My boys LOVE Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.  It’s their go-to road snack.  Makes me glad that my back seats are leather and not cloth!  A few months ago, I stumbled upon an article about how Flamin’ Hot Cheetos came to be, so it piqued my interest.  There are some powerful lessons in the story that I was able to relay to my boys.  Those same lessons are just as powerful for leaders and managers in the workplace.

Richard Montañez was a son of a Mexican immigrant in Southern California. He grew up in a farming community east of Los Angeles picking grapes with his entire family. The fourteen members of his family shared a one-room cinder block house in a migrant labor camp. “I have a PhD of being poor, hungry and determined,” Montañez said in a 2018 interview with the Washington Post.

As a first-generation Mexican immigrant at an all-white school, Montañez had access to few resources and struggled to understand his teachers. “I remember my mom getting me ready for school and I was crying,” he recalled. “I couldn’t speak English. “One day in class, the teacher went around the room asking each kid to name his or her dream job: one wanted to be a doctor, another wanted to be an astronaut.  Someone else dreamed of being a veterinarian. When the teacher called on Montañez, he froze. “I realized I didn’t have a dream,” he said. “There was no dream where I came from.” Shortly thereafter, Montañez dropped out of school.  He was only in the fourth grade.  At that point, he began a series of odd jobs, including one at a poultry slaughterhouse and another washing cars.

With a fourth-grade education and few opportunities, Montañez saw no path out of poverty – until, one day, a neighbor told him about a job opening that would change his life.

In 1976, when he was 18 years old, he was hired as a janitor at a Frito-Lay plant. His wife filled out the application for him since he struggled to read and write. The janitor position paid $4 an hour with benefits – magnitudes more than he’d ever made previously.

In the mid-1980s (after more than eight years of mopping the floors), Montañez’s life changed forever. He saw a corporate video by then-CEO Roger Enrico, encouraging employees to “act like an owner.” He seized his opportunity and did just that. Montañez started learning more about Frito-Lays’ process and products and quickly realized that the company didn’t have any products catering to Latinos; they had “nothing spicy or hot.”

So … he put chili on a Cheeto.

Montañez invented the Flamin’ Hot Cheeto after a broken machine on the Cheetos assembly line spit out a batch of plain Cheetos – without the famous cheese powder dust. He took the plain Cheetos home and dusted them with chili powder – an idea he credits to the grilled corn seasoned with lime and chili powder sold by a local street vendor near his home growing up. After testing his “hot cheeto” idea on friends and family, he decided to take it to the executives at Frito-Lay. He found the CEO’s phone line in the company directory and gave him a call. Surprisingly, Enrico listened – and asked him to prepare a presentation for a visit to the plant.

Two weeks later, at 26-years-old, wearing a $3 tie his neighbor helped him tie, the janitor found himself presenting to some of the most highly qualified executives in America.  He even came to the meeting with custom-designed packaging for his idea.

Six months later, Frito-Lay released Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in a few small Latino test markets. Finally, in 1992, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos were approved for national release; today, they’re a multi-billion-dollar product – one of the top commodities in Frito-Lay’s portfolio.

So, what can leaders and managers learn from this success story?  A great deal, actually.

A recent study found that “94% of executives are dissatisfied with their firms’ innovation performance,” despite spending billions of dollars on internal incentives and initiatives.

But here’s the thing: creativity can come from ANYWHERE in your organization.  Could it be that creativity around us is not being tapped? As leaders, we need to get people from different positions within our organizations working on the same problem – a fresh set of eyes and ears.

We need listen to diverse voices – not just those around the leadership table.  Frito-Lay’s CEO could have easily listened to Montañez’s idea and then dismissed it or – even worse – simply took credit for the new product himself. As leaders, we need to understand that it’s ok to empower others – and celebrate the successes that they have, as a result. It actually reinforces and encourages others to be creative and innovative.

Finally, our actions must speak louder than our words. Ultimately, this is the difference between innovation and a crazy idea. Case in point: before Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Frito-Lay had only three Cheeto products. Three. Since then, the company has launched more than twenty new products – each worth more than $300 million. By elevating a janitor’s voice and championing his idea, the CEO showed his entire company that he wanted everyone to act like an owner – and rewarded it when they did.

Are you struggling to solve a problem at your organization?  Are your ideas stale and “in the box?”  Do you need a kickstart in some aspect of your mission?  Do you need the proverbial “chili on your Cheeto?”  Maybe you should ask the janitor.

*The facts of this story are in dispute between the interested parties.

Michigan Legislative Consultants is a bipartisan lobbying firm based in Lansing, Michigan. Our team of lobbyists and procurement specialists provide a wide range of services for some of the most respected companies in America. For more on MLC, visit www.mlcmi.com or connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter.