In the thousands of books available, it gets easy for the simple art of listening to get lost. But in my life, I’ve found that you can break listening down to two very easy questions. Here they are:

1. Who are you listening to?
2. Who is listening to you?

The first question centers on the act of listening to other people. Since influence often shapes our actions, whose influence are you giving weight to? As you walk through the day, whose words are you counting on and reacting to? Who is giving you input on your dreams and your decisions? Who are you listening to?

The second question flips the scenario around. Who in your world finds what you do and how you do it worth listening to? Who are you mentoring? Who are you leading? What are you doing that inspires others to listen? Who has asked for your influence? Who is listening to you?

Those are simple questions, but they sum up the art of listening. It’s a two way street. We listen to others and others listen to us. And if you’ve never thought about either list, today might be a good time to start.

If you made a short list of the people you are listening to, who would be on it? A boss, a spouse, a neighbor? If you made a similar list of people who listen to you, who would we find? Employees, family, your kids?

The lists are easy, the answers they provide are sometimes not. In our next post we’ll look at a great example of listening that spans two of the greatest enterprises in the last 50 years.

But when I hold one in my hands, I am struck by the reminder that ultimately, the pieces and parts that make up the iPad have been around forever. The minerals, the materials, the raw guts of the whole thing have been in existence for centuries. The DNA for the whole thing has been with us for decades and decades. It really is a perfect example of the Bible’s belief that there is nothing new under the sun.

So then why is the iPad revolutionary? Why does it scream “brand new” and “first generation?” Why is it poised to redefine the computer industry if at its heart, it’s built from “old materials?”

Well, in some very real ways, the iPad is a new idea. Apple and Steve Jobs have found the best way to build something new in a world that has already seen everything. They combined existing technologies and have dominated a new context.

That to me is the trick to creating something “new.” You take pre-existing building blocks, foundational pieces that may already exist and you find a new way to combine them. Better yet, you find a way to introduce something into a new context.

For instance, the My Coke Rewards program has been a smash success for Coca-Cola. This simple point collection system found on most containers of the Atlanta beverage has been a great way for fans to get prizes just for doing something they already love doing. Did Coca-Cola invent that? Nope, airlines have had frequent flyer programs for years. But Coca-Cola had the brilliant insight to try that system in a new context in a new way.

I’m not sure what your team is brainstorming right now. Maybe you’re stuck on trying to create something “new.” My advice is to remember those two words that start with C, “Combine” and “Context.” Find a way to combine a few things to create something new. And then look for a new context to explore it in.

Although they feel impossible sometimes, I promise you, fresh thinking and fresh solutions are just around the corner.

Is it any wonder, given that approach to work, that people sometimes feel out of the loop?

Messages get dropped, communications get layered, red tape multiplies as we each work on our own little islands. Bit by bit, the common purpose of a company gets whittled away by the individual needs of an individual day. The marketing department and accounting department might share a core mission statement framed on a company wall, but when push comes to shove, they each rightfully so try to get their department’s needs met.

What can you do in a situation like this?

Reset.

You have to reset the vision of the company. You have to reset the values of the company. You have to reset the future of the company. Not rewrite it, but reset it. Your core purpose has not changed. But given the pace of the average day, it’s easy for it to get lost in the shuffle and from time to time, you need to circle the wagons and refocus on it.

How do we do it at Chick-fil-A?

Two ways: Staff Summit and the Operator’s Seminar.

In both events, we bring together thousands of employees. In Atlanta, we hold a summit for every single corporate employee. We talk about our roots. We speak honestly and openly about our recent challenges. We come together as a family to hear from the leaders of our growing organization.

At Seminar, we do the same thing, only the focus is on our Operators. Held over a series of days, we bring in speakers from around the country to motivate our Operators. We give them new tools they can use. We realign ourselves on our corporate values. We celebrate our successes.

We could save a lot of money by cancelling these events, especially in a down economy. But we believe in our employees and we believe in talking with them and learning from them. And that takes doing something extraordinary in the middle of an otherwise ordinary week.

Perhaps the Beatles said it best all those years ago when they encouraged us all to, “Come together.”

It’s that simple.

Want a strong, healthy team?

Come together.

But, boy oh boy, have times changed.

Now in addition to all the advances in technology that tend to start with lowercase i’s (iPhone, iPod, iPad, etc.) there’s something else we need to think about…our digital footprint.

What’s the term mean?

Put simply, it’s the impact you personally make to the online environment. If the Internet is beach sand and your online presence is a foot, it’s the indent you make online. And now, more than ever before, you need to be deliberate about your particular digital footprint.

As a leader, an employee, a mom or a student, there are some common questions you have to ask when it comes to your digital footprint. Think about the following:

1. Do I want to maintain a resume and profile on Linkedin?
2. Do I need to be active on Twitter?
3. Do I need a presence on Facebook?
4. Do I want to restrict the things people can see about my life on Facebook?
5. Do I want to build a blog?
6. Do I want a public blog everyone sees or a private one for friends and family?
7. Do I feel OK about putting photos from my life on public sites like Flickr?
8. Do I want people online to know when I am out of town or would that make my spouse feel uncomfortable?

