Page 79 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Relationships

the chance for gain, the risk–reward thing has always been there.
I don’t know which part of it is most important. There proba-
bly isn’t any one thing that is most important, but what we have
done is amalgamated a universe of people that, even subcon-
sciously, live by the 2 + 2 + 2 = 12.”

Lesson Learned

Mike’s “2 + 2 + 2 = 12” is sometimes referred to as
“partnering,” where two or more individuals achieve actions
that each is incapable of by themselves. Partnering has a
number of distinct advantages:

• Fostering the synergy to brainstorm and share ideas.
• Leveraging each other’s strengths, providing insights to a
variety of diverse thoughts.
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• Compensating for weakness. Some team members may not
be able to see the big picture; others may not be good at
evaluating long-term effects. By partnering, we can offset
each others’ weaknesses.
• Assisting in selecting best policies. By partnering, we can
examine the pros and cons of policies and see different
points of view.

A Showdown
Of course, it would be naïve to believe that honest relationships
were always in full force, constantly driving the company for-
ward. There were times, of course, when the company stumbled,
when operators made mistakes. Take, for instance, the debacle
the company faced in 1975 with the McDonald’s Operators
Association (MOA), whose members, all of them franchisees,
challenged the company. This was a rogue organization intent