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54 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