Lessons from Chick-fil-A on Leadership and Culture with Dee Ann Turner

Caleb Stevens (00:16.459)
Well, Deanne, welcome to the podcast. It’s great to see ya. How are you doing?

Dee Ann Turner (00:20.846)
I’m doing great, Caleb. Thanks so much for having me today.

Caleb Stevens (00:24.351)
You and I have crossed paths a number of times over the years, and so it’s good to reconnect. I wanna say I first met you in twenty fifteen when I was an intern at Chick-fil-A over the summer in the marketing department. I think you probably spoke to our group at one point. but for our listeners who do not know who you are, tell us about yourself, your career, and what you’re up to now.

Dee Ann Turner (00:44.034)
Sure. Well, I did spend thirty-three years at Chick-fil-A. You alluded to that. I spent thirty years in talent, a couple of decades leading that function for Chick-fil-A. I ended my career at Chick-fil-A leading launching and leading the sustainability function. And then I retired in twenty eighteen from Chick-fil-A. I had written my first book, It’s My Pleasure, actually in twenty fifteen when you were intern was when that was released. And

That had been very, very popular. So when I retired, I had a contract with Baker Publishing to write two more books. And that seemed to launch the next season of my life. And so I wrote those books, Bet on Talent, How to Create a Remarkable Culture that wins the hearts of customers. And then the second one of that’s was Crus your Career. Ace the interview. let’s try that again so that we get a good recording on that. We can edit that.

Caleb Stevens (01:37.739)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I’ll get

Dee Ann Turner (01:39.766)
The second book was Crush Your Career. And let’s do one more time. The second book was Crush Your Career, which was Ace the Interview, Land the Job, and Launch Your Future. And so those were the two books that I wrote for Baker, became bestsellers and enjoyed a speaking career over the last eight years from those books. And then I just started or just finished writing a new book, Becoming a Leader Who Last, What Enduring Leaders Do Differently. And

I hope to have that published in twenty twenty seven and that’s where I am today.

Caleb Stevens (02:15.072)
That’s great. so you spent how many years did you say? Thirty something years? Thirty-three. Okay. So you spent over three decades with one of the world’s most admired companies. I’d love to kind of hear a little bit about your entryway into Chick-fil-A. I would imagine when you first started, it wasn’t nearly as big as it is today, probably not as well known, probably not as admired. Talk about what initially attracted you.

Dee Ann Turner (02:21.197)
thirty three.

Caleb Stevens (02:43.063)
two Chick fil A and what was sort of the the state of the business back in those days?

Dee Ann Turner (02:48.173)
Well, there’s no doubt what attracted me to Chick-fil-A at the time was its culture. And culture wasn’t so to speak in vogue in those days. People weren’t talking about it like they do now in every single conversation about an organization. but th and that made Chick-fil-A incredibly unique that they were focused on culture. And when I say they, you know, at the time Truett Cathy, the founder and CEO of the company, he was very engaged in the business and

very focused on that issue. That was top of mind for him. When I went there in nineteen eighty five, Chick-fil-A was a hundred and fifty restaurants doing a hundred and seventy five million in revenue, mainly in shopping malls in the South. In fact, they were completely in shopping malls in the South because the first freestander opened just a few minut a few month months after I joined Chick-fil-A in February of nineteen eighty six. And so after I

the funny is a funny story about how I got to Chick-fil-A actually. my husband was a pastor down the road at a church that was down the road from Chick-fil-A. And he had mentioned to me I was looking for a a job that got me closer to the South Side because that’s where his church was and I was working on the other side of Atlanta. And I also was working in an organization that had a horrible culture and I wasn’t very happy. And so he said, I think you should apply here at Chick-fil-A. And so I did and they immediately turned me down.

And I was like, Okay, I I did what you you suggested and that didn’t work out. And he said, Not so fast, try again. So I did and two weeks later they turned me down again. Well then I was intrigued about what was so special about this organization that I couldn’t even get an interview. And so I began to pursue them pretty heavily over the next six months. And about six months later, a woman came into his church and she had a flat tire and she asked my husband if she could call her husband, use the phone to call her husband and

He said, You don’t need to do that. I’ll change the tire for you. And so he changed her tire and and she gave him a BR guest card. They’re called digital offer cards now at Chick-fil-A, but it was a coupon for a free Chick-fil-A sandwich. He said, you work at Chick-fil-A. And she said, Well, I do, but I’m being relocated my husband’s being relocated, so we’re I’ve resigned. And he asked where she worked, and she said, advertising. Well, my background was in advertising, and that was the very department that I was trying to get a job with.

