What Stays the Same and What Changes Is the First Question a Leader Should Answer

Joe Jordan becomes CEO of Domino's Pizza this week, after 15 years in which he held nearly every major job at the company. In Why Domino's New CEO Says an Insider Is a Better Innovator in The Wall Street Journal, Erle Norton describes how Jordan is approaching the role: a flatter leadership team reporting directly to him, a push for more innovation, and a principle he holds his team to. Speak your mind in the room, then align outside it, with no side conversations afterward.

Jordan also challenges a common assumption, that it takes an outsider to innovate. Innovation, he argues, comes from understanding friction, problems and opportunities, and few people understand those better than someone who has worked in every corner of the company.

Boards appear to agree. According to Spencer Stuart data reported by Fortune, 76% of S&P 500 CEOs had been promoted from within their companies as of mid-2025.

But the line that stopped me came near the end. Jordan says that in his first months he needs to signal to every stakeholder "what is going to be the same and what is going to be different?"

That may be the most important question any new leader can ask.

The Balance Every Leader Has to Name

Every organization lives in a tension between standardization and personalization. Standards are an asset. They create consistency, protect the brand and give people a shared way of working. Personalization lets organizations adapt to new customers, new talent and new technology. Neither is the enemy. Each modernizes the other.

The trap is pretending the tension does not exist. New leaders often fall into one of two extremes. Some change everything to prove they are different. Others change nothing to avoid disruption. Both leave people guessing.

When people are left guessing, they fill the silence themselves. Some assume everything they valued is about to disappear and quietly start looking elsewhere. Others assume nothing will really change and wait it out. Either way, energy that should go into the work goes into speculation.

Jordan's question does something simpler and more powerful. It names the balance out loud. What stays the same tells people what they can count on. What changes tells them where the organization is going. When a leader is clear about both, people can stop guessing and start contributing.

In my work on Leadership in the Age of Personalization, that balance is never fixed. It changes with the people, the business circumstances and the capacity for risk. Leaders assess it, act, and assess it again.

Insider or Outsider Is the Wrong Debate

Jordan is right that insiders often see friction that outsiders miss. But tenure alone does not guarantee it. Many long-tenured leaders stop seeing friction precisely because they have learned to live with it.

What matters is whether a leader never stopped looking. In my work on opportunity, the first of the four skills is to See: to notice what others overlook, especially what has quietly become normal. Jordan's path, which began as vice president of innovation, suggests he has kept that habit. His example of using AI to time pizza preparation to the moment a driver walks in is a small one, but it comes from paying attention to a real point of friction.

The other three skills matter just as much. Sow is planting ideas where they can take root. Grow is giving them the time and resources to mature. Share is making sure the value reaches the people it was meant to serve. An insider who practices all four becomes an innovator. One who stops at familiarity becomes a caretaker.

As I explored in Innovation Happens in Networks, Not in Isolation, the best ideas surface when leaders connect what people across the organization already know.

Speak in the Room

Jordan's rule about side conversations deserves attention too. When disagreement happens in the hallway instead of the meeting, it does not disappear. It goes underground, and alignment becomes a performance.

His principle only works if the room makes candor safe. Leaders have to reward the person who disagrees openly, not just tolerate them. As I wrote in Workplace Politics Start as a Misunderstanding, much of the politics leaders complain about begins with conversations that never happened in the open.

Three Questions for Any New Leader

Whether you are stepping into a CEO role or leading a new team, start with three questions.

What will stay the same? Name the standards people can count on, and why they matter.

What will be different? Be specific about where you will personalize, adapt or innovate.

Where is the friction no one talks about? Ask the people closest to the work, and listen for what has become normal.

Jordan says the biggest change is becoming the final decision maker everyone else looks to. The leaders who earn that trust fastest are not the ones with all the answers. They are the ones who are clear about what stays, what changes and why.

Want to explore these ideas further? Learn more about my work on leadership, identity and conviction at www.theglennllopis.com.