Page 183 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Communications

archy, good ideas bubble upward. An effective leader keeps his
feet on the ground and his door open, with his lights on—thus
being available for everyone on the team.”
I asked Ed Rensi about his ideas of communicating and his
methods to speak to such a large organization. He replied: “I
found out early on, if you don’t tell your story, the rumor mill
will, the grapevine will. Or outside influences will. There was a
period when McDonald’s was in a lot of stress, and I sent a let-
ter a month to all of our employees at their homes addressed to
Mr. and Mrs. Whomever. I must have written dozens of letters
over those months, and I addressed it to the family. I called them
McFamily letters. It was about ‘this is what we are doing, this
is why we are doing it, this is what we want to achieve, and this
is how the marketplace looks.’ Because if the company doesn’t
tell its strategic story . . . who is going to?” The format also
helped relay a message of unity, that we were all in this moment
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together, and that it too would pass.
One of the clear messages was the idea of “selling” versus
telling in business conversations. Fred Turner mentioned to me
that “communication is crucial, it’s more sell than telling. A cru-
cial part of communication is the visionary aspect, and in terms
of future development, the visionary goes without saying . . . it’s
vital.” And it’s true—the leader must continuously reinforce the
vision, the direction of where the group is going. Ray was the
key to communications in the early formidable years. His skills
as a salesperson were paramount in his ability to instill enthu-
siasm and interest in his fledging concept. As Fred mentioned,
“Ray was more approachable than I was. He was a great con-
versationalist. He was interested in people, had a genuine inter-
est in people—he was a salesman’s salesman. He was a peddler
in the best sense of the word. He loved to tell stories, jokes.”
Those jokes and stories got his audience to relax, enjoy their