Dee Ann Turner (05:11.669)
And so I quickly called Chick-fil-A and said, I understand you have a job in advertising and I’d like to interview for it. And so I interviewed for a couple of months or so for that job. And I got to my final interview with the man who was then the vice president of human resources. And he said, I know you’re interested in advertising and they’re interested in you, but I have a job in human resources you might be interested in. And he saw something in me that at the time I didn’t see it myself. And so I decided that

I thought this human resources thing might be interesting for a little while and I would do it for a couple of years and then I’d know where the jobs were in marketing and I’d go to marketing. Well, the rest is history as they say, and I was in the right place at the right time, made that decision to go with human resources. That boss resigned eighteen months later, and in that time he had taught me a great deal and I had found a love that I didn’t know I had and I’d been working on some things the organization needed.

And it took them a little while to figure it out, but they finally did. And instead of moving me somewhere else in the organization, they said, we think Deanne might need to do what she’s doing, which at the time was establishing systems for selecting our our corporate staff. We didn’t have any systems for that, and it was a real mess. And so I started straightening that out and they decided that that would be something important for me to do. So soon after I was promoted and I started building my career in human resources where I stayed for the next 30 years.

Caleb Stevens (06:39.415)
Well, that’s a great early career lesson for our younger leaders listening, which is it can be easy when you’re younger to assume you know exactly what you want to do. but be open to new opportunities that may come your way, because to your point, you never know. You may think you’re you know, wanting to go into marketing and you may be a great fit in another department. And interestingly, the whole thread there being culture, I’ve always sort of thought your your your culture is sort of how your team members experience.

your brand and your marketing sort of how your customers experience your brand. And they’re almost two sides of the same coin. So even though you thought you wanted to do advertising, I would assume there’s probably some counterintuitive parallels you probably found in HR as well.

Dee Ann Turner (07:24.301)
Well, it’s funny that you say that because the marketing piece where it really came out was when I had the assignment of recruiting Chick-fil-A franchisees and I spent some time doing that as part of my career path and which by the way was my favorite job. And I think one of the reasons is because I was introducing Chick-fil-A. it my territory was the northeast part of the United States, which Chick-fil-A was very unknown there.

And they were still saying things like Chick-A-Lay and Chick-fil-A and and I was introducing a brand new opportunity there. And so it was a sales job in a lot of ways and a marketing job. And I really enjoyed that part of it. So yes, it definitely the skills overlap.

Caleb Stevens (08:10.54)
Well, want to spend some time today talking just a bit about your hiring process. And I know you were instrumental, as you said, in sort of forming that and putting some clarity and some process to that. And I’ve always heard it put as the three C’s, character, competency and chemistry. I know that was for a long time how they thought about things. I’m not sure if that’s still in operation today, but talk about the three C’s for the folks that are not familiar with that little you know, acronym or how whatever you call it.

Talk kind of hit high level on each of those three and why why those three? How did y’all kind of come up with those?

Dee Ann Turner (08:48.225)
Sure. Well let me back up first of all, because you said something, you talked about hiring people. And I have a philosophy not to hire people. my philosophy is to select talent. And there’s a big difference. When you hire people, it’s about quantity. Do I have enough? When you select talent, it’s about selecting the right people for the role. And so

I could give a long speech on that, but I’ll I’ll leave it very high level for this podcast. But I think there’s a big difference between hiring people and selecting talent. So during my days at Chick-fil-A, I always talked about selecting and people being selected for an opportunity. The three C, so character, competency, and chemistry. Character always comes first. It’s character that matches the organization. So

Chick fil A is very clear about their organizational purpose, mission, and core values. And so I would look for people, and still my clients today look for people that matches the organizational purpose, mission and values. That doesn’t mean that they’re exactly the same, but that they align, that they buy into that, that that that matches who they are as people. And so that’s what I mean by character. We can define character a lot of ways, but I think the easiest way is do they align with our

Caleb Stevens (09:54.284)
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner (10:05.687)
purpose, mission, and values as an organization. And the second thing is competency. That’s pretty obvious. You know, can people do the work or the role and do they have the skill set to do the role as a science? So competency that matches the role. But there are a couple of nuances about competency. And one is I’m always looking for not just can they do what’s needed in this organization today, but I’m looking at what the growth is for a particular organization. What are they going to be the future needs?

