Sean:
So with all the fancy introductions out of the way, welcome to the podcast, Mark King. Welcome, Mark.
Mark King:
Sean, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be with you today.
Sean:
The pleasure is all ours. So one of the things you spoke about at the Executive Leadership Conference for PMMI, you kind of started off with it was, if you're a leader, the one thing all leaders share in common is the future, which is an interesting statement in and of itself. So I was wondering if you could expand on that a little bit like you did there for our listeners?
Mark King:
Yeah, for me, Sean, and I've been leading organizations now for 20 plus years, I always describe organizations as three groups of people. You have the very top of the organization, which we typically call leaders, the middle of the organization we call managers, and the people that do all the work, let's call those doers, they come in, they have a specific task, they do that task, managers make sure you're executing the plan. And for me, of all of the things leaders really kind of own themselves is what does the future look like? Where are we heading? Is our current model working? Do we have the right investment strategy? Are our strategies correct given the changing dynamics of the world?
And so my point of view is doers aren't really thinking about the future. They're doing their tasks today. Managers aren't really thinking about the future. They're making sure that the execution of the current strategy. So for me, the only group of people that typically are really responsible for thinking about where is the company going is the leadership of the company. So that's why I say the one thing we all share as the leader is where are we going, how are we going to get there and are we equipped? And if not, then what are we doing to be prepared for the future?
Sean:
Interesting. Okay. And another thing you indicated, which I found fascinating when you broke it down was you said about 15 years ago that the past sort of ceased predicting the future. It was no longer the... in the old days, you could always go off of how the past was to sort of dictate how things were going to be in the future, but about 15 years ago you said that paradigm kind of shifted and I was curious why is that?
Mark King:
Well, the context of the statement was you have a marketplace or a work environment or society, the change is accelerating so rapidly, let's just take AI. Now, AI has been around for a while, but just in the last 12 to 18 months, are we all like all meaning leaders looking at what is AI and what is the impact on my business? So my point is if you go back 12 months ago, no one was thinking about how AI is going to affect my business. And so if you are looking at the past only to predict where you wanted to go, you weren't really considering AI. And now all of a sudden AI is just really taking the mind share of leaders to say, "What impact is it going to have on my business?" So when I speak to audiences, I try to be provocative. And so I guess what I mean by that is in a lot of ways the past will still predict the future, but it not solely is going to predict the future. And I think AI is a really good example of that, Sean.
Sean:
Very interesting. Okay. So with that sort of in mind and things changing more rapidly, what tips or what suggestions do you have for navigating in a constantly changing world?
Mark King:
In my talk to the group, I really focused on four keys and really the first one for me is the most important and it's mindset. So it's how you think about the world. And if you think about the world in the context of the past 20 years of your experience, and I'll just throw out 20, could be 10, could be 30, whatever it is, if that's your view of the world, I think it's going to be hard to stay relevant because of how fast things are changing. So for me, the number one thing for leaders is an open mindset about change, new technologies, new ways of doing things. Yes, you have to identify those. You'd have to execute those new ways, those new models. But it all starts with do you have an open mindset and are you looking and then open to doing things differently?
Sean:
When you discussed the four breakdowns, you named the four things for dealing with managing constant change and touched on the mindset. Could you expand on the other three as well?
Mark King:
Sure. The second one I talked about was really the leadership behaviors of a really great leader in today's world. And I think in the... historically, leaders have been somebody who's put in a lot of time and have earned their stripes and really they survive as a leader because of knowledge, wisdom, and experience. And I think that's always going to be important is knowledge, wisdom, experience. But that alone isn't really enough, I believe, to be an effective leader in today's world.
And so today I think it's more about as a leader, what kind of environment or culture that you're striving for. And that culture needs to be inclusion, open mindedness, inviting more people in to do the thinking with you about the future. So that was the second. The third is what's the role of the employee today, the doer? And it's always going to be to do the task at, but I think the more you invite the doers in the average employee to also think about the future, to challenge the status quo because my experience Sean and everyone listening is managers and leaders are really, they're tied to the past because they've built the past.