Those are just a few of the questions you should ask because more than just managing email, you need to think about how you and your family will interact with social media sites. As a member of the Chick-fil-A corporate leadership team, I think about these types of issues all the time from a company perspective. But lately, I find myself focusing on what the particulars of my personal digital footprint will be.

Here’s my current digital footprint:

Twitter = http://www.twitter.com/dancathy

Facebook = http://www.facebook.com/dantcathy

Blog = http://www.dantcathy.com/feed/

Although there are countless other ways to share who you are online, those three work for me. (And I’d love to connect with you via any of those options. Feel free to follow, friend, etc.)

What about you? Are you on Twitter or Facebook? Have you gotten “Linkedin?”

What does your digital footprint look like?

Keeping things personal is one of my biggest jobs as a member of the Chick-fil-A leadership team. As fast and as full as life gets sometimes, it’s tempting to break things down to “just business.” It’s a lot less messy to deal in Excel spreadsheets and categorize employees and customers as numbers. They’re just data. You just need to get XX amount of employees to serve XX amount of customers XX amount of food each day. End of story.

But that’s not true. Those employees aren’t numbers. They’re not just data. They’re moms and dads. They’re college students with dreams. They’re high school kids learning the value of hard work. They’re people just like me with hopes and fears and goals and friends and family. Same with the customers.

The customers are never numbers. They are dads taking their daughters out to dinner on date night at Chick-fil-A. They are moms who need a playground and a healthy meal for kids on the go. They are friends who camp out with me overnight for the grand opening of a new Chick-fil-A.

There are a lot of ways you can keep things personal at your business, but my favorite is to get out from my behind my desk. I like to be behind the counter. I like to serve someone a sandwich or help an employee make a milkshake. I find that dirty hands make it hard to see people as just numbers.

If you’re looking for me on most days, you’ll find me at a Chick-fil-A. Because it’s not just business. It’s not just data.

It’s personal. It’s all personal.

3. Consider every source a critical source.

As I mentioned, immediately following the Chick-fil-A Leadercast event, my team met to review what we had experienced. It was a great meeting and I really felt like people threw some important ideas on the table. But that meeting was not the conclusion of our improvement efforts, it was only the beginning.

The truth is, we opened up the floodgates after the event. We held meetings. We reviewed surveys for feedback. We talked with friends who had attended. We got input from people who had been at the event and Operators who had experienced the event via a simulcast. We cast a net much wider than most people care to attempt. Why?

Because every source is a critical source. When it comes to continuous improvement, you’ve got to gather all the feedback you can. There will be plenty of time to sort through it and analyze it in the future, but when you begin, begin with the expectation that every idea must be explored. Don’t just interview your marketing manager. Interview both the people that attended the event and those who put it on. Don’t initially try to eliminate feedback you don’t think is applicable. Invite it and discuss it from all possible angles.

For this particular event, that means we could do things like talk to the person who ran the registration booth. We could ask the cameraman if he noticed anything that could be enhanced. We could review blog posts people wrote about it and check Twitter for tweets about the event. We could search high and wide gathering the information we need to create the event we want for 2011.

The point of all of it is simple, when you start a new project and you want to focus on continuous improvement, every source is a critical source. Don’t ignore any information from any possible source. Once you have it all in, you can laser through it with a discerning eye, but at the beginning, it’s too soon to eliminate. Focus on addition, not subtraction at the outset. There will be plenty of time to remove things later.

That concludes our three part look at continuous improvement. In the future, we’ll cover the many other aspects of this approach to work. From reviewing the feedback to incorporating new processes in a team environment, we’ll leave no stone unturned.

Until then, look at the event or project with multiple sets of expectations, understand that immediate is immediately important and consider every source a critical source.

Today, I’d like to talk about the second way to embrace this approach to business and life:

2. Understand that immediate is immediately important.
The temptation sometimes after a big event or project or deadline is to take a breather. To sit back and perhaps quietly reflect on the work your team accomplished together. And there will be plenty of time for reflection in the future, but the moments following an experience are critical.

There’s a very small window after a particular situation in which you can really pull together and provide exponentially important feedback. I experienced this recently.

The Chick-fil-A Leadercast was on a Friday in downtown Atlanta. Now if you’ve ever been to the capital of Georgia you know how bad traffic can be, especially on a Friday. Rated as one of the worst commutes in the country, it’s common for people to feel the need to “escape” downtown before the roadways clog. But after the conference wrapped up, a handful of Chick-fil-A leaders did just the opposite. We didn’t race to our cars or try to get home as fast as we could. Instead, we held a meeting to discuss the conference. We got together mere minutes after the event was over to discuss it. Why?