I worked for an organization that grew very rapidly. I mean at the time I was there I say it was 175 million in revenues. It was nearly it was about eleven billion when I left. And so that’s a lot of growth and you have to have talent that have the competency to grow with that organization or the organization will outgrow them and you’ll have a talent deficit. So very important about competency that you’re not just looking at skills for today, but you’re anticipating

Caleb Stevens (10:56.396)
Mm-hmm.

Dee Ann Turner (11:03.169)
what you need on your bench for the future. And then lastly is chemistry. Chemistry that matches the team. And chemistry is one of those things that people struggle with. What does that really mean? Well it’s not what some people think. It’s not taking personality assessments and seeing if people mesh well together might be part of it, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Great chemistry is when the individuals have the skill of collaboration.

And they can come into a team and they’re so skilled at collaboration that they can bring a point of view and it might be a different point of view, and hopefully it is a different point of view, and they can bring that perspective and influence the other members of the team so that everyone can make the best decision. It’s not group think, it’s actually diversity, and people who can manage that diverse thinking well through that skill of chemistry. It’s also how people

fit into an organization by the way they treat people. And one of the ways that I used to chemistry is a hard thing to get in an interview. You can ask certain questions and certain behavioral questions. But really chemistry is something that’s observed and you have to have a long enough interviewing process to observe it. And one of the things I used to do my chemistry test was when I finished an interview, I would go see the receptionist.

And I would ask our organizational receptionists, how did this person treat you? Did they treat you as you’re part of an important part of the process or important part of our organization? Or did they dismiss you? I did the same thing with the drivers who brought candidates from the airport. We had our own drivers and they brought candidates from the airport to the office. And I would go and ask the drivers, how did they treat you? because at Chick-fil-A we had a value of we’re here to serve. That means everybody.

And so if they tr dismissed the drivers or the receptionists as not being an important part of their organ of our organization, they weren’t gonna fit. And that told me a lot right there about chemistry. So in a nutshell, Caleb, that’s the three C’s character that matches the organization, competency that matches the role, and chemistry that matches the team.

Caleb Stevens (13:11.064)
That’s great.

Caleb Stevens (13:17.61)
And Chick-fil-A’s interview interview process for the corporate office at least, I know could be notoriously long. in fact, I when I was thinking about my internship, I had an offer in hand to go to Deloitte for that next summer. And Chick-fil-A’s interview process was like just getting started, and I wasn’t gonna know anything for probably four or five months.

And I was like, man, do I take sort of the safe offer? It’s Deloitte’s a good company and I’ll probably have a good experience there. But I would love to enter in a Chick-fil-A. Should I take the risk? But I knew it was going to be a long process and there was no guarantees. Talk about how intentional you guys are about that process. Cause I think you make a great point. It’s hard to observe and get a full clear picture of a candidate within an hour or two. And, you know, good luck with that. So talk about, you know, the length and how y’all thought about that.

Dee Ann Turner (14:13.623)
Sure. Well, of course, I’m talking about past tense and the players and the processes have changed a lot since I left Chick-fil-A. But let me talk about the philosophy behind that and what what we were trying to accomplish. It was not intentionally long, but it was intentionally careful. And sometimes careful took a long time. and I think that over time, especially when we went through this this most recent labor shortage, which is pretty much over now, but

At the time, I mean that went on for a long, long time. things had to be sped up a little bit. But originally where that came from was the idea, and and this was Truitt’s idea, that 50% of the decision is the candidates. At one point organizations just thought it was their decision, but you know, it’s 50% is the candidate. And we wanted the candidate to make a good decision because

Philosophically, we didn’t want to make changes. We didn’t want to have people come in and work two or three years and go somewhere else. Yeah, you lose a lot in what it costs you to select them, what it cost you to train and develop them. We were looking for people with long term relationships with Chick-fil-A, whether they were a a support center s staff member or they were a franchisee, we were looking for long term relationships. So to have that, we had to get to know each other well.

