Customer Reviews

Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald's: The 7 Leadership Principles that Drive Break Out Success

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I found the book to be outstanding, easy to read, simple, and right on the money. I have not eaten in McDonald's in over ten years and I am not an advocate of the products that they sell(I am too much of a health guy).

That said, they have been incredibly successful as a business and the book explains what the author thinks are the key reasons for their business success.

7 reasons:

1 - honesty and integrity, all in a handshake.

It is not what you do, it is the way you do it -- Ray Crock.

I have often said that having a legal agreement is much less important than doing business with people of high integrity and I have long been an advocate of the handshake over anything else.

2 - the rule is relationships, he speaks glowingly of the great relationships amongst the MacDonald's staff and talks about the three legged stool. This refers to the relationship among the three partners as operators/owners, suppliers, and corporate staff. Each is dependant on each other to support the group as a whole.

3 - standards will never be satisfied.

The quality of the leader is reflected in the standards that they set for themselves -- Ray Crock.

MacDonald's is the ultimate e-myth company. They set process and standards and expect everyone to religiously follow them. They have done a great job of communicating what those standards are and I love the never be satisfied philosophy.

One of the great lines that is totally simple is if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.

4 - Lead by example: clearly this one is obvious and many people try to do this; however, actions speak louder than words. Never underestimate ones actions.

One of the things that I particularly liked in this chapter was in the lessons learned -- "achievers never stop learning" (this is one of the things that I always ascribed to).

5 - Courage -- telling it like it is. The gist of the message is, regardless of what the message is, positive or negative, people need to know what it is and the larger the organization, the tougher it is to get the get the truth. People tend to avoid the risk in telling people the truth.

6 - Communications: It is not how often you communicate, it is how well -- Ray Crock.

There is an entire section on decentralization -- try to get the decision making as close to the customer as possible, of course all within a frame work and a philosophy. I am a big believer in decentralization as I believe this is the way to be the most efficient. It is also the way to get the little things to matter.

7 - Recognition: there is no better way to inspire a team then with recognition. Deep down we create that recognition. I think I could use a little work on this one.

Its a good book. Good words of wisdom.

I checked this book out of the library, not for business advice, but for insight on effective leadership which the book definitely delivers. When you read the subtitle of the book "The 7 leadership principles that Drive Break Out Success," it makes sense.

The first chapter is entitled Honesty and Integrity. The chapter leads with a quote from Ray Kroc "It's not what you do, but the way you do it." I like the "Food for Thought" and "Lesson Learned" scattered throughout the chapter. My favorite was on how to gain a group's trust. Included are "Model your own personal integrity." and "By following up on your commitments and obligations". If leaders do not follow up, how can they expect staff to.

The book leads us through other principles as well including standards, communication and courage. How many leadership books actually address the topic of courage - telling it like it is? Not many. Many books tell you what to do, but not how to get the courage to actually address the issue.

I enjoyed reading this book on 3 levels; first, as a friend who was excited to read about "stuff" that has happened to the author that I did not know about and remembering things that I did, second, reading it as an "ex" Mickey D alumni that brought back fond memories that helped form my path in life and business, and third, as an interesting business tool that gives insight to successful planning, coaching, and action guides that offer accountability and positive long lasting results.
The author is successful on all three levels. The anecdotes in the book keep it fresh,interesting, and personal.
A must read for all who would like to have an insightful guide to being a respected leader who gets results, inspires loyalty, and maintains long lasting relationships.

If you've never read a business book before, this probably wouldn't be such a bad one to read first. It's a fast read (though sluggishly written in parts) with some good content here. But the problem is right there in the title: he may have learned everything he knows at McDonalds, but clearly, he didn't learn very much that's of general application. So, what you get is a book about McDonalds with no insight into which of the fundamental principles are of general application, and which ones only work when you're a part of the largest conglomerate on the planet, who can step in and squash like a bug anybody who tries to screw you. The author has obviously thought about his material a lot, but as somebody without any education or non-arches experience his thoughts are of limited value. He really should have brought in somebody more knowledgeable -- not an economics professor, even, just somebody with a broader base of experience in the business world. (I can't help but wonder what someone like Harvey Mackay might have done with this material.)

