Book Description
For close to 45 years, Jon Luther, a 2010 inductee into the National Restaurant Association Hall of Fame, has been running some part of the U.S. food-service industry--from managing the cafeteria at the Wurlitzer jukebox and organ company to leading Dunkin' Brands, serving three million customers a day around the world. Drawing on lessons learned in that long career, he describes how he overcame organizational inertia and reset the strategic direction of three of the companies he has led. In each case, he began by identifying the epicenter of the brand, the strategic heartbeat. By its very definition, the word leader evokes the concept of change. Leaders take us toward or away from something, into a new reality. But change is almost always frightening, and leaders have to persuade their teams that the risks are worth taking, that the work is worth doing, and that the payoff will improve their lives. I've been through that process many times, and I'm here to tell you that it can be done--and that you can do it, too. In our personal lives, if we are content with the status quo, we don't need to look for someone to carry us to a new place. Businesses don't have that luxury. They cannot stand still because their environment is in constant flux: Employees come and go, competitors adopt new strategies, technical breakthroughs transform markets. So organizations must have leaders who can plan, initiate, and execute the strategies that will deliver the required change.
