Junior boards are a rarity. I’m not referring to the junior boards consisting of 35-to-45-year-olds being groomed for future management roles. I’m speaking about boards that supply seats to literal schoolchildren. One of many first corporations that made this progressive transfer was Domino’s Inc., based and led by the “Comeback Kid of Ypsilanti,” Tom Monaghan.
I first met Tom within the late ‘70s whereas serving in one in all my volunteer roles as vice chairman and president-elect of the Ypsilanti, MI Chamber of Commerce. Tom has battled again from greater than his share of hardships. He was orphaned as a toddler, dropped out of faculty at an early age, and initially failed within the pizza enterprise. His enlistment within the U.S. Marine Corps finally taught him group and self-discipline. Pushed by an innate curiosity, he studied the actions of profitable leaders in hopes of discovering what they had been doing proper. He has all the time sought to innovate.
Since its founding in 1960, Domino’s has been acknowledged for its entrepreneurial spirit, with a lot of its improvements leading to higher pizza, newer meals choices, improved buyer experiences, and plenty of “firsts” in modernized ordering and supply. However even lots of the firm’s ardent followers are unaware of the formation of the Domino’s Pizza Junior Board of Administrators within the early Eighties.
Domino’s positioned an advert within the now defunct Ann Arbor Information, inviting youngsters aged 8 to 12 to use for a seat on their junior board by submitting a brief essay on why they believed they need to be chosen. Tom conceived the thought of forming a junior board of administrators as a result of he genuinely believed youngsters are trustworthy, have a number of concepts, and are keen to share them. Conceiving and forming a board of younger youngsters had a humanizing impact on his pizza empire and contributed to creating it the world’s largest pizza chain.
As soon as shaped, the Domino’s Pizza Junior Board started holding month-to-month after-school conferences, convening in Domino’s workplaces and kitchens. The kids had been proven how the assorted departments labored collectively to make the corporate thrive. They had been referred to as upon to taste-test potential cheeses, toppings, and doughs and to weigh in on new product and repair concepts akin to a delivered breakfast pizza with a wake-up name. They mentioned how shops may use their services extra effectively.
These elementary schoolchildren had been uncovered to severe administration and management points—a few of which, after all, went over their heads. Typically, nonetheless, the kids stunned their mentors with the quantity of information they grasped and the concepts they had been in a position to contribute.
In my family, my spouse and I’ve usually been amazed by the variety of issues our youngsters have realized from being uncovered to what’s usually seen as grownup actions, occasions, and establishments. We see how they now go on concepts and data to their very own youngsters that we didn’t even notice that they had absorbed. It’s a mistake to underestimate youngsters and their skill to synthesize experiences and ideas. They study from no matter is put in entrance of them and from no matter they’re requested to do.
Wouldn’t it’s fantastic if extra Fortune 500 corporations invested in our youth by following Domino’s lead and establishing junior boards of administrators of their corporations? Are you able to consider a greater technique to expose schoolchildren to early hands-on studying in areas akin to product growth, advertising, finest practices, and the challenges of management? Let’s name on extra organizations to embrace this forward-looking concept. The leaders of tomorrow will thank them for it. And so will the remainder of us.
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