{"id":113,"date":"2014-09-09T03:10:36","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T03:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/?p=113"},"modified":"2014-09-09T22:32:44","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T22:32:44","slug":"truett-cathy-an-inspiration-and-an-example","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"Truett Cathy: An Inspiration and an Example"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-115 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=300%2C300\" alt=\"IMG_0905\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=35%2C35&amp;ssl=1 35w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=760%2C760&amp;ssl=1 760w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=400%2C400&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=82%2C82&amp;ssl=1 82w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?resize=600%2C600&amp;ssl=1 600w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?w=1520 1520w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0905.jpg?w=2280 2280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>&#8220;It&#8217;s better\u00a0to build boys than to mend men.&#8221; &#8211; S. Truett Cathy<\/p>\n<p>Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy died today at the age of 93. \u00a0It&#8217;s hard to imagine now, but Chick-fil-A wasn&#8217;t always a major brand or a nationwide enterprise. \u00a0Under the patient leadership of Truett Cathy, Chick-fil-A grew purposefully to become one of America&#8217;s best known and most admired brands.<\/p>\n<p>If all Mr. Cathy had done was to found and lead a successful company, that would have been a significant accomplishment. \u00a0I think, however, that Truett Cathy gave us much more than a hand-breaded, boneless fried chicken breast on a toasted bun with those two crucial pickles. \u00a0He also embodied some important principles that are worth recalling and worth emulating.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Love God &amp; put Him first<\/strong> &#8212; Truett Cathy sought to live his life and to operate his business on Christian principles. \u00a0This is called walking the talk.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Innovate using what&#8217;s around you<\/strong> &#8212; Truett Cathy created the fried chicken sandwich, but none of the ingredients. \u00a0His contribution was the combination of familiar elements in a novel way. \u00a0Likewise, Chick-fil-A pioneered the modern-day food court by placing their restaurants in shopping malls &#8212; a great example of putting one&#8217;s product where buyers are.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Be different and profit<\/strong> &#8212; Rather than offering a me-too hamburger\u00a0into a crowded market, \u00a0Truett Cathy built his restaurant chain around his sandwich innovation. \u00a0Under his leadership, Chick-fil-A sales increased every year for <em>47 years.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><strong>But don&#8217;t be ruled by money<\/strong> &#8211; Chick-fil-A grew while avoiding debt and remains family-owned to this day.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Create a lasting brand by loving and serving people\u00a0<\/strong>&#8212; Chick-fil-A&#8217;s culture \u00a0reflects Truett Cathy&#8217;s emphasis on being an asset to the communities where they do business. \u00a0Operators go out of their way to value employees and frequent customers alike. \u00a0One local operator challenges his employees to have a C.O.W. &#8212; an acronym for Change Our World &#8212; and empowers them to treat a customer who&#8217;s having a bad day.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Strive for excellence in all things including generosity\u00a0<\/strong>&#8212; Chick-fil-A restaurants are predictably excellent in terms of the quality of the food, the cleanliness of the store and the courteous service of the staff. \u00a0Beyond this, however, Chick-fil-A has given millions in scholarships to young men and women who have worked in their restaurants.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Live your principles even when it costs you\u00a0<\/strong>&#8212; Chick-fil-A restaurants are closed on Sunday &#8212; a reflection of Truett Cathy&#8217;s devotion to his Lord. \u00a0This decision has no doubt cost the chain a great deal of money over the years, and some opportunities in malls that didn&#8217;t want to accept this commitment. \u00a0Chick-fil-A&#8217;s ability to recruit and retain quality employees, and to grow while remaining debt free has proved the wisdom of doing business in a principled way<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;We didn&#8217;t invent the chicken, just the chicken sandwich.&#8221; was Chick-fil-A&#8217;s slogan for many years. \u00a0Now Truett is meeting face-to-face with the Inventor of the chicken &#8212; the God he loved throughout his long life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>So how about you?<\/strong>\u00a0 What lessons do you take from Truett Cathy&#8217;s life and work? Whom do you admire, and why? Add your comments below?<\/p>\n<p>Note: I am not employed by Chick-fil-A, nor have I ever been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s better\u00a0to build boys than to mend men.&#8221; &#8211; S. Truett Cathy Chick-fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy died today at the age of 93. \u00a0It&#8217;s hard to imagine now, but Chick-fil-A wasn&#8217;t always a major brand or a nationwide enterprise. \u00a0Under the patient leadership of Truett Cathy, Chick-fil-A grew purposefully to become one of America&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,13,12,10,9,1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excellence","category-faith","category-innovation","category-integrity","category-role-model","category-uncategorized","category-work-ethic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127,"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions\/127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therealgeobooth.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}