This past weekend while doing some Spring cleaning I came across this book on my bookshelf. I read it last year and found it to be a great read but for one reason or another I never got around to writing up a review. I forget how I came across the book to begin with, perhaps it was the word ‘accidental’ in the title that made me think it would be interesting.
Well, it certainly was. The book is the story of David Novak, current Chairman and CEO of YUM! Brands, the owners of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, Long John Silver’s, and A&W Restaurants. He tells his story and it is one I found to be fascinating. Novak is a former marketing executive and he has a handful of stories about some of the projects he was involved with through the years, many of them while at Pepsi. What I enjoyed most was probably how he was willing to talk about both his successful campaigns (Ray Charles and “You’ve Got The Right One, Baby” ) as well as the not-so-successful ones (Crystal Pepsi). Through it all you get the feeling that Novak is someone that is an open book himself and is probably the type of executive that really inspires others to perform at a high level.
There are a lot of stories in the book that I could spend time writing about here but instead what I want to do is convey what I consider the most important lesson. Novak could have spent his life feeling sorry for himself, but he didn’t. As you progress through the book you start to understand that Novak tends to take something positive from every experience he has, whether that is living in 32 trailer parks in 23 states by the 7th grade, or not getting the promotion you wanted. See, it’s not about what happens to you in life, it ‘s all about what you do with it when it happens.
The Education of an Accidental CEO: Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office
It’s well worth a few dollars to have this book on your bookshelf. In fact, I decided to add it to my library here as well.