So that lengthy process wasn’t just because we, you know, wasn’t because we couldn’t make a decision fast enough. It was because we wanted to get to know each other well enough to have a really long-term relationship. So that candidate needed to come to the office a couple times and see different people and, you know, spend a whole day there, watch the culture in action, be sure that’s what they wanted to do because we weren’t planning on making changes. We wanted, we didn’t want to make

a mistake that we regretted and we didn’t want the candidate to make a mistake they regretted.

Caleb Stevens (16:05.825)
Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So that’s an interesting segue into another topic I’d love to get your thought on, which is the the trends that you see with Gen Z. And I I saw a I saw a chart recently and it showed average tenure at a job by generation. And I’m gonna butcher the exact numbers, but it was something like you know, boomers is ten plus years, Gen X is eight, millennials is like three or four, and then Gen Z, it’s like two to three.

And our our mutual friend Tim O Telm Elmore likes to say that the corporate ladder is now the corporate lily pad. You’re sort of bouncing around. And many Gen Z folks will have three or four jobs before they turn 30 years old. what are your thoughts on that? Do you think it’s a function of there’s so many choices and options? Cause technology and job boards, and I can go to LinkedIn and see, you know, they’ll they’ll say, hey, here’s a hundred jobs that match your skills and your profile.

Is it that? Is it they’re not getting the development that they want from companies? Is it maybe they’re being a little short-sighted and not thinking about the long term ramifications of commitment and wanting to stick it out somewhere? Any just broad stroke thoughts on that?

Dee Ann Turner (17:18.167)
Well, Gen Z is looking for three things in an organization. Number one, they’re looking for a remarkable culture. And and more so the way I’ve defined it, purpose, mission, and core values, not Friday afternoon happy hour and bring your dog to work day. they’re looking for the really serious parts of a remarkable culture. Secondly, they want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. that’s really important that that what they’re doing has impact. And then thirdly,

They want to work for a leader who cares about their development both personally and professionally. And those that are getting those three things, they’re staying longer than two or three years. But the in actuality, those three things are very rare now. Organizations aren’t looking at the long term. You know, so much private equity has taken over organizations, and that’s not their viewpoint. They’re not looking at the long game.

So if employers aren’t looking at the long game, then the employees that they’re selecting aren’t either. And that’s where the disconnect is. For those organizations, and I’ll use Chick-fil-A as an example. even today, their statistics don’t line up with that. And it’s because they are an organization as an example that has a remarkable culture that

people can work there and feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves. It’s not just about selling chicken, it’s about being a positive influence on all they come in contact with. And then thirdly, their leadership, they have strong leadership development. And those leaders are they’re trained to care about their people deeply, both professionally and personally. And so that’s where I think the big disconnect is is that that employees are gonna respond to the organizational.

priorities. And if it’s not that, then they’re not going to have a sense of loyalty to that organization. So I think that’s the for me, that’s my biggest insight and kind of where I live. Your answer about technology and about availability of just knowing what’s out there is not wrong either. And then the third thing I’ve seen, and remember, I’ve raised two millennials in a in a Gen Z.

Dee Ann Turner (19:33.938)
And one of the things that I see is how hard it is. unfortunately, especially and I’m I’m at the tail end of the boomer, so I get this. you know, they’re if they’re not adjusting to what the needs are to this younger generation and and they do need a little bit more feedback. They do not need to know where their path is. If we’re stri still trying to

run organizations the way a boomer would respond to that. And I don’t necessarily mean that in a negative way at all. But if we’re still doing that and we’re not under stick standing that they need a more clear career path. They need to understand where they’re going and not be stuck in rules. I watched one situation where a young man was doing amazing work and he was in an environment where

There were other people in his team that weren’t doing as amazing work, but he couldn’t be promoted above them because they had this certain time period that had to take place. And they were more willing to lose that talent than to think of it differently and to say, you know what, this person in in and back in the day we would hold on to those people. We would do whatever it took to keep that kind of talent. And I think today it’s a little bit short-sighted sometimes and saying, Well

You know, we got these rules. This is the career path. You gotta touch this this base, this base, and this base. and then you’re gonna lose people when you do that. If you don’t differentiate and you don’t treat your high performers differently, they’re not gonna stay with you.

