1: There are two traps CEOs and leadership teams fall into regarding innovation.

Trap #1: “The minute we think we truly understand the customer and can take our attention off discovering what matters, we’re dead,” Panera founder Ron Shaich writes in Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations.

“Sooner or later,” Ron notes, “even the most brilliant and innovative concept will fall behind the times and become … continue reading

1: “So tell me this,” the young executive asked, “Is Panera almost as good as Donatos?”

“Is he joking?” Panera Bread CEO Ron Shaich thought to himself.

It was the early 2000s. Ron was sitting in an executive boardroom at McDonald’s headquarters outside Chicago. Ten years earlier, he had purchased the St. Louis Bread Company and renamed it Panera.

On the other side of the table were members of McDonald’s … continue reading

1: In 2017, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich sold the company for $7.5 billion, one of the largest deals in restaurant history.

What does Ron believe is the “the singular element” that created this enormous amount of value?

The “Concept Essence” document that he and his team created twenty-one years earlier.

What exactly is a Concept Essence? 

It “isn’t a business plan,” Ron writes in his book … continue reading

1: “Don’t make a decision until you need to,” Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich writes in his book Know What Matters.

“That might sound obvious,” Ron notes, “but so many companies leap to promising dramatic growth and then trap themselves under the weight of the expectations they’ve created.”

Thinking back on the early days of Panera, Ron recalls: “We knew we were ready to grow, and we had an … continue reading