Editorial Review:
What is it about McDonald's that has enabled it to produce more millionaires from within its ranks than any company in history? . What earns the undying respect and loyalty of its franchisees, vendors, and 47 million customers served daily, from Moscow to Evansville to Rio de Janeiro? . And how does it continue to expand its products, retool its image, and become more popular with each passing year? . . Few authors are as qualified to answer those questions as company insider Paul Facella. Beginning behind the counter at age 16, Paul literally grew up at McDonald's. From counter, to grill, to Regional Vice President, he has, over the course of his distinguished 34-year career, developed an intimate knowledge of the fast-food giant's management practices and culture. He's also forged personal ties to its legendary leaders, including founder Ray Kroc and CEOs Fred Turner, Mike Quinlan, Jack Greenberg, former President Ed Rensi, and current CEO Jim Skinner. . . Everything I Know Ab out Business I Learned at McDonald's delivers an up-close-and-personal look at a company where talent is cultivated and encouraged to thrive, from the individual restaurant to the corner office. With the help of in-depth interviews and �in their own words� commentaries from company executives, franchisees, and vendors, he explores McDonald's result-driven culture, and reveals the core principles, first laid down by founder Ray Kroc in 1955, that have successfully guided the company for more than five decades. . . Finally, Paul distills all that knowledge and experience into powerful lessons on teamwork, leadership, integrity, communication, and relationship building that you'll use to achieve stellar results in your company-whether your goal is to build an international business empire of your own, or just the best darned shop in town. . . . .
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"...the real story behind McDonald's success" 2008-12-08
With Adina Genn, Paul Facella examines seven leadership principles "that drive break out success": honesty and integrity ("all in a handshake"), relationships, standards ("never be satisfied"), leading by example, communications, courage ("telling it like it is"), and recognition. "Together, these principles are the sum of the parts, and they reveal the real story behind McDonald's success." He offers no head-snapping revelations nor does he make any such claim. Obviously, that success continues to depend on effective execution of the seven principles; presumably the focus is always on what is most important, "where it really counted - on the restaurant floor, with sales and customer satisfaction." Throughout the narrative, Facella includes 36 "Lessons" accompanied by "Food for Thought" observations, and "In Summary" and "Key Learnings" sections at the conclusion of each chapter. These reader-friendly devices will facilitate, need expedite frequent review of key points later. I especially appreciate the contributions to "the real story" by Ray Kroc, Harry Sonneborn, Fred Turner, Willis Smart, Ed Rensi, Don Thompson, and countless others who agreed to share their thoughts and feelings about achieving and then sustaining "break out success" for McDonald's.
Facella devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven principles and begins with honesty and integrity. Why? According to Thompson, McDonald's current president, "It is foundational. Everything is built off of that, and if you don't have that one right, you can't move to the other principles." This is consistent with what founder Kroc asserted in 1974: "Whatever you do, don't prostitute yourself and do something for money. It's got to be in your heart and your soul. You've got to sleep with it and eat it, and it's something you can't live without." Facella concludes the chapter by reaffirming that honesty and integrity have been the keystone to McDonald's growth. "Without it, the organization never would have inspired the trust and the confidence that its partners - the vendors and franchisees - put into the company. These traits have spilled over to the customer, who expects a certain experience when she or he walks into any McDonald's unit."
In the Epilogue, Facella briefly discusses six other important components of the foundation for McDonald's break out success: (1) the "triumvirate" of founders Kroc, Turner, and Sonneborn who functioned effectively as the visionary leader, the disciplined tactical manager, and the savvy financial expert, respectively; (2) performance-based promotions; (3) the "three-legged stool" of owner/operator, supplier, and corporate staff; (4) the franchise model (i.e. autonomy of individual store within organizational system that supports local entrepreneurship; (5) constant improvement of everything involved in McDonald's "moment of truth," the interaction in each store each day with each customer; and (6) the heritage of values, principles, and core culture created by the founders and then continued by C-level executives who have also made a lifetime career commitment to McDonald's.
