"The Two Most Important Assets Of Any Company Are The Brand And Its People"

Greg Creed, the former CEO of Yum Brands who is a director at Delta Air Lines, Whirlpool, and Aramark, shared timely insights with me and my colleague, David Reimer, CEO of The ExCo Group. Subscribe here to receive all our interviews with board directors. 

Reimer: How has the role of directors evolved as leadership challenges have grown more complex? 

Creed: The longstanding rule for directors is “noses in, hands out.” But I am finding, with the three boards I’m on, that the executive team is asking some board members to provide more hands-on help. The company may want to raise its game in a particular area, and they are taking advantage of directors’ expertise—not in the day-to-day running of the business, but helping with, say, mentoring of senior leaders. 

That’s different than when I joined my first board 14 years ago, when you would show up, read the deck, and vote on various agenda items. I don't think board members want the executive team to be taking too much time polishing and presenting their decks. I would encourage boards and leadership teams to spend more time on discussions around various topics that directors can help with. 

Bryant: What was an early lesson you learned as a director? 

Creed: I give David Novak [former CEO of Yum Brands] a lot of credit. He made sure that every one of his direct reports was on a board. So in my case, I had five years of board experience while I was president of Taco Bell before I became CEO of Yum. That experience helped me enormously to understand what it's like to be a board member. 

And when I became the CEO of Yum, I did exactly the same thing. I wanted each of my direct reports to join a public company board so that they would better understand what our board was looking for from the executive team. That experience also helped prepare them to potentially replace me. 

We had some guidelines. We limited them to one board each, and it had to be relatively close to our offices to minimize travel time. I also told them to get on a board where they could contribute 50 percent and learn 50 percent. 

Reimer: As a marketer by background, what role do you typically play on boards? 

Creed: I’ve long argued that boards should have more CHROs and CMOs because typically there are a lot of a lot of finance people on boards already and the two most important assets of any company are the brand and its people. They don’t appear on the balance sheet but they are what matters most. We just don't necessarily recognize that the true value of the organization is the people who go up and down the elevator and the value of the brand. 

Bryant: What have you learned about the succession planning process? 

Creed: One theme is that you need to make sure you have enough candidates for succession. Because you can have someone who you consider the likely successor, but then they might get the opportunity of a lifetime and suddenly you will find yourself with a bare cupboard. So you have to start with a sufficient number of candidates. 

Then you need to focus on what the role will require in the future, which will likely be very different from the role today. At Yum, for example, restaurant technology became exponentially more important after I retired. And so we assessed both internal and external candidates against that profile of the job for the next ten years, not against the role I was performing. And once you are clear on what the role is going to be like in the future, then you can give people development opportunities to build those skills. 

I've always said that boards have three responsibilities. One is around the CEO—whether the current CEO stays or not and overseeing the succession process. The other two are assessment of strategy and assessment of risk. If a board does those really well, everything else is icing on the cake. If they do those three things poorly, they're not doing a good job as a board. 

Succession isn’t just about hiring the “best” person. It’s about hiring the right person for the right time. And people often talk about whether a candidate will “fit in” to the culture. I think the more important question to ask today is, will they make us better? And if they make us better, hopefully they'll fit in, or hopefully we'll have to adapt as well. 

Sometimes we have to hire people who make us uncomfortable. Given the uncertainty of the future, hiring someone who will make us better versus hiring a CEO who will fit in is probably one of the most important criteria for a board to consider. 

Reimer: In addition to bringing your marketing lens, what other role do you typically play on boards? 

Creed: I always like to be the contrarian. And sometimes the contrarian can also be the speaker of the truth. It doesn't mean the contrarian view has to be right. It's just important to make sure that everyone on the board doesn’t get into the same mindset. I may agree with everyone else, but sometimes it's important that we ask good questions to make sure we're not missing opportunities. 

Bryant: What were early influences that shaped your leadership style? 

Creed: I played a lot of sports when I was younger, including soccer, golf, and cricket. I wasn’t the best at any particular sport, but I was usually the captain. I think I was chosen for those roles because I could get the best out of the team. 

I don’t want to sound egotistical, but deep down I’ve always thought my role is to be the captain. And if I'm not the captain, I'm happy to play on the team and be a participant, but for some reason, people want me to be the captain. I think we often underestimate the importance of the captain’s role on teams.

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