Take the bit about the handshake deals. It's a nice piece of history. Probably worked really well in 1968 when the deal was "I need 1,500 hamburger buns at 7 a.m. each and every day and I'll pay you 1.25 cents for each one." I'm sure it works especially well when the one-shop baker is looking at the power of the arches, as opposed to "Ronnie Mac's One-Off Burger Shack". He's never going to screw up that relationship. But handshake deals for everybody else, in the real world, in this day and age? Come on.

McDonalds is a great organization with an effective business model, and with the huge population of former employees to draw from for stories and anecdotes, there's a real opportunity for a high-quality, instructive book, but this isn't it.

McDonald's has produced more millionaires from within its ranks than any company in history, and has long-term loyalty of its franchisees, vendors and customers. How does it garner such lasting admiration and success? Paul Facella is a company insider who began working for McDonald's at age sixteen and grew up in the company to become regional vice president. His personal examination of a company that continues to thrive makes for a compelling, revealing business title recommended for business collections and public lending libraries alike.

With Adina Genn, Paul Facella examines seven leadership principles "that drive break out success": honesty and integrity ("all in a handshake"), relationships, standards ("never be satisfied"), leading by example, communications, courage ("telling it like it is"), and recognition. "Together, these principles are the sum of the parts, and they reveal the real story behind McDonald's success." He offers no head-snapping revelations nor does he make any such claim. Obviously, that success continues to depend on effective execution of the seven principles; presumably the focus is always on what is most important, "where it really counted - on the restaurant floor, with sales and customer satisfaction." Throughout the narrative, Facella includes 36 "Lessons" accompanied by "Food for Thought" observations, and "In Summary" and "Key Learnings" sections at the conclusion of each chapter. These reader-friendly devices will facilitate, need expedite frequent review of key points later. I especially appreciate the contributions to "the real story" by Ray Kroc, Harry Sonneborn, Fred Turner, Willis Smart, Ed Rensi, Don Thompson, and countless others who agreed to share their thoughts and feelings about achieving and then sustaining "break out success" for McDonald's.

Facella devotes a separate chapter to each of the seven principles and begins with honesty and integrity. Why? According to Thompson, McDonald's current president, "It is foundational. Everything is built off of that, and if you don't have that one right, you can't move to the other principles." This is consistent with what founder Kroc asserted in 1974: "Whatever you do, don't prostitute yourself and do something for money. It's got to be in your heart and your soul. You've got to sleep with it and eat it, and it's something you can't live without." Facella concludes the chapter by reaffirming that honesty and integrity have been the keystone to McDonald's growth. "Without it, the organization never would have inspired the trust and the confidence that its partners - the vendors and franchisees - put into the company. These traits have spilled over to the customer, who expects a certain experience when she or he walks into any McDonald's unit."

In the Epilogue, Facella briefly discusses six other important components of the foundation for McDonald's break out success: (1) the "triumvirate" of founders Kroc, Turner, and Sonneborn who functioned effectively as the visionary leader, the disciplined tactical manager, and the savvy financial expert, respectively; (2) performance-based promotions; (3) the "three-legged stool" of owner/operator, supplier, and corporate staff; (4) the franchise model (i.e. autonomy of individual store within organizational system that supports local entrepreneurship; (5) constant improvement of everything involved in McDonald's "moment of truth," the interaction in each store each day with each customer; and (6) the heritage of values, principles, and core culture created by the founders and then continued by C-level executives who have also made a lifetime career commitment to McDonald's.

