Domino’s CEO: Companies Need to Spend More Time Encouraging Employees to Take Risks
Companies should spend more time encouraging employees to take risks, claims the CEO of Domino’s. “It makes it a lot more fun to work for a company that is trying things, that is doing things,” Patrick Doyle said at a Top Workplaces event in suburban Detroit. “We love mistakes. It’s an important part of moving the business forward.”
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Doyle knows something about risk. Since taking over as CEO in 2010, he is perhaps best known for its technology innovations and a campaign in which Domino’s trashed its own product. It spent millions marketing the fact that its pizza wasn’t up to standard and that customers deserved better.
Since Doyle took over the company, its stock has risen more than 1,000 percent, from about $8 per share to more than $100 per share. Domino’s has opened 3,000 new stores, expanding to approximately 12,000 shops in total. It operates in more than 80 countries, including its latest bold move in the motherland of pizza: Italy.
Among Domino’s innovations:
- Allowing people to order pizza simply by sending an emoji.
- Developing its own specialty cars that hold up to 80 pizzas with a warming oven.
How does it fuel success? Doyle called this his “absurdly simple strategy”:
- Get great people together
- Give them some ground rules
- Encourage big thinking and risk
- Give them what they need to succeed
Doyle shared Domino’s core beliefs:
- Opportunity
- Hard work
- Inspired solutions
- Winning together
- Embracing community
- Uncommon honesty
He also shared Domino’s commitment to how employees treat each other:
- Be courageous
- Handle the rush
- Respect others
- Make disciplined decisions
- Champion our customers
- Celebrate success
According to Doyle, culture can’t be imposed; it has to happen organically. “It has to come from people who work there.” He also offered this advice about finding employees: Hire attitude, teach success. And “we don’t tolerate jerks.”
