Lessons From A Bag Of Doritos
I've met a number of remarkable business people over the years.
One of my favorite was Roger Enrico.
We were seated together at a dinner after I gave a talk at DreamWorks Animation in 2011. At the time, he was Chairman of the company. But that was just one chapter in a long and impressive career. He had been CEO of PepsiCo, and earlier in his life, he was the brand manager for Doritos.
Somewhere between courses, he shared a story from his time at Frito-Lay.
The company, he told me, had become obsessed with tiny improvements. Performance gains measured in tenths of a percentage point. Incremental changes. Adjustments. Marginal gains. It was data-driven management at its finest.
And then one day, a veteran colleague sensed Roger's frustration and said:
“So, we’ve been working on the wrong side of the decimal point.”
That line stayed with him. And it’s stayed with me.
Because it’s not just a clever turn of phrase—it’s a framework. A simple shift in perspective that changes how we think about progress, decision-making, and the kind of work that actually moves things forward.
Over time, I’ve come to see that it offers two important lessons—one about how we should lead, and the other about how we should live.
Lesson One: What Leadership Actually Means
The right side of the decimal point is where management lives. It’s about stability. Efficiency. Slight improvements to what already exists. It’s essential work, but it’s not transformational.
The left side is different. It’s where leadership happens. It’s about whole numbers. Big moves. It requires vision, not just vigilance. It’s about asking, “What could we do?” instead of “How can we do this slightly better?”
In other words, if the right side is about today and yesterday, the left side is about tomorrow.
And the mistake so many organizations make—especially in times of uncertainty—is hiring for leadership, but rewarding management. They ask for transformation and fund optimization. They want to move the world, but they measure progress in hundredths.
Enrico understood: unless someone is willing to operate on the left side of the decimal point, nothing truly new ever happens.
Lesson Two: What It Means to Be Human
That same metaphor applies just as powerfully outside the boardroom—especially now.
We live in an era shaped by artificial intelligence. AI thrives on the right side of the decimal point. It is built for incremental gains. It can optimize, adjust, personalize, and analyze at a scale and speed humans can’t match.
Which means that we, as humans, need to stop trying to compete there. That race is over.
But the left side—the bold, imaginative, irrational side—is still ours.
It’s where we ask unanswerable questions.
Where we invent, disrupt, love, risk, hope.
Where we dream up entirely new categories instead of just improving the old ones.
The left side of the decimal point isn’t just where leaders thrive.
It’s where humans excel.
And maybe that’s the real genius of the metaphor. It reminds us that the value of being human isn’t in precision. It’s in possibility.
So the next time you find yourself improving something by a fraction, pause and ask:
Am I working on the right side of the decimal point—
or the side that actually moves the world?