Skip to main content
Award-Winning Leadership Speaker, Executive Coach & New York Times Best-Selling Author

Jeff Henderson

Former Chick-fil-A Marketing Leader: Do you know the difference between success and excellence?

Listen here or on your favorite platform

Search Episodes

Search by name, company or episode number.
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
post

When he played basketball at Norcross High School in Georgia, Jeff Henderson’s coach challenged him to make the All-County team as a senior. Henderson worked his tail off and made the team, which meant he was one of the five best players in one of Georgia’s most populous counties that year.

Fast forward to 1997 when Henderson left a job in marketing at the Atlanta Braves to manage all of sports marketing for Chick-Fil-A. The company’s founder, Truett Cathy, challenged Henderson to help expand the restaurant business beyond its regional base in the south.

Henderson worked his tail off and played a critical role in winning the contract to become the major sponsor of the Peach Bowl, which was renamed the Chick-Fil-A Peach Bowl. The partnership represented the company’s first foray into national sponsorship and advertising and included pioneering work with internet marketing promotion for Chick-Fil-A. By the time he left the company to found churches in Buckhead and Gwinnett, Henderson was described by CEO Dan Cathy as one of the five greatest employees in the company’s history.

Is it a coincidence that Henderson has gone from All County to All Company? Not from where I’m sitting.

“Oftentimes, the bigger your advertising budget, the lazier your thinking,” observed Henderson. “I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said if you are willing to test someone’s character, bless them with a lot of success. That was our challenge as Chick-Fil-A grew. I think what kept us competitive and innovative was understanding the difference between success and excellence. Success is comparing yourself to somebody else. Excellence is comparing yourself to your own potential. And when you compare yourself to your own potential, there is no finish line.”

Chick-Fil-A is now the third-largest food chain in the world — behind McDonald’s and Starbucks — and shows no signs of pulling up to any finish lines soon. In the aftermath of opening three fast-growing churches, Henderson has founded a new company called The For Company, which helps individuals and organizations achieve excellence by answering what Henderson thinks are life’s two key questions: “What are we known for? And what do we want to be known for?”

The leader’s job, says Henderson, is to engage his or her team in answering these questions and then, in the role of servant-leader, work to align each team member’s dreams, goals, and special talents with the mission of “shrinking the gap” between what you are known for now and what you want to be known for.

Henderson has collected his thoughts on this leadership philosophy and his experiences working with other leaders into the book Know What You’re FOR: A Growth Strategy for Work, An Even Better Strategy for Life. During our podcast, we discussed one of the book’s major premises, which is that teams perform better when they share a powerful sense of purpose. Cultivating and sustaining shared purpose takes hard work, but it will more likely bear fruit when your organization takes a customer-centric viewpoint.

Henderson subscribes to the belief that simple is best. “If you get really simple in your vision and your purpose, it becomes portable, and people can talk about it,” he noted. “And when people can talk about your vision and language, you get the greatest form of advertising the world has ever seen, and that is word-of-mouth advertising.”

In 2021, he joined John C. Maxwell’s League of Extraordinary Leaders, five individuals who will deepen and expand the reach of Maxwell’s already world-renowned programs and events.


You will learn:

  •  9:00   How to prevent confusion in the office space.
  • 10:00  How to take a “vision inventory.”
  • 11:30  How to prevent systems and scale from driving out humanity.
  • 18:00  How to “honor the audience” as a keynote speaker.
  • 19:00  Chick-Fil-A’s distinguishing customer characteristic.
  • 22:00  How Chick-Fil-A got involved in college bowl games.
  • 25:30  The important difference between success and excellence.
  • 29:30  How to put the “social” back into social media to reclaim customer loyalty.
  • 32:00  The international sign that someone needs encouragement.
  • 34:00  Why Jeff carries a pack of thank you cards everywhere he goes.
  • 40:00  How to make customers — not the brand — the true stars.

You will learn:

  •  6:00   How easy it is to cut corners in practice and why you’ll suffer as a result.
  •  8:00   How to emphasize the power or “we” on your team.
  • 11:00  How living and working in Japan in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster taught Lane that caring was the universal language of respected leaders.
  • 15:00  The level of employee interaction required to achieve success.
  • 18:30  The difference between being accountable and responsible.
  • 27:00  How to identify a meaningful friend or mentor.

Resources:


Never Miss An Episode

You will receive a FREE chapter from Don’s best-selling book on GREAT TEAMS when you subscribe.

Bonus Resource

Download our custom fill-in-the-blank notes and reflection questions.

Search episodes

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
post

Share Episode

Never Miss An Episode

Sign up to receive Don Yaeger’s weekly leadership contributions, and be the first to listen to new Corporate Competitor Podcast episodes.

Love This Podcast?

We would be so grateful if you left us a rating and review!

Greg Brenneman

Greg Brenneman

Home Depot Board Director

“Don, you have mastered the skill of interviewing and asking great questions. That is a great skill all leaders need in order to understand their team members’ thought processes.”

John Maxwell

John C. Maxwell

Best-Selling Author, Leadership Expert

“I am a subscriber because you are one of the greatest teachers, one of the best storytellers I have ever met, and I know you will maximize the people you have on the podcast. I’m telling everyone because when you find gold you point everyone to it.”

Simon Sinek

Best-Selling Author, Inspirational Speaker

“Don is one of the best storytellers I’ve ever met. I’ve known him for a long time and every time we talk I walk away wiser and more inspired. He is the best in the business at teaching you a skill – storytelling – that will last you a lifetime.”

Beth Brooke

Beth Brooke

Global Vice Chair of Public Policy for Ernst & Young

“The ability for athletes to get hired is carried on through you because you are putting out the message that lessons learned from sports are important in life. It is embedded in this podcast, what you’re doing is significant.”

RIck Hendrick

Rick Hendrick

NASCAR Hall of Famer, Owner of Hendrick Motorsports & Chairman of the Hendrick Automotive Group

“We speak the same language. I am inspired by the stories you tell, the people you have met, and the things you’ve done. Those of us that are competitors like to follow others that have been down that journey, so it is always fun talking to you!”

Bill George

Bill George

Longtime Medtronic CEO, Harvard Professor

“Many of the leaders I have worked with were excellent athletes, and I think there is a direct correlation. You’re one of the few people that really has pursued this study, Don. Keep up the great work. What you are doing really makes a difference.”

Savannah Gallagher

Producer

Jon Rousseau

Design/Development

Francisco Nunez

Editor

Brett Rutherford

Editor

Special thanks to Dave Moore, Lauren Hafner, Samantha Clark, and the Florida State University Internship Program for consistently supporting our research team.

Join the Greatness Community

Download Don’s fill-in-the-blank notes and reflection questions so you can create powerful, positive change in your organization.

You will receive a new leadership lesson each week.

Apple Podcasts

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

Step 1: Open the Apple Podcasts App.

Step 2: Search Corporate Competitor Podcast and click the episode art.

Step 3: Scroll to the bottom of the page and leave a rating and review.

BONUS   Screenshot your review, and send to corporate.competitor@greatnessinc.com for a free gift!

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyReturn to Shop