Craig Boyan on culture, curiosity and leading great teams

At a Place the Ladder event on Oct. 22, Holdsworth President Dr. Lindsay Whorton sat down with former H-E-B President Craig Boyan to talk about building strong leadership teams, staying curious, protecting culture and why a leader’s real job is helping others climb. His lessons apply from retail aisles to school hallways.

As she does with all guests in the series, Whorton asked who placed the ladder for Boyan. His answer: “Charles (Butt) placed the ladder for me because he saw it in me before I did.”

Boyan sees a lot of parallels between running a grocery company and leading a school. Both depend on great leaders who pay attention to the needs of the people they serve.

At H-E-B, he said, the top of the pyramid is not the president. It’s the store leaders, and the company’s job is to help them succeed. He drew the line straight to schools: Great superintendents support strong principals, who develop effective teachers, who inspire student success.

 “The leader is at the bottom of the ladder and the leader’s job is to help others climb,” Boyan said.

Seek respectful debate, not harmony

Boyan talked about the importance of building strong leadership teams, noting that high-performing teams do not always agree.

“I don’t think leadership is about harmony and I’ve never sought harmony,” Boyan said.

He built teams of people with different perspectives who could “have real differences and have great debate, but do it respectfully and in a way by which we all leave that room aligned and united.”

Boyan credited Charles Butt with modeling the habit of staying curious – even when being challenged – and asking good questions.

“One of the things I think is really important are leaders – and Charles is the best example of this – who basically almost exclusively focus on asking good questions. It’s really important to develop a group of leaders who are constantly curious and are learning from each other.”

Culture is caught, not taught

Whorton asked about Charles Butt’s belief that culture is caught, not taught. Boyan agreed, calling it “our most valuable, yet our most perishable asset, and it requires constant care.”

Good pay and benefits are “table stakes.” Next come leaders who care and mentor, then a company that lives the values written on its walls. At the top: whether people feel respected. The question Boyan asks is one any school leader can borrow: “What do you do every day so people wake up and say, ‘I feel respected.’”

H-E-B treats people as its biggest investment, not its biggest cost: “My number one job has been to take care of 175,000 people,” he said, referring to the employees H-E-B calls Partners. Do that well, and they take care of eight million customers a week.

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