class, and you can see that the growth potential there is enormous. We also talked about the potential for expanding in emerging markets like Southeast Asia and Africa.We currently have a
strong presence in both these areas, arguably the strongest foothold of any quick-service brand in existence, and there are ample opportunities to build from there. KFC is thriving in South Africa, for example, where in 2010 it was rated the third most-loved brand in the entire country, and the most popular retail brand of all. From that starting point, we are just beginning to branch out into new countries in Africa, like Nigeria, Ghana, Angola and Zambia. Many of these countries have stronger and more stable economies than people realize and are practically without competition in our category.
    We showed investors the data, we laid out our plans, and by the end of the meeting it was clear we’d made a good start on taking the people in that room with us. This was verified by all of the positive analyst reports published the next day, which reflected confidence in our ability to grow over both the short and long term … just what we wanted to hear from our target audience.
    The bottom line is this: If you can accurately identify the people you need to make something happen and then get inside their heads, then you will have the best chance of convincing them to help you accomplish big things. This may seem like common sense, but the thing I’ve realized about common sense is, it’s not all that common. Too many people simply overlook this essential leadership ingredient.
    So let’s go to work on your
initiative. Spend