Page 158 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

went to all five of these bad guys. . . . And I basically looked them
in the eye, each one of them, and I said, ‘It’s over.’ Now, I am 28
years old as a regional manager, I said, ‘It’s over. You’re done.’”
They tried to place blame on Mike’s predecessor, but Mike stood
tough. “I said, ‘No, No. It’s over. So, here’s how it’s going to be.
I will offer to buy you out, within a week, I will give you a fair
price, I will give you a check. If you don’t accept my offer, I will
be all over you. Now, do you want it the nice way or the bad
way? I’ll call Kroc. Pick up the phone, right now. Let’s go.’ One
of them took me up on it. He regretted that. And Kroc called me
up personally, and says, ‘It’s about time someone got that son of
a bitch.’ The right thing was to look this guy in the eye and say,
‘You are going, I’ll give you a chance. Don’t think that I don’t
mean it. Don’t make that mistake.’ And you know what? I went
five for five. Didn’t waste a lot of time on it either.”
For Mike, it paid off. “It took me two-and-a-half years, and
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then, we were number one in everything,” he said. “Sales, open-
ings, percentage rent, and profit. The whole run. The reason,
though, was that I had courage. Maybe I was ignorant and didn’t
know any better; looking back, I think that there was some of
that in there.”
I’m not sure that kind of approach would still be effective in
today’s corporate environment, but at the time, it took courage
for Mike to take such a position with owner/operators who did
not meet the standards—and Mike’s stance was part of the style
back then. And you can be sure his operators listened well to
him from that point onward.

The Courage to Admit You’re Wrong
That culture of courage bred a system where those with deter-
mination weren’t afraid to fight for what they believed in. Sure,
there were heated battles, and yes, they were uncomfortable