The Challenge Culture: Why The Most Successful Organizations Run On Pushback

The executive chairman and former CEO of Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins reflects on the unique, resultsoriented discipline he's developed over decades of leadership, which provides a blueprint for any organization to achieve prosperity.We live in an era in which successful organizations can fail in a flash. But they can cope with change and thrive by creating a culture that supports positive pushback: questioning everything without disrespecting anyone.Nigel Travis has forty years of experience as a leader in large and successful organizations, as well as those facing existential crisissuch as Blockbuster as it dawdled in the face of the Netflix challenge. In his ten years as CEO and chairman of Dunkin' Brands, Travis finetuned his ideas about the challenge culture and perfected the practices required to build it. He argues that the best way for organizations to succeed in today's environment is to embrace challenge and encourage pushback. Everyonefrom the new recruit to the senior leadermust be given the freedom to speak up and question the status quo, must learn how to talk in a civil way about difficult issues, and should be encouraged to debate strategies and tacticsalthough always in the spirit of shared purpose. How else will new ideas emerge? How else can organizations steadily improve?Through colorful storytelling, with many examples from his own careerincluding his leadership in turning around the fearridden culture of the Londonbased Leyton Orient Football Club, of which he is part ownerTravis shows how to establish a culture that welcomes challenge, achieves exceptional results, and ensures a prosperous future.