The Domino Effect
A domino is a small rectangular block of wood or plastic bearing anywhere from 0 to 6 dots. It is used to play games of chance or skill that involve stacking the pieces on end and letting them fall in long lines or angular patterns. Many of these games are educational as well, helping children learn counting and number recognition. Dominoes can also be arranged to create artistic designs. One of the most popular ways to play is simply by throwing the first piece down and watching the rest follow suit, a phenomenon known as the domino effect.
In the beginning, domino was a very successful business for its founder, Dominic Monaghan, who started his company in 1962 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, after working at a Domino’s Pizza franchise in Chicago, where he noticed that the chain was often missing deliveries and underperforming as a result. He began by opening a single store in Ypsilanti and then placed another in Ann Arbor, where students were a large part of the population and who he figured would want to eat pizza quickly before heading back to class.
After a successful start, Domino’s became a nationwide company. Despite this success, there was something that the leadership team felt was not quite right with the Domino’s brand and that it needed to change. The CEO before Doyle, David Brandon, decided that a big part of the problem was a lack of innovation within Domino’s and so began to introduce new menu items and new ways for customers to order their food.
Domino’s new ideas were met with mixed responses, and the company struggled to stay afloat financially. When Doyle took over as CEO, he made it a priority to address the major complaints and issues that Domino’s faced. He brought in a fresh approach to leadership and focused on putting Domino’s employees at the forefront of their work. He listened to the company’s employees and worked hard to create a culture where people were proud of their jobs and passionate about the products they were selling.
In addition, Domino’s put a strong focus on technology to make it easier and quicker for customers to place their orders. The company now offers options like ordering a pizza with an app, texting a pizza emoji to a Domino’s location, or even using an Amazon Echo device. Technology is now a huge part of the Domino’s culture and helps the company to innovate on a regular basis.
The most important thing to know about domino is that you can always move your dominoes and establish a new path– a new journey. You can choose whether or not to pursue knocking over each domino along the way and you can always rearrange your entire pathway if you decide that it’s not the best route for you. As a writer, this concept is very important to remember. Every plot beat in a story can be compared to a domino and is able to impact the rest of the story in the same way that a single domino can influence thousands of others.