Page 230 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s

Lesson Learned

Public praise given to top performers raises the bar for
everyone. It allows everyone to see what it takes to get such
notice—and if they crave it too, they can step up their game. It
is a win for them, and a win for the company.

The yearbooks and galas were also a perfect venue to pro-
mote the region’s goals and objectives for the year. To make our
goals attainable, we highlighted the action steps and how we
would measure them. This leveled the playing field for next year,
where everyone had a shot at winning recognition. And most
everyone did.
We even went as far as to recognize a manager of the year,
highlighting him or her at the annual managers’ convention and
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in the yearbook. Imagine that, a manager, often no older than
his or her early twenties, given incredible recognition for the
year’s accomplishments, in a ceremony where the winner
received a National Football League–style ring. The presenta-
tion included a drumroll and spotlight as hundreds of people—
be it peers or higher-ups, those from the local region—looked
on. There was no mistaking how much we valued high per-
formance at the store level.
At the end of the yearbook, we listed our goals for the upcom-
ing year in the hopes it would continue to remind everyone of
our direction for the future. Again, it was a simple idea that had
a lot of benefits.
The yearbooks were a big hit—a program that was fun to
implement and also affordable (with today’s desktop technol-
ogy, they are infinitely less costly). They garnered fantastic
results. Challenge your staff (and, in our case, franchisees as
well) to do their best, and they will strive for excellence, engag-
ing their supervisors, managers, and crew to do the same. That