Know What Matters

25

Business Is Personal

There were many things that made me proud of Panera in the fall of 2009. The way the company had come through the great recession. The culture we’d created. The food we served. The value we’d produced for shareholders. The awards we’d received. And the fact that fast casual, for which we were the poster child, was now the fastest-growing segment of the industry. But if I had to boil it down to one single thing, it would be this: I founded a company that my then-ten-year-old son desperately wanted to be a part of. So much so that he had spent his summer washing dishes and making coffee at our local Panera rather than playing Little League.

Michael’s love for Panera also symbolized something essential: that no matter how ...