How Much are Your Values Worth to You?
Truett Cathy had been in the restaurant business for 21 years when he opened his first Chick-fil-A restaurant in Atlanta’s Greenbrier Mall in 1967. When Cathy founded Chick-fil-A, he did so with values based both on faith and on the importance of work in relation to life. Growing up in the south in the 1930s was tough for the Cathy family, but young Truett learned values that stayed with him throughout his life. One of these was the importance of his worship time on Sunday. The other, learned during his early years as the co-owner of a small restaurant, was the importance of respect for employees.
Even as he struggled to keep the doors of his first restaurant open, Cathy remained dedicated to taking Sunday off for himself and his employees. He remains loyal to this policy even today, with all Chick-fil-A locations closed on potentially the busiest day of their week. His position on this is the first of many subtle tips I learned about the law of attraction and how it works in business.
Cathy says, “We find closing on Sunday attracts those people who give attention to spiritual growth and are family-oriented. Admittedly, closing all of our restaurants every Sunday makes us a rarity in this day and age. But it’s a little habit that has always served us well, so we’re planning to stick with it.”
Cathy operates his business under what he calls “four tenets.” These are:
Instead of selling franchises, Chick-fil-A will form joint ventures with independent operators.
Stores will only be opened in major shopping malls. [This has been modified.]
Growth will be financed primarily internally.
The chief emphasis will be on people.
It should be noted that none of them refers to profits.
In defending his decision to remain a private company as opposed to going public, Cathy made the following statement in 2002:
In the early days, we did not offer stock for sale because I could not predict how fast the company might grow or what dividends we might pay to anyone who might invest. . . . If I had a widow invest her savings in Chick-fil-A, and the company didn’t pay the return she expected, I would feel obligated to make up the difference to her. Even if we paid less than she could earn in a savings certificate, I would feel compelled to bail her out. Feeling that way, I might as well sign the bank note and be personally responsible rather than take other people’s money.
(From Eat Mor Chikin: Inspire More People (Decatur, Ga.: Looking Glass Books, 2002.)