Wendy's Founder's Ingredients for Success

SOURCE:  "What Makes for Success" by Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy's in Impiris, Vol 25, No 7. July 1996.
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Dave Thomas' ingredients for success are divided into four basic groups:

• Inward - these have to do with getting your own act together successfully.
• Honesty - "It means stepping out and telling the whole truth.  Honesty means being sincere."
• Faith - "Live your faith. Don't wear it on your sleeve; roll up both sleeves and do something about it."
• Discipline - "Routine lies at the heart of discipline.  Routine is what keeps us focused on the main things in life...Discipline means keeping things and people in their proper places."
• Outward - these are all about treating people right.
• Caring - "Caring is feeling what another person feels.  Some people call it 'empathy'. Genuinely caring about people usually leads to success."
• Teamwork - "Teamwork is the starting point for treating people right. Most people think that teamwork is only important when competing against other teams.  But competition is only part of the picture.  In most things we do in life, people have to work with rather than against each other to get something done.  Win-win situations and partnerships are the most important results of teamwork.  The best teams in the world are the ones that help people become better and achieve more than they ever thought they could on their own."
• Upward - these are skills you need to know if you want to go beyond just doing an okay job and truly excel.
• Motivation - "Know what motivates you, and prove to yourself that this motivation is honest and worthwhile.  But don't let too many different things motivate you, or you'll be tangled up in a maze of all kinds of conflicts.  Stay focused."
• Creativity - "Creativity means change, but if you don't use common sense when you change things around, you are likely to end up farther behind than when you started.  Not everyone can be creative.  Accept it as a fact of life that if you aren't creative yourself your challenge is to learn how to work with people who are...What make people creative?  Sometimes, it's having your life shaken up."
• Leadership - "What knocks off more leaders than anything else is failing to practice what they preach.  Of all the things leaders are supposed to do, nothing is more important than setting a good example."
• Onward - these are attitudes you need to have in order to put yourself second and other people first.
• Responsibility - "Mature leadership means realizing that no single person can be responsible for everything.  You can't be successful if you are stumbling around trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders.  Responsible people refuse to take shortcuts, even though they are almost always available.  They make sure that others with duties act responsibly, too.  And they use whatever recognition or honor they may have earned not to further their own ends but on behalf of good causes.  Instead of stealing the limelight, they allow it to shine on a good cause."
  
• Courage - "We tend to make courage too dramatic.  Courage is often doing something simple, unpleasant, or boring again and again until we get it down pat."
• Generosity -"You have to give of yourself, not just of your wallet."