Brandon Johnson learned a powerful leadership lesson when he was a “fired-up” 24-year-old assistant manager at the Famous Dave’s restaurant in Stillwater: “I thought I knew it all. But it was only after I asked for my manager’s help that he promoted me. Humility was the key to my success.”
These days, Johnson, 33, is building a new career around helping others. He gave up a fast-track future at Famous Dave’s—and six-figure compensation—to do so.
Johnson is executive director of the LifeSkills Center for Leadership, a nonprofit organization in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. David Anderson, founder and chairman emeritus of Famous Dave’s, started the center to provide leadership training for Native American youth. It has since expanded to provide leadership courses for all comers.
“What stands out when you meet Brandon is just his sheer enthusiasm,” Anderson says. “Leadership isn’t about demanding respect; leadership is all about your ability to make people want to learn from you.”
Johnson grew up on a farm in Wisconsin, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Stout with a degree in hospitality and tourism management. He got the assistant manager job at the Stillwater Famous Dave’s in June 1997. By August, he was general manager—and making his mark.
“It was the lowest-volume restaurant, but we were breaking all the records when it came to profitability,” Johnson says. He was dispatched to the high-volume Roseville restaurant, and achieved some of the highest-profitability months on record for a Famous Dave’s location.
He attributes that to empowering his staff and motivating them with an incentive program that rewarded hourly workers when overall profitability goals were met. “That taught me that when you focus on serving your staff and people around you, great things happen,” Johnson says.
In 1999, still working 60 hours a week at Famous Dave’s, Johnson started commuting to UW–Stout twice a week to earn a master’s degree in management technology, focusing on organizational devel-opment. He wrote his thesis on management retention at Famous Dave’s, and learned that what managers wanted, more than anything else, was the opportunity to grow.
By May 2000, he was the first director of management training at Famous Dave’s. He created the company’s Bachelor of Barbeque management-development program and an intensive, four-day leadership workshop, Hog Heaven.
Christopher O’Donnell, senior vice president of operations at Famous Dave’s, was a mentor to Johnson. He says, “Dave Anderson has always been a big believer in what he calls, ‘Me, Inc.’ We’re all the CEO of our own development and growth, and Brandon was able to capture a lot of that theory and put it into a practical program.”
Two years later, Johnson visited the LifeSkills Center—and was hooked. He joined the staff in March 2004 to develop a multicultural division. Two months later, he was executive director.
It wasn’t an easy move to make, he acknowledges: He and his wife had just had their first child, his salary was cut in half, and he was a white person running a Native American organization. “It was a growth opportunity for all of us,” Johnson says. “But I believed in myself and what I could do.”
He has cut costs, reorganized his staff (now five people), and added fee-based corporate training that subsidizes the center’s low- and no-cost courses, including sessions on reservations and in schools. “We’ve gone from losing $20,000 to $30,000 a month to being self-sustaining,” Johnson says.
That’s one measure of success, but “I measure my success by the development of the people around me,” Johnson says, “and my heart tells me to serve people—to do whatever it takes to help them see that they are capable of doing anything in their life. And that’s exciting.”
