Chick-fil-A chain a seamless success

The president of the fast-food chain delivered advice during the sixth annual dinner meeting of the Delaware Valley Family Business Center.

When Dan Cathy accepted the role as president of Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chicken chain founded by his father, he had 1,500 ceremonial batons made - one for each restaurant operator.

The batons, Cathy said, symbolized the seamless handover of control from one family member to the next, while at the same time acknowledging that he couldn't run the growing company by himself.

"It's not the four fastest runners that win that relay race," Cathy said. "The ones that win are the team that gets the baton around the track first. The difference is the handoff of the baton."

Cathy delivered that advice during the sixth annual dinner meeting of the Delaware Valley Family Business Center, a Telford-based management consulting and training firm that works with small businesses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.

About 400 people attended the Tuesday event, held at Christopher Dock Mennonite High School in Towamencin.

Cathy's father, Truett. opened the first Chick-fil-A restaurant in Atlanta's Greenbriar Mall in 1967, based on the advice of a relative who owned a store there and said there weren't any places to eat. The restaurant was named after the popular Chick-fil-A chicken steak sandwich Truett had been selling at his Dwarf Grill restaurant.

In the 1980s, Chick-fil-A began opening freestanding stores and positioning the firm for future growth, Dan Cathy said.

For more than 40 years, the Cathy family has remained true to its roots - and to its faith. To this day, Chick-fil-A restaurants are not open on Sundays. And the company's mission statement refers not to sales and profits, but to glorifying God in its work and having a positive influence on everyone who walks in the door.

Despite having nearly 1,500 restaurants in 38 states and Washington, D.C. - and a rabid fan base that has posted more than 2,000 Chick-fil-A videos on YouTube - the company remains small, Cathy said. All corporate team members and restaurant operators, for instance, are invited to Cathy's home for dinner. Cathy also is known to camp out overnight with customers waiting at new store openings, where the first 100 people in line traditionally get free food for a year. He was spending Wednesday night at his 99th camp-out, this one in Kentucky.

"My dad taught me a very important lesson," Cathy said. "Fall in love with your work, and you'll never have to work again."

Truett Cathy remains Chick-fil-A's chief executive and chairman. Dan Cathy's brother, Bubba, and sister, Trudy, also are involved in the family business, as are three of their 12 children. Dan Cathy said he and his siblings agreed years ago that future generations would have to work two years outside the business before joining Chick-fil-A.

Dan Cathy said the secret to running a successful family business is to have a seamless transition between generations. When he took over for longtime president Jimmy Collins in 2001, Dan Cathy said it was a "non-event."

At the same time, however, Chick-fil-A has remained successful because of its ability to change with the times, Cathy said.

"The businesses that survive are constantly changing," he said. "We've got to talk more about where things are headed than where they've been."

Crissa Shoemaker DeBree can be reached at 215-345-3186 or cshoemaker@phillyBurbs.com.