Page 100 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

anyone going into a restaurant and seeing a piece of paper and
hesitating to pick it up . . . any officer. No questions, it was just
something that was ingrained in you; the system is based on
quality, service, cleanliness, and value. And that’s part of it, and
you just do it.”
Ernie Annibale, a former director of development, reminded
me that within our region we had developed a practice to con-
stantly do a “postmortem” with the development staff, after a
store opened, to see how the store was doing versus our projec-
tions. This exercise enabled us to learn from our past. The point
was to discover how we could move the bar higher in our per-
formance. I, too, was infused with the spirit of constant improve-
ment. In the book Good to Great, Jim Collins writes about
“continually refining the path to greatness with the brutal facts
of reality.” He may as well have been writing about McDonald’s
and our own internal forces to be tough on ourselves.
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“Do It Right”
McDonald’s focus on standards became obvious to me on day
one, when I started as crew. I noticed that all the windows were
cleaned daily, inside and out, and the concrete walkway was
scrubbed and washed every day. All the bathrooms were cleaned
till they were spotless. The stainless steel throughout the kitchen
was polished every night. Garbage bins were not only emptied
but scrubbed, inside and out, every day. There were strict guide-
lines for each position in the store, and the maintenance position
was no exception. And it was a position of great importance
within the store hierarchy. Rick McCoy, a retired operator, stated
to me, “A good maintenance man can make an operation, and
can make a manager. You buy with the eye, and people want to
see a shiny store.” The guidelines for the maintenance position
were spelled out in the operations manual, as well as in early