Page 207 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

7 Recognition

I like to get people fired up, fill them with
zeal for McDonald’s, and watch their results
in their work.

—Ray Kroc, Grinding It Out: The Making
of McDonald’s

As Ray Kroc knew, there is no better way to
inspire a team than with recognition. Deep down, we crave that
recognition. And the McDonald’s culture is built on the foun-
dation of rewarding hard workers. To outsiders, this probably
doesn’t sound like anything extraordinary—reward those who
work hard, what’s so groundbreaking about that? But at
McDonald’s, recognition was everywhere, at all levels, all the
time. The culture is steeped in recognition, and as a consultant
today I’ve yet to find a company that embraces recognition to
that extreme. In my research, I discovered that on a national
level McDonald’s has tracked 23 different specific awards given
to individuals—employees, suppliers, and licensees—and the
years in which they were received. But these records tell only
part of the story, as they do not take into account the zone and
regional awards as well as worldwide recognition programs to
those who, in the words of Ray Kroc, were filled with zeal for
McDonald’s.

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