Kat Cole: Growth, Disruption, and the Habits of Extraordinary Leaders

If we aren't growing, we're dying, we believe. And so growth comes from pushing yourself, believing more and better is possible and striving for it in some way that is healthy. And that is learning new skills, growing in your role, being open to feedback, getting coaching for your health or for your life or for your relationship. That is one spectacular life.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, there have been, you know, many. Um, you know, I started leading teams when I was very young, when I was, um, a teenager. I was a hostess at 17, a waitress at 18. Uh, but then started leading teams within the restaurants that I worked in at 18, started traveling around the world, opening franchises at 19, took my first corporate job, leading a small department at 20, and then grew within the company as it grew. So by the time I was 26, I was vice president of a company doing 800 million in revenue. So significant, you know, scale and responsibility, and was in that company that was Hooters restaurants for almost 15 years, 14 and a half years. Then became president of Cinnabon, turned it around out of the Great Recession in 2010, led that brand for four years, and expanded to lead multiple brands in the parent company, which was Focus Brands. Uh, and then over that time frame, which was from 2010 to 20, so just think about those bookends, the Great Recession and COVID. That was my beginning and that was my wrapping up at Focus Brands 2021. So even if we just think about what was going on in markets and in society and in the economy in those time windows, um, I have had significant external macro disruption to navigate as a leader of scaled businesses, as anyone who was leading at those times in most industries would have. And then there are things very specific to, you know, my company or my industry. So that's a bit of backdrop of the number of momentous disruptions. It almost looks like one of these long timelines of boom and bust. And so I would say one, when there are macro forces, right? Um, Great Recession, a pandemic, complete decimation of your revenue, which is what happened to the restaurant and hospitality industry that I was running during COVID. Those are very clear moments that are the answers to your question. So I'll start there because they're ones that affected most people and are most profound. There are many others that are small, you know, in income. Uh, so I would say, you know, one, leading in the restaurant industry during the Great Recession. So 2008, 2009, then 2010 and 11 when things started to turn around. Uh, you know, it was really tough because I was running franchise businesses and many of those operators were independent, what, you know, in the US we call mom-and-pop franchises. They own one or two businesses, hardworking entrepreneurs. Often many people in their family work in these locations. They are both owner and operator. Uh, many of them had personal guarantees on their leases. And so when all of a sudden foot traffic, which is what you would call your customer base in malls and airports, um, ceases to grow and starts declining because people have compressed discretionary income. They don't shop as much, they don't travel as much. Uh, so they don't spend as much money outside of what is absolutely critical discretionary, right? Um, and so that was a really hard time on those franchises and many of them were facing personal bankruptcy because of the personal guarantees. So, uh, both when I was leaving running larger restaurants and going into Cinnabon, which you mentioned, which was my first brand that I was the president and CEO of, um, a lot of small franchises were in trouble. I took over a business where the operators were in financial duress. Uh, but the brand was beloved. And so I learned so much in that window of time, which was 2010, about how to get in, roll up my sleeves, be with people who are doing the work but who are in trouble and find both the honesty about what's broken that really matters to try to fix it and the optimism of what is possible to revive some of the belief that's been depressed. And I would say that's a playbook. Anytime times are tough, you need a degree of practicality and honest, intellectual honesty. Um, sometimes I call it being clear-eyed about broken, what really matters the most and a best practice or at least some effort on how to fix it. Make the, uh, make what is declining stop declining. Maybe it's not create growth, but less bad is often the best you can do. Uh, and then on the other side you need to bring some hope and some belief or find it in the organization and bring it out. A decade later when COVID hit, I would be called upon to bring those same skills, as would my leadership team, focus on what really matters, which at that point was people's safety and cash to keep operating the business because the revenue was gone. So you had to really focus on like cash and people, cash and people, um, and then help people navigate uncertainty that existed for everyone. No one had the answers. No one had the playbook. Every city was navigating things differently and I was used to being in a position of authority of clarity. I know the brands. I know the laws. I know the regulations. I can help you, where all of that was gone and we were all in a boat of uncertainty together. So having clear focus on protecting capital, protecting resources needed to continue to be viable and operate, and protecting people, just having a prioritization of safety even if it wasn't fun, even if everyone didn't agree with it. Uh, those would both be almost those bookends of 2010 and 2020. Know how to prioritize what matters. Be willing to take unpopular action on the few things that matter most. Uh, and then find belief, not delusional positivity, just belief what is possible, what can we do. It's very obvious what we can't do, but what can we do. So those would be characteristics or, um, leadership traits I would say that in those macro moments of unexpected change and transition are the answers for how to work through it more effectively than other people.

