Fourteen Foods

Building Culture into the Operating System

You don’t build it once, you build it every single day or it does not last. Growth exposes whatever your culture actually is, not whatever you say it is. At Fourteen Foods, were running 250-plus locations, which means culture can’t live in a mission statement on a wall. It has to live in daily huddles, weekly communication efforts, monthly themes, training efforts, hiring practices” rhythms that repeat until they become identity. People do not buy into culture because leadership announced it. They buy in because they see it lived out, on repeat, by the person coaching and leading them face to face. Growth does not wait for culture to catch up. So, you build the systems first and let the systems carry the values when you cannot be in the room.

Keeping People Connected Through Consistency and Storytelling

Consistency and storytelling, in that order. Our mission- "shepherding world class restaurants that celebrate our commitment to faith, people and community"-only means something if people hear it connected to real moments, not just PowerPoint presentations. We use an accountability framework that keeps every leader clear on their role, paired with a communication cadence that hits every level differently, but the story underneath has to be the same. We are launching a podcast for the second half of this year, where I sit across from leaders and pull out their real journey- not the highlight reel. People stay connected to purpose when they see themselves in someone else’s story, not when they are handed a value statement and told to memorize it.

Balancing High Standards with High Care

I do not think of those as two sides of a continuum. High standards and high care are never in competition-they are the same coaching philosophy. A coach who only cares about the scoreboard loses the locker room. A coach who only cares about feelings loses the game. My job is to hold both: coach the person, not just the number and hold the number, because the number is often how a person knows they are growing. When someone’s underperforming, the first question isn’t why aren’t you hitting the target, it’s what’s actually going on. Nine times out of ten, performance problems are people problems wearing a spreadsheet.

Protecting Culture as Growth Accelerates

Speed. Growth moves faster than culture can travel unless you have built it into the operating system, not just the orientation deck during the hiring process. The second challenge is dilution- every new leader you add is a new filter your culture has to pass through and if that leader was not coached well, your values get watered down one site at a time without anyone noticing until it is a real problem. The third is the quiet compromise: leaders start trading values for growth metrics in small, forgivable-seeming ways and those small trades compound. Culture does not usually die in one dramatic moment. It erodes in a hundred quiet ones nobody has cared to address.

Developing the Discipline to Lead People

Start with personal discipline before you chase a job. The habits and routines you build when nobody’s watching are exactly what qualify you to lead people when everybody’s watching. Get good at leading the one person in front of you before you worry about leading a team, department or organization. And take the risk- raise your hand for the hard conversation, the tough project, the thing that scares you a little. Leadership is not given to the most talented person in the building. It is given to the most consistent one. Show up, do the work, coach the person in front of you like they matter- because they do-and the leadership role will find you.