Page 99 - Everything I Know About Business I Learned

Standards

putting the damn machine together in seven minutes. I just found
a way to take their argument, counter it, and defeat it.”
Ed makes a valuable point, one that you will read about
repeatedly throughout this book: Find out what is really hap-
pening in the field by visiting the locations and seeing what the
real issues are—by the people who are closest to the action.
You’ll know quickly if your strategies are working, or if they
need tweaking or, perhaps, rethinking.
Yet, measurement alone will not ensure success. And like
most things, it can be taken too far. One of Fred Turner’s leg-
endary traits was his propensity to go against conventional wis-
dom. He admonished many of us if our real estate numbers (the
estimated sales of a new store versus the actual sales after it
opened) were too good. He felt that we were “not taking enough
chances” and we shouldn’t be so concerned with the statistics.
Instead, he encouraged us to use “our gut and our instincts”
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more. He was concerned that we would be “playing by the num-
bers when, in the end, the most important element is the judg-
ment of the person who says yes or no.”

Standards That Won’t Quit
We were always out to make the system better. It’s an old habit
that won’t quit, even for ex-executives no longer with the com-
pany. As McDonald’s former division president Debra Koenig
put it: “You’d be walking into any McDonald’s restaurant, any-
where, as a customer, but you would be picking up the butts in
the parking lot, the trash on your way in. You’re there as a cus-
tomer, but you would be bussing the tables and you would per-
haps say to your family members to wipe down those tables as
well. I found myself doing that for multiple years.”
Retired senior executive vice president and chief marketing
officer Paul Schrage mused on the same topic: “I can’t imagine