Improving #1211

You may think your problem would be solved if you were just a little bigger, but upgraded thinking knows better comes first and bigger follows.

Here's the story.

In nineteen forty-six, Truett Cathy and his brother Ben opened a little diner in Hapeville, Georgia.

They called it The Dwarf Grill.

Ten stools, four booths.

They started another restaurant with a really funny name.

The first Chick-fil-A restaurant didn't open until nineteen sixty-seven, twenty-one years later.

And that first Chick-fil-A in an Atlanta mall was three hundred and eighty-four square feet.

Twenty-one years of work, learning, and persistence, followed by another small beginning.

Fast-forward to the nineteen nineties, a chain called Boston Chicken went public in nineteen ninety-three, raised a pile of money, started opening restaurants at a fast pace, and was a serious competitor to Chick-fil-A.

Chick-fil-A's leaders started talking about how to respond, how to grow faster, how to get bigger.

Truett Cathy, who was not a table pounder, started pounding the table.

And when the room went quiet, he said, "If we get better, our customers will demand that we get bigger." Here's how it played out.

Boston Market, as it was called by then, filed for bankruptcy in nineteen ninety-eight.

McDonald's bought it in two thousand.

That same year, Chick-fil-A passed a billion dollars in sales.

One meeting didn't decide all of that, but the contrast is hard to miss.

One chased bigger, one chased better.

Truett understood two things.

First, bigger isn't in your control.

Customers decide that.

Better is completely in your control.

You decide that every day.

Second, bigger before better breaks things.

Growth you're not ready for doesn't build you up.

You may think your problem would be solved if you were just a little bigger, but upgraded thinking knows better comes first and bigger follows.

Here's the story.

In nineteen forty-six, Truett Cathy and his brother Ben opened a little diner in Hapeville, Georgia.

They called it The Dwarf Grill.

Ten stools, four booths.

They started another restaurant with a really funny name.

The first Chick-fil-A restaurant didn't open until nineteen sixty-seven, twenty-one years later.

And that first Chick-fil-A in an Atlanta mall was three hundred and eighty-four square feet.

Twenty-one years of work, learning, and persistence, followed by another small beginning.

Fast-forward to the nineteen nineties, a chain called Boston Chicken went public in nineteen ninety-three, raised a pile of money, started opening restaurants at a fast pace, and was a serious competitor to Chick-fil-A.

Chick-fil-A's leaders started talking about how to respond, how to grow faster, how to get bigger.

Truett Cathy, who was not a table pounder, started pounding the table.

And when the room went quiet, he said, "If we get better, our customers will demand that we get bigger." Here's how it played out.

Boston Market, as it was called by then, filed for bankruptcy in nineteen ninety-eight.

McDonald's bought it in two thousand.

That same year, Chick-fil-A passed a billion dollars in sales.

One meeting didn't decide all of that, but the contrast is hard to miss.

One chased bigger, one chased better.

Truett understood two things.

First, bigger isn't in your control.

Customers decide that.

Better is completely in your control.

You decide that every day.

Second, bigger before better breaks things.

Growth you're not ready for doesn't build you up.