I would say the answer to that varies based on the scale of your team and business. If you are a solopreneur, a small business owner, you have a small team, then you alone can communicate certain things in certain ways that will help bring people along. If you have levels and layers to your organization, more people, more distance, more geographic spread, then just you alone communicating effectively to the masses does not work. You have to have more of a sequenced approach. I've learned the most important first step is my immediate team, the other leaders in the company. Do we see things the same or similarly first before I go try to get the whole organization to see things similarly. So I remember, um, I'm thinking of two times. Uh, one when I was at Focus Brands and the franchises were navigating the Great Recession, as I mentioned, and there was some innovation opportunity in the business, but they were afraid of doing things differently, even though that was a period of time they should have been happy to do anything differently because anything different has a chance for a better outcome. But actually the franchises resisted, for example, launching smaller portions or different menu items. It's not that those things weren't intuitive. They were. If you talk to customers, which I did, if you talk to managers, which I did, the themes of we should have smaller portions, we should have more portable products, we should have lower price points because it's the recession and people need more affordability. I mean, the insights were screaming from the employees and the company. But when the leadership team and I recommended the solution, responding to those opportunities, they were scared of change because there was already so much uncertainty. At the same time, running even, you know, even in a hyper-growth, more relevant company to your point at AG1, we're a daily foundational nutrition supplement. We're in one of the fastest-growing consumer spaces, wellness and health and nutrition and longevity. And when I joined the company, we were one product and one channel and built a business doing half a billion in revenue with that one product, just AG1, the daily health drink that is a green powder that combines your multivitamin, your pro- and prebiotics, and your superfoods and whole foods, you know, and grown so much on its own. But eventually it was time to bridge into retail brick and mortar. Eventually it was time to launch a second product, which we did with AGZ, our sleep product. But that wasn't necessarily popular with everyone internally. In both cases, launching smaller portions at Cinnabon or Auntie's, two of our brands we had during the recession, or bridging from our legacy channel to something new at AG1. Often in a company with any significant number of employees, you will have some people who agree with change and want it and some people who don't. So the first step is confront reality. Are we seeing reality the same way? And there's two ways to do that. And again, if you're with a small group, you can just communicate this directly to your team. If you're with a larger group, you have to get layers on board before you communicate it to everyone. And if things are going not well, then it's a little easier to confront reality. You can show charts, tables, performance. You just kind of put the numbers in front of everyone's face and say whatever we're doing is clearly not leading to something better. It doesn't mean everything is bad. Maybe some good things you're doing are preventing it from being worse, and you've got to acknowledge that. Um, but confront reality, then point out examples of what is better out in the marketplace. It doesn't mean it's all relevant to you, but it at least demonstrates better is possible. That is also the technique I've learned to use when things are going great. It is very difficult to get people to change when things are going well, because they think, why, you know, it's working. But if there is an example of a company externally that is doing something even more better, greater with less talent, with less brand recognition, with fewer resources, that's something the team should pay attention to. Something different and better is possible. And if we love what we're doing too much, we may unknowingly be supporting behaviors or resource allocation that are preventing us from being even better. And so those are the techniques. You show the data if it's already declining, or you point out a different company or example of people doing more with less, and use that to confront reality and get people to answer the question: Is different and better possible? Yes. Is different and better relevant to us and could it be good for us? Yes or no? Right? You've got to bring people, okay, then what signal do we have of what is most likely to bridge the gap between where we are and what that potential is, and then you focus on that. Then find that. So that's step one, confront reality. Second step is find the coalition of the willing. There's always someone in the company who's actually been wanting you to do these things. They've been nudging. They've been the, you know, the sand in the oyster. They've been the squeaky wheel. They've been the person complaining that you're not leveraging AI or that you're not leaning into smaller portions or that you should have a second product or you should go into retail when you're... there's always someone. Find those people and have them be a part of the experiment of the learning. Then when you prove it out or do tests or take a step, those people can also be a part of selling the concept or bringing others along, not just you. So confront reality, find the coalition of the willing, and then let those people who are deep in the work be a part of leading the transformation.

Yeah, one, we do get together often. Work from home in a fully remote company often for leaders means travel often.

Yes, so I tell people, pick your pain, pick your friction. The grass is not greener. There's always a tax you pay for any operating model. Um, but this one works for us and we're native to it. We've always been fully remote and global since inception for 16 years before COVID. Um, so one, the values came from, as many companies' values, deeply rooted in the founder's original approach, DNA, and ways of working. Two, we pulled language from our customers and from our team over time. And so something like one spectacular life was a lot of what led our founder to create AG1. He had his own health issues, modern solutions of separate pills and powders weren't working. He created this synergistic formula combining supplements and whole foods and fermented probiotics that helped his gut and immunity and energy, and then realized a lot of other people needed that help too. It was all in service of a mindset, which is we only have one spectacular life, at least in this body, and... and so in service of that, in service of living this life, having a mindset that the body is worth investing in as the vessel that holds our soul, our spirit, our minutes, our days, our years, is one part of one spectacular life. The other is that that is not just about either living forever. It's not about that. We're not a live-forever company. And nor is it about just YOLO, like let's just, you know, do it all now no matter the price. It really is about this idea of loving who you are and the journey you're on, and it leads to one of our other values, which is not just continuous improvement, but it used to be continuous improvement and it evolved to continuous pursuit of excellence. So one spectacular life may sound like taking lots of vacations. That is not what it is about. It is about prioritizing your health and your family. It is about learning, learning new things. It is about being humble and asking for help because only then can we live our best life. So one spectacular life in our company has layers of meaning that connect with the other values. Even one of our values, high performance, right? High performance is a part of one spectacular life. If we aren't growing, we're dying, we believe. And so growth comes from pushing yourself, believing more and better is possible and striving for it in some way that is healthy, and that is learning new skills, growing in your role, being open to feedback, getting coaching for your health or for your life or for your relationship. That is one spectacular life.

Absolutely.