Observations from the President

To be a leader, you’ve got to have the right stuff.
A year ago, the founder of a then-healthy dot.com business boasted that he and his colleagues were "re-engineering the DNA of the future of business." Today that dot-com is struggling to stay afloat because it knew nothing about the main ingredient of leadership in business – guest satisfaction. This dot-com didn’t have the DNA or what I call the "right stuff" of leadership.

Sacrifice is the heart of leadership. You have to give up to go up. Talk to any leader, and you’ll find that he or she has made repeated sacrifices. Many of you make sacrifices when a manager is ill and you have to switch hours or work longer hours. Next we have timing. When to lead is as important as what to do and where to go. Keeping our cash registers ringing is all about timing. The third element of the right stuff is understanding. Leaders always understand what their customers need. And the best way to understand what customers need is to consistently look and listen. Focus is the fourth element. One of the mottoes of Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy’s, is "Focus on a few things and do them well. The trick is to get the four or five measures that really make a difference and concentrate on them." The last element is friends and family. Without our loved ones to support us, none of us could have the right stuff of leadership. We owe a lot to them and our communities.

For me, the right stuff of leadership comes down to five things:

Sacrifice

  Timing

     Understanding

         Focus

            Friends and family

All of these elements are simple words, but leadership is never practiced in words as much as it is in attitude and action. The great football coach, Vince Lombardi, once said, "Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile." Thank you for all of your hard effort, and I look forward to new opportunities in 2001 for all of us to demonstrate our right stuff.

BRIAD BUCKS

Wendy's people say "We have the answer!" as 2001 Kickoff Meeting attendees raucously competed for Briad Bucks from quizmaster Andrew Halper.

Winner Tony Fenn, GM of Freehold T.G.I. Friday's, shows us the money!