Caleb Stevens (21:07.822)
Hm. Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. Well, as we wrap up here, I guess one final question for you, which would just be any advice to the executives, CEOs out there who sort of think as c of culture just as sort of an HR thing? Well, that’s just hiring, you know, that’s just culture’s just an HR thing. What tell me what’s wrong with that thinking?

Dee Ann Turner (21:31.35)
Some the greatest organizations you can think of are led by people who believe culture is their number one job. In fact, when I retired from Chick-fil-A, I had I I mean, I think it was the very next day I received a call from the CEO of I mean, I think it was like a 30 or 40 billion dollar company. And he asked, he said, I want to work on culture. And I asked him one question. I said,

Who’s responsible for culture in your organization? He said, I am. I said, then we can go to work. Because if the CEO does not consider that to be their job, it’s never it’s never going to permeate the organization. It has to start there. I saw it with Truitt Kathy. I saw Ben Kathy make that his number one priority and it permeate the organization. And I’ve seen it in other amazing organizations that I’ve worked with since then. That’s the key to the whole thing. So

never re delegate that to HR. They can certainly be a great advisor, they can be an implementer of things, but the CEO has to be involved in that in every step of the way. The other place that I think the CEO has to consider to be a big part of their job is customer service. Don’t relegate that somewhere either. You’ve got to set the example from the very top on that issue.

Caleb Stevens (22:50.414)
Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (22:54.176)
And and Dan Cathy would famously pick up, you know, garbage in the parking lot and take it to the garbage can. And he he no no task was beneath him. And I even observed this firsthand. He would he took the interns on a tour, the Vision and Values tour, where you you know, you go to the original dwarf house and he takes you to the Coca-Cola boardroom and then he takes you to I think it was City of Refuge, the ministry just down the the road in a rough part of Atlanta. But all throughout that, I I would observe him doing, you know, simple acts.

of service, even to for the interns, and it spoke volumes.

Dee Ann Turner (23:29.389)
Well, I’ll tell you a fun story, Caleb. and i Dan set that example so we all followed it. I mean, I hope that we all did, but but certainly, you know, picked up on that. And when I worked there, it didn’t matter what your title was, you went into a Chick-fil-A restaurant even as a customer. There was trash on the ground, you picked it up. There was a a customer with a tray and sitting there that they’re obviously fin finished with you asked if you could take it away. And I had been retired from Chick-fil-A. It was probably

it’s just been the last couple years so probably about six years and my husband and I went to a a Chick-fil-A. We were actually on a road trip and we stopped at a Chick-fil-A and they were slammed. I mean the lines were long, the drive through was packed and the trash cans were overflowing. And we sat down to eat our food and I’m sitting there and I am so anxious. I just can’t stand it. I mean and I know these people are just they’re just slammed. So I looked up at my husband and I said, I’m sorry. I just have to

Caleb Stevens (24:27.675)
Yeah.

Dee Ann Turner (24:28.245)
And I went in and I said, please give me some garbage bags. And they went, No ma’am, we’ll come do that. I said, You don’t have time to do it. I’m gonna do this for you. Just give me some trash cans. And so I I mean the trash was overflowing. I was picking it all up. And it just it’s just in your system forever when you when you have that. And it the but the funniest part of that was the feeling of anxiety I had, even though it technically wasn’t my responsibility anymore.

Caleb Stevens (24:34.011)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Caleb Stevens (24:53.819)
Right. You were just programmed. Yeah, yeah. The DNA was was there still. Yeah, that’s great. DN, if folks want to book you to speak or access the resources that you put out there for leaders, how can they find you?

Dee Ann Turner (25:07.883)
Go to my website, dn turner.com, D-E-E-A-N-N turner.com, and you can certainly request me to speak through there. And then also you can connect with me on LinkedIn, number one space. Secondly, I have a Facebook author page, DN Turner Author, and then lastly, I’m on Instagram at DN Turner.

Caleb Stevens (25:30.373)
Fantastic. Well, thank you again for the time. This is always it’s always an encouragement to connect with you and hear about your your philosophy and thoughts, both from your time at Chick fil A and as well as what you’re doing now to serve leaders as well as younger folks in their careers. So thank you for what you do.

Dee Ann Turner (25:46.773)
Okay, and I appreciate you and thank you for investing in emerging leaders and taking this time to talk with me.