Almost everything in this book can be of substantial value to other companies, whatever their size and nature may be. For example, one of Facella's key points concerns an obsession with nailing the fundamentals, down to the smallest detail. When Kroc opened his first store in Des Plaines (Illinois) in 1955, "he moonlighted on weekends as the maintenance man, scrubbing the restaurant clean, and picking up the grounds." Fred Turner recalls when Kroc came in one Saturday morning with a toothbrush, got up on the sink, and scrubbed the holes in the mop wringer with his toothbrush. "I saw him do that. It's true, he'd go around with his knife and scrape the gum off the cement. He certainly set the tone on appearance and provided a smarter way of doing things." In 2006, 51 years later, a longtime supplier with McDonald's, Peter Grimm, describes what he saw at the end of an evening during an operators' convention at the Universal studios when everyone was leaving: "There I see Fred on his golf cart picking up trash. There were cups, and he was going around picking them up and pitting them in the garbage. I saw it with my own eyes."

That's what the McDonald's culture has been all about...and still is.

I've been doing a lot of research on McDonalds over that past 6 months by studying everything I could find, what they have done, how they did it, what makes them so successful and on and on. I was pleasantly surprised to find this book on the book shelf and bought it instantly. I read and studied this book as the other materials in a very scrupulous manner and found this book to be one of the best. As I made my way through it, I found myself underlining sentence and paragraphs and sections like none of the others. In short, this is one of the best books on success I have ever read and I've been reading for the past 16 years on practically a daily basis.

In my high tech career I must say most Managers don't follow the principles that are taught in this book and as a result end up being mediocre at best. However, usually they hinder the potential growth and success of their department and ultimately the company they work for. After having read the book, I'd rather work for McDonalds than any high tech company because the way people are treated and fairly rewarded based on what you do. Even if I start off as a grill or fry guy, I can move up to either owning a store or being part of corporate and the nice thing is that your potential success is unlimited.

I strongly recommend this book for anyone who has people who work for them and wants to enjoy a new level of success that they never knew was possible. The key of course is putting the principles taught in this book to work in your business. Just reading it won't get the results you desire.

The book is very enjoyable to read and has tons of very interesting tidbits to keep you entertained. Happy reading!

I found the book by Paul Facella both interesting and learning and I recomend that other CEOs of fast food resturants also learn from it. Many of its principals can be used for other types of business. But most of all I enjoyed reading of the success of one individual from the bottom to the top; which tells me that anyone who applies him or her self to the workings of McDonald's cannot fail.

This should be mandatory reading for any college student about to enter or already working in the customer service industry. The basic principals Mr. Facella so aptly articulates provide a roadmap to how individuals should conduct themselves in LIFE. When headlines dominate the news of unscrupulous CEO's profiting at the expense of employees, McDonald's treats all within its' system as a stakeholder. Who could refute ideals such as standards, integrity, honesty and loyalty. McDonald's success is in their ability to include everyone on the team; from the grill person to the supplier to the owner/operator. And everyone has a stake in that success. Like a sports team trying to win a championship, no one person can do it on their own; from the coach down to the waterboy. Most, if not all executives, didn't go to Yale or Harvard but grew in the system from the floor up. McDonald's places very little value on a person's pedigree; rather, and more importantly, what have you achieved at the company. In an era when loyalty to a company has all but disappeared, McDonalds seems to have found the "secret sauce" to hold onto and nurture their best talent. The US has hundreds of franchises in all sorts of industries, but how many can claim that any owner/operator can call the CEO and get a reply within 24 hours. Remarkable. After reading the book it's easy to see why McDonald's is so successful. Those companies struggling to hold onto their top performers, and losing their customer base, need to take note and create the family oriented atmosphere that McDonald's has maintained from the very beginning.

The book is unique in that the management principles are all related to someone's real life experiences at an entity that everyone is familiar with and can relate to. It is not an academic-oriented book and thankfully it doesn't have a single chart or diagram. What it does have are relevant stories that make the ideas more concrete. While the principles apply to a large multinational company, they are equally as relevant for a five-person jewelry store or a ten person manufacturing company. I suppose non-profits would benefit as well. Additionally, this is a management book that can be read by the president and the manager, as well as the employee at the bottom of the ladder. It probably should be read by all at the same time in order to get everyone on the same page in any organization. It is easy to read through, and the summaries and bullet points are helpful when you need to refer back to something that was previously read.