Because it was fresh. We all had great notes and ideas that were right on the surface of our hearts and minds. Our busy lives had not cluttered them yet, so it was important to share them quickly and immediately. We knew we would discuss things in greater detail in the days and weeks to come, but we also knew that we had to share with a sense of urgency. If we had waited until Monday, we would have lost lots of important information. Some studies suggest that the average person experiences up to 3,000 marketing messages every day. So if we met on Monday instead of Friday, we would have been competing with an extra 6,000 ideas.

I don’t like those odds and neither should you. To make the most of your ideas, to make the most of your experience with continuous improvement, embrace the immediate importance of the immediate.

Coming soon, Part 3: Consider every source a critical source.

With his latest book however, he’s also becoming an expert on failure or as the title suggests, “How the Mighty Fall.” Unfortunately, Collins has ample source material to choose from as we collectively try to pick up the pieces of an economy that has been deeply wounded by out of control corporations and ill-advised business decisions.

In his speech, Jim succinctly laid out the five stages companies go through as they march toward collapse.

Stage 1 – Hubris born of success.
In the first stage, a deep sort of arrogance and false sense of invincibility sets in. A success lends inappropriate levels of confidence to your organization and you start to believe things that simply aren’t true about your own greatness.

Stage 2 – Undisciplined pursuit of more.
Collins says that great companies leave “growth on the table.” Room for future expansion or opportunities they simply are not ready for. Companies headed toward tragedy retire the word “enough” and keep thinking they need to grab one more piece of the puzzle.

Stage 3 – Denial of risk and peril.
This stage reminds me a little of the Emperor’s clothes. Even as deals fall through and competition springs up, there is no clear admission of the risks. We’re successful and powerful and reaching for more, what could possibly go wrong?

Stage 4 – Grasping for salvation.
When risk finally does become real, companies in this stage tend to swing for the fences. Fearing collapse, only a home run will do. Only a lottery ticket size prize will suffice to save all hope. And the next project or next opportunity must provide not just money, but rescue.

Stage 5 – Capitulation to irrelevance or death.
I find it appropriate that Collins uses the word “death” here instead of something simple like “quitting” or “closing.” Something has died. A culture that was once thriving and alive and hopeful has expired. Hundreds, maybe thousands of lives, have been impacted as the first four warning stages were not heeded.

It’s difficult to summarize the wisdom and research of Jim Collins in a quick blog post, but that represents a high level look at “How the Mighty Fall.” I strongly encourage you to get the book. And above that, I implore you to ask honest questions of yourself and your team using the five stages as a true north.

Is your company somewhere in one of those stages? And if so, how can the solutions Collins provides in his book be applied to you?

Everyone takes those paths.

The popularity of the well-worn path makes the destination common. You wind up walking toward a place everyone else is headed. Your competitors can buy the same books. They can go to the same conferences and hire the same experts. So what feels like something that might be an advantage is actually just a way to stay ordinary.

But there will be cows.

In every adventure, you’ll have the chance to step off the beaten path. To say “no” to common, stinkin’ thinkin’ and try something new, like cows. That we use cows as a symbol for a chicken restaurant is a little unusual. It always has been and it always will be. Deciding to go that route didn’t really fit with conventional wisdom. The truth is though, that conventional wisdom tends to get you conventional results.

If you want big results, in big unexplored territory, you have to sometimes make unexpected decisions. You have to not just use a cow on an ad, but so deeply embrace your unique decision that you hold special “Cow Days” where customers eat free if they dress up like cows. Those are some of my favorite days at Chick-fil-A because they remind me that you don’t have to accept the norm. You don’t have to take the same path everyone else takes.

You can be new. You can be different. And if you pursue the extraordinary with extraordinary customer service, you probably won’t ever have to worry about ordinary results.

Why? Simply put, because leaders take care of leaders.

Catalyst is a leadership conference. Held in both Atlanta and Los Angeles, it’s a chance for influencers like Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin and Andy Stanley to impact the next generation of leaders. It’s a three-day event that offers the chance to grow and strengthen leadership at churches and organizations around the world.

And that’s why Chick-fil-A loves to be a part of it. You see leadership isn’t a one-way street. It doesn’t travel in a single direction. Despite what we may all think sometimes, it’s not a ladder you climb straight up. Not at all. Leadership, real leadership, is multidirectional. You have to help and serve people in front of you and behind you and beside you. And above all, you have to find ways to give to the people in your circle.

You have to mentor and carry burdens and share. Sometimes you even have to buy a few thousand people lunch because leaders take care of leaders.

Is there someone in your life that helped make you a better leader? A friend or colleague that helped you grow as a leader? I know there’s a list of people that have filled that role for me. They’ve given me more than I can ever repay. So when opportunities like Catalyst or even just a cup of coffee with a young man come up, it’s hard to say no.

Say yes to another leader today. Lend a hand or maybe a lunch. You don’t have to treat an entire conference to a chicken sandwich to change someone’s day.

Serve a leader and I promise you’ll be surprised at how much the experience changes you.