What they have today is really been built over time. And so it's hard for leaders and managers to challenge what they've built. So I find that the doers, the average employee of an organization is more apt to say, "Hey Sean, why are we doing it that way? Just because we always have or is that really the best way to do it?" So I believe that the role of the employee should expand to also be thinking and challenging. And then the last that I talked about, Sean, was just the courage. When you see something that needs to change and evolve, to have the courage to just go ahead and do it. And it sounds easy, but it's not because with change, people are uncomfortable, they're not familiar with what you're changing to, and there's risk. There's risk. We have something that works today, do we really need to change? And I guess my challenge to everyone would be, I think the bigger risk is not evolving to something that you think is going to be the future. So I think courage plays a bigger role in leaders' lives today than it ever has.
Sean:
Very interesting. And that kind of segues nicely into a question I had. You noted that when you moved to Taco Bell as CEO of Taco Bell, that you received some pushback when you started because there was a formula in place that had been, "This is how we've always done things, we've been very successful, don't mess it up," that kind of attitude and that would take some courage to come in and hear that up front. And how do you sort of navigate that as a leader that people are already sort of pushing back at you when you've literally just walked in the door?
Mark King:
Well, I think first of all, I have this basic formula when I go into a new business as the leader, which is first I want people to get to know me. So I spent a lot of time on coffee talks and I talked about that I think at the session last week. But I think it's really important that employees that work in the organization know their leaders and know meaning how are they made up, what's important to them. And in getting to know me, I really make it very known that I believe that change is a part of any formula going forward. And I don't want to fix something or change something just for the sake of changing it. But I want to be on the lookout for evolution. So the first thing is really as a leader, to let people get to know you a little bit.
The second is to get them to understand you and understand why you're built the way you are. So by using examples of companies like Yellow Pages and like a hundred other companies that were really tied to the past, successful, great companies that were tied to the past that ended up really struggling, through a lot of conversation, people begin to understand, "Well, why does he like innovation? Why does he like looking for change," because I don't want us to wake up one day and be obsolete. And I think once employees know you and understand you, it's a lot easier to then take some of the things you'd like to see in the culture to start help executing that. So I don't think, Sean, that I did much in terms of pushing the environment for at least six months because I wanted them to really know me and understand me and then they'll follow me. But if you walk in day one and say, "Hey, we need to be looking at change, we need to do this, we need to..." you would be dead on arrival, I would say.
Sean:
Okay. Very interesting. So you described command control leaders, which I think a lot of, and you said, I think correctly that a lot of people have that leadership style. What are some changes that command and control leaders... or not changes, but what are some of the attributes that they need to change to get out of that pattern?
Mark King:
Well, I would say first and foremost, I was the greatest example of a command and control leader. I started in an industry, I worked my way up, I knew the ins and outs, and I had a clear vision for where the company needed to go and how it should get there. And my inner circle of people that would challenge me on that was just very small. And I'm not even sure that I was asking for them to challenge me. I was more asking for them to support my vision and my strategies and how I wanted to get there. And so to me, the first behavior change is open that up, let more people in to say, where should we be going? And not just to challenge what your vision is, but what is their vision because maybe you don't see things in the world today as clearly as you did five years ago or 10 years ago.
So I think the biggest behavior is to have an open mind about maybe there's a different path. I'll give you a short story, Sean. I worked with a guy and he had this saying and it really changed the way I looked at things, "I think your mission or where you're actually going, I think that really needs to come from the leader. What are we trying to accomplish here long term?" We're trying to become the best performance golf brand. We're trying to be the best QSR, whatever that kind of aspiration is, I think that's very important. But what he always said is, "There's many paths to Poo's house, and I think command and control leaders believe there's only one path, and that's my path." So I think the ultimate destination should really be what the leader thinks it should be. But how you get there is, to me, the biggest behavior change by letting people help determine different paths and maybe those paths will be better than the one you see as the leader. So I think those are the two big things, Sean.
Sean:
That's great. And that's the perfect sort of button to put an end to what I wish could be a longer discussion, but which was a great discussion that we had nonetheless. I thank you very much, Mark, for taking time out of your day to come on here with us.
Mark King:
Oh, my pleasure. I really enjoyed last week and enjoyed my time with you, Sean.
Sean:
Thank you.
