Page 229 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Recognition

The Trickle-Down Effect
I treasured those powerful moments of recognition so much that I
brought them into my own region, as a vice president, combining
recognition and achievement with direction and clear vision. Much
like the awards programs conducted in corporate, I ran state-of-
the-region events that were gala affairs where I discussed what we
accomplished in the previous year, and the direction and the goals
we would shoot for in the year to come. And in my presentation,
I made a point of recognizing the efforts of top-performing opera-
tors by name—either in a speech or through visual images projected
during the event. With a nod to the corporate awards program, we
launched an annual yearbook for the operators and staff. The idea
was simple enough: Take the concept of a high school yearbook
and replicate it each year. We took portraits of all the operators,
and assembled them in the yearbook in chronological order, from
the time they came into the system. We also included which com-
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mittees they served on and the awards they received during their
career, similar to the way sports and clubs are presented in high
school editions. This gave those senior operators some pride in their
seniority and also provided everyone an equal opportunity to show
their commitment to the region, by listing their activities.
The book also featured plenty of pictures of events during the
year as well as any awards and recognition of our operators and
staff. All store awards—and we gave many— were highlighted,
as were new stores and remodels and the “regional records” for
sales in the hour, day, and annual categories, as well as stores
that had the highest percentage of drive-thru business. These
became “badges of honor” for all the awardees.
Those who hadn’t received such honors could easily grasp
why not. In almost every instance, they belonged to few, if any,
committees. In all likelihood, they hadn’t remodeled, and they
hadn’t broken any regional records. To do that, you needed “fire
in the belly”—the kind that Ray Kroc and Fred Turner built
McDonald’s with. Still, they were encouraged to try again.