Page 19 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Introduction

trations; the missed opportunities and the mistakes made; the
on-the-job training we received and our wide-eyed innocence at
times; and of the many vignettes that transpired over those years
that are still vivid and important to many of the people who
were present at that time.
While the perspective of insights and conclusions inside this
book is mine, it was validated and supported by the over-
whelming majority of interviews I conducted. I was fortunate in
that everyone whom I attempted to contact to interview for this
book went out of his or her way to help. I was able to speak
with an incredible group of individuals. I am grateful for those
people who shared their stories and thoughts with me during
this journey. And with that spirit of team, and collaboration,
they gave substance to this story about one person’s career with
the McDonald’s organization. Interestingly, everyone I inter-
viewed, even those who have left the company, still refer to
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McDonald’s as “our” or “my” company. Like me, they may
have left the system, and yet the system is still with them.
In my quest to shed insight into those years, I wanted to uti-
lize the “three-legged stool” concept—symbolizing the collabo-
ration between McDonald’s owner/operators, suppliers, and
corporate staff—that has always served as the foundation of the
organization. Together, the three units teamed up as partners,
moving the brand and the organization forward—this alliance
is a critical component to McDonald’s success. And I wanted to
be true to that concept and seek input from all three sources to
support my conclusions. It wasn’t difficult.
Whatever success I achieved has been far eclipsed by many of
the others I had the pleasure of working with, and all of us had
the benefit of serving within McDonald’s hugely successful sys-
tem. All of us believe that McDonald’s system did a lot right—
a whole lot right, again and again, year after year. But there were
some dark times as well. At one point the company almost went