Almost everything in this book can be of substantial value to other companies, whatever their size and nature may be. For example, one of Facella's key points concerns an obsession with nailing the fundamentals, down to the smallest detail. When Kroc opened his first store in Des Plaines (Illinois) in 1955, "he moonlighted on weekends as the maintenance man, scrubbing the restaurant clean, and picking up the grounds." Fred Turner recalls when Kroc came in one Saturday morning with a toothbrush, got up on the sink, and scrubbed the holes in the mop wringer with his toothbrush. "I saw him do that. It's true, he'd go around with his knife and scrape the gum off the cement. He certainly set the tone on appearance and provided a smarter way of doing things." In 2006, 51 years later, a longtime supplier with McDonald's, Peter Grimm, describes what he saw at the end of an evening during an operators' convention at the Universal studios when everyone was leaving: "There I see Fred on his golf cart picking up trash. There were cups, and he was going around picking them up and pitting them in the garbage. I saw it with my own eyes."
That's what the McDonald's culture has been all about...and still is.
A Fantastic Book About Success 2008-12-03
I've been doing a lot of research on McDonalds over that past 6 months by studying everything I could find, what they have done, how they did it, what makes them so successful and on and on. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book on the book shelf and bought it instantly. I read and studied this book as the other materials in a very scrupulous manner and found this book to be one of the best. As I made my way through it, I found myself underlining sentence and paragraphs and sections like none of the others. In short, this is one of the best books on success I have ever read and I've been reading for the past 16 years on practically a daily basis.
In my high tech career I must say most Managers don't follow the principles that are taught in this book and as a result end up being mediocre at best. However, usually they hinder the potential growth and success of their department and ultimately the company they work for. After having read the book, I'd rather work for McDonalds than any high tech company because the way people are treated and fairly rewarded based on what you do. Even if I start off as a grill or fry guy, I can move up to either owning a store or being part of corporate and the nice thing is that your potential success is unlimited.
I strongly recommend this book for anyone who has people who work for them and wants to enjoy a new level of success that they never knew was possible. The key of course is putting the principles taught in this book to work in your business. Just reading it won't get the results you desire.
The book is very enjoyable to read and has tons of very interesting tidbits to keep you entertained. Happy reading!
The business principles that built McDonald's 2008-11-27
Every day, McDonalds serves food to nearly 50 million people in 30,000 restaurants worldwide. It owns about half of the globally branded, fast food restaurants outside the U.S. In India, you can order a Maharaja Mac with two lamb patties. New Zealand's Kiwi Burger has a slice of beef and a fried egg. In Uruguay, the egg on the McHuevo burger is poached. With annual sales at the typical outlet averaging more than $2 million, many franchisees have become millionaires. In fact, seven out of 10 current McDonald's executives began as restaurant "crewmembers" and built their careers through the chain. Ray Kroc, who made McDonald's the world's largest fast food company, once said he didn't know what type of food it would be selling in the year 2000 (he died in 1984), but he was certain that it would be selling more of that food than anyone else. Author Paul Facella worked at McDonalds for 33 years. Albeit with the attitude of a fond insider, he details its history and philosophy, and the lessons he learned from the legendary Kroc. getAbstract relishes serving up this primer on McDonald's - and in some sense, America's - way of doing business.
Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald"s 2008-11-19
I found the book by Paul Facella both interesting and learning and I recomend that other CEOs of fast food resturants also learn from it. Many of its principals can be used for other types of business. But most of all I enjoyed reading of the success of one individual from the bottom to the top; which tells me that anyone who applies him or her self to the workings of McDonald's cannot fail.
Basic Business Principles Everyone Should Live By 2008-11-19
This should be mandatory reading for any college student about to enter or already working in the customer service industry. The basic principals Mr. Facella so aptly articulates provide a roadmap to how individuals should conduct themselves in LIFE. When headlines dominate the news of unscrupulous CEO's profiting at the expense of employees, McDonald's treats all within its' system as a stakeholder. Who could refute ideals such as standards, integrity, honesty and loyalty. McDonald's success is in their ability to include everyone on the team; from the grill person to the supplier to the owner/operator. And everyone has a stake in that success. Like a sports team trying to win a championship, no one person can do it on their own; from the coach down to the waterboy. Most, if not all executives, didn't go to Yale or Harvard but grew in the system from the floor up. McDonald's places very little value on a person's pedigree; rather, and more importantly, what have you achieved at the company. In an era when loyalty to a company has all but disappeared, McDonalds seems to have found the "secret sauce" to hold onto and nurture their best talent. The US has hundreds of franchises in all sorts of industries, but how many can claim that any owner/operator can call the CEO and get a reply within 24 hours. Remarkable. After reading the book it's easy to see why McDonald's is so successful. Those companies struggling to hold onto their top performers, and losing their customer base, need to take note and create the family oriented atmosphere that McDonald's has maintained from the very beginning.
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