How Leaders Learn

Chapter 27

The Magic of a Floppy Chicken

Learn by recognizing on purpose

In my first job as a corporate leader, heading marketing at Pizza Hut, I led monthly department meetings where we traded knowledge, provided updates, and brainstormed solutions to problems. Oddly, no other department at Pizza Hut was doing this at the time, but for me, these meetings were the source of our best marketing and promotion ideas.

It was for those meetings that I created my first recognition award. I called it the Traveling Pan—a big silver pizza pan given monthly for a job well done. The recognized person’s name was inscribed on the pan, added to the list of previous awardees. The “awarding of the pan” became our end-of-meeting ceremony, and everyone loved it. ...