Page 240 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Epilogue

of real estate in America. It also aligned the interests of both the
franchisor and the franchisee, as the incentive was to improve
sales, which would effectively configure the rent in a “percent-
age rent” rather than a minimum base rent. It allowed the full
clout of McDonald’s behind every real estate transaction, unlike
most franchises, which had the independent operator signing the
leases and negotiating the deals. This was very appealing to
landlords and owners of property. They understood the McDon-
ald’s name far better than they did an individual franchisee. And,
this arrangement provided McDonald’s with a steady income
stream over the course of the lease and license, which was nor-
mally 20 years.

5. Never satisfied. McDonald’s thrives on its deeply driven cul-
ture of always striving to improve. Even the most recent
McDonald’s convention used the word imagine as its theme.
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That certainly conjures up the idea of stretching to try new
things. The system has always pushed for continuous learning
and innovation. The restless energy to be quicker, faster, better,
and hotter has been nurtured in the culture of McDonald’s since
its inception. It has appealed to many employees, who readily
enjoyed the constant drive to challenge and improve the system.
It gave a sense of empowerment that “we can do it best,” and
that only the best vendors, staff, and efforts will suffice. It helped
to nurture an esprit de corps that helped propel the organiza-
tion and many of its staff to great accomplishments.
It also belies another important point: the obsession with
operational excellence. Few competitors over the years looked
to the degree to which how the stores operated to such an
extreme obsession. Perhaps this fixation was part of Fred
Turner’s famed intensity. From a fanatical attention to the small-
est details of operations, to the millions spent on training and