Kiera Shahan

I would probably attribute my success to my dad and the way I was raised. He was definitely the kind of hard worker who could work 3 months straight without a day off. My dad is 70 and still works every single day, 7 days a week. He was always a competitor too. I remember getting grounded when I got a B in high school one time. He always taught me to seek for not average, that mediocrity is the enemy kind of thing. He's always built me to seek higher, and try harder, and reach for more, and dream bigger than just expectation. And with work ethic, I mean, he got me working at 15, so I'm pretty sure it was my dad who instilled all those values in me, for sure.

My boss told me to be the leader your team would throw themselves in front of the bus for. It's not a matter of what you're doing or the task at hand, it's more of the buy-in that you have. It's about being a people person rather than being a 'you do this because I tell you' kind of thing. Another piece of advice that really stuck with me is that your grass is only as green as you make it, or water it. I think you can sit there and look at everybody else's grass, or you can start making your own green. That's why I put together so much fun events, and culture activities, and outings, and fun things, because we have these amazing platforms, and sometimes we just don't do enough with them. We can sit there and look at the green on the other side, or we can sit there and do all the fun stuff for our teams with what we have.

I'd say don't wait for people to develop you. Stay hungry and feed yourself, because you're the only person that drives your own development. I think if you're always waiting for somebody else, then you're gonna be waiting forever. So, take it by the horns and get after it, because I think the go-getters are the ones that are gonna do big things in life.

The biggest challenges I've faced have been the industry challenges that are sometimes out of your control, from COVID to the staffing shortages to even just the food production shortages. It's the stuff that's out of your control. I think you can always control how you react to things and how your teams respond to them, but there's always gonna be those one-offs that's just gonna close your building down, and you're turning into takeout tomorrow. Those uncertainties are where I've kind of taken the next step up each time. As for opportunities, my team is very high performing, so it's always hard to be number one in the company, but it's harder to be number one year after year after year. It's about finding not only top performing talent and setting the bar, but maintaining those expectations, because a lot of people can sink or swim, but a lot of people don't have the endurance to marathon swim. So it's finding what continues to motivate people, how to keep it fresh. I have a really low turnover too, so not a lot of people are leaving, so it's like, how do we keep this same initiative for the fifth year in a row, fresh and exciting. It's keeping it fun. If work should always be fun, so if it ever starts feeling like a to-do list, we need to be thinking about it differently. It's about keeping it more than just wings, beer, sports, and making it fun for everybody every day.

I live and breathe our Buffalo Wild Wings core values. I bleed orange and yellow, just like my brand does, so I emulate our core values every day, which are hustle, fun, spontaneity, sportsmanship, and community. It's something that I not only talk about, but I teach about. You hear me talking about it every single day and emulating it every day, too. My whole team knows every core value in our brand, I can tell you from server and up. That's a big part of our culture.