David Novak, the 54-year-old chairman, chief executive officer and president of Louisville, KY-based Yum! Brands said in a Restaurants and Institutions Q&A that the take-away lesson in his new book, Education of an Accidental CEO: Lessons Learned from the Trailer Park to the Corner Office, that

"the key to growing is to be an eager learner. One cutting-edge difference in the best leaders I’ve been around is that they truly are avid learners."

Novak also says that, "There’s no way you can achieve success without knowing your stuff."

Dude, you serve food in 5,000 KFCs, 5,000 Taco Bells and 7,000 Pizza Huts in the U.S.. You also stress the Yum culture. When you were asked, What can kill a culture? you responded,

"It’s people saying one thing and doing something different. That’s what’s death."

Especially when it comes to food safety. Taco Bell’s performance in the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak last fall involving lettuce — no, it wasn’t the green onions — raises questions about how well Taco Bell knew their food safety stuff, and restaurant inspection results like this Pizza Hut in Witchita, KS, wonder how much people are saying one thing and doing another.

Novak says,

"The biggest thing I think we did in making our company come alive was to train people on our How We Work Together Leadership Principles [customer focus, belief in people, recognition, coaching and support, accountability, excellence, positive energy and teamwork]. We developed a comprehensive training program that we rolled out around the world. We put process and discipline around culture."

How about food safety culture?