Page 104 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

And while Fred is largely recognized as the guy behind the
standards, he is the first to point out that he had help along the
way. “You can’t do a food standard without Nick Karos’ name,”
he said of Nick, an aeronautical engineer by training, who was
hired by Ray to develop field operations with Fred, and later
became a franchisee. It was Nick’s precision that enabled Fred
to raise the bar, especially with respect to the standards of qual-
ity. “When it came to food and standards, it was he and I
together. I get credit, but I didn’t do it alone. He was in on it
every step of the way.” Raising the bar is one thing, but as Fred
pointed out, you need fresh insights to make a difference.
Frank Kuchuris, a longtime supplier of buns to the McDon-
ald’s system, had this to say about standards: “Much of the
progress of the bakery in my viewpoint has been because of
McDonald’s. They asked and always got the quality they expect
versus the quality that was just accepted out there. Standards of
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the system today are so great and so much further ahead.”
Fred’s push for excellence is evident in McDonald’s first oper-
ations manual, which he wrote in 1958. On page 11 of that orig-
inal manual, he wrote: “Drive-in employees can be and are being
trained to do a job and do it well. But they must be convinced
that we believe the job they are doing is a respectable, first-rate
occupation and one that offers a future as a McDonald’s man-
ager or owner.” Even in those early years, the lure of opportu-
nity was prevalent. This strategy also helped retain employees.
Good people will stick around if they sense opportunity. And
once again, that culture has stood the test of time. Sixty-seven
thousand managers and assistant managers working today
started as crew members. In an environment where the average
employee changes jobs six times in his or her career, the amount
of tenured staff at McDonald’s is remarkable—especially today.
Fred never let up on standards. In the third edition of the
operations manual, according to John F. Love’s Behind the