Page 166 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

“If you made the wrong decision, nobody came in and beat
the hell out of you for it, or fired you for it, or called you stu-
pid,” noted Tom Dentice. “Nobody played the blame game.
They just said, ‘Well, Tom, you sure learned something from that
one, right?’ And you didn’t make the same mistake twice.”
In Behind the Arches, John F. Love states, “The key ingredi-
ent in Kroc’s management formula is a willingness to risk fail-
ure and to admit mistakes.” That has clearly imbedded itself into
the culture of the organization.

On a Humane Level
If you’re going to be a straight shooter, you’ve got to tell it like it
is—not just to the upper echelons of the organization but also to
those who report to you. And at times, this could get awkward,
as I discovered as a 22-year-old store manager when I recognized
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that one of my assistant managers had a problem whose existence
he did not acknowledge. Or, maybe he did not even realize it. But
I knew the outcome could be potentially embarrassing. This man-
ager, a good all-around guy and well liked by the crew, had a very
bad case of body odor. Leaving soap bars on his desk and subtly
asking about the kind of deodorant he used were to no avail. He
just didn’t get it. What’s more, he unwittingly defied the fastidi-
ous values of Ray Kroc. I couldn’t let it go.
While other organizations often have human resources depart-
ments to navigate such situations, I had no such support. As the
store manager, the buck stopped at me—the assistant managers
looked to me to fix it. It bothered me that the crew poked fun of
this individual behind his back. How would I handle this?
I finally summed up the courage, having some bullet points that
I would hit him with, by taking him one on one and letting him
know how valuable he was to our team and how proud I was of
working with him as he developed into a potential store manager.