Page 224 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

also learned to give recognition as much as we loved to receive
it. And we pushed on. Barriers were dropped. We found a
niche, and the entry fee was performance. Pedigree didn’t mat-
ter, and neither did gender, color, or age. All you had to do
was deliver, and you were accepted. What company couldn’t
prosper from that?
To this day, McDonald’s thrives on diversity. The company
has the largest number of minority and female franchisees in the
quick-service industry. More than 40 percent of all McDonald’s
U.S. owner/operators are women and minorities. And the com-
pany consistently wins awards as the best place to work.
Public recognition was the great motivator within all levels
of McDonald’s. Not only did it successfully serve to reward the
conscientious employee, it also helped raise the bar across the
board. If a peer won an award for working on a committee, cut-
ting costs, or improving customer service, and you didn’t, well,
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it was obvious why. Awards and celebrations were a part of the
fiber at the national level, inspiring regional leaders to do the
same locally. Their enthusiasm spilled over to forward-thinking
owner/operators, who in addition to following the McDonald’s
system, applied their creativity within their own units to moti-
vate managers and crew.
In 1988, McDonald’s created its most prestigious award, the
“Freddy,” an award exclusively for top management. Taken as
a nod to the Emmys and the Oscars of Hollywood fame, the idea
was to honor the spirit of Fred Turner, reflecting his qualities of
“unparalleled integrity, strength, vision, and mastery of McDon-
ald’s basics.” As a recipient of the award, I can say winning it
was quite an honor, and one by which I was completely taken
aback, as it had only been given out twice before. To be selected
in that group was a real thrill, and once again it showed the
recognition that the system continued to instill in its culture.