Jason Kidd spends his days taste-testing Chipotle — and it's his dream job.
Kidd, who used to be COO at Taco Bell, told Business Insider that traveling to different locations weekly to visit with Chipotle staff is exactly the role he envisioned for himself.
His path to COO wasn't always glamorous, though. Kidd, who spent two decades in retail before moving into the restaurant business, has simple advice for anyone seeking their dream career: Don't wait for the perfect opportunity. Instead, he said, "say yes," even to the jobs that don't sound "easy or exciting."
"Do the job that someone else doesn't want to do," Kidd said. "Take the opportunity, move, go be uncomfortable."
The COO said that's a "critical piece" of every career, and it worked well for a lot of people he knows who are now "incredibly successful."
Early in his career, Kidd said he volunteered to be the lead in a management training program. The job involved working 4 a.m. shifts, closing shifts, and overnight shifts. Meanwhile, the other trainees mostly worked mid-shifts. Kidd said he finished the program faster than his peers and was promoted first — and not because he was necessarily the smartest of the group.
"I gained the most experience the fastest," Kidd added in a follow up email. "I got to see how every part of the operation worked and how it all came together."
Early on in your career, you tend to have less control over your job and do more grunt work. While those experiences may not always be pleasant, Kidd said it allows you to see what you might like to do — or what you want to avoid in the future.
Sometimes, he said, someone may think they want to do something, but after actually trying it, they realize they don't. Or the opposite may happen, where someone gets surprised by how much they like something.
"So I tell people: Say 'yes.' Be ready," Kidd said.
Kidd also advises workers to be strong communicators from the start. He said owning outcomes is crucial early on in your career, and it's one of the four traits he looks for in workers he goes to promote.
"Give good feedback," Kidd said. "If you can be a clear communicator early on, that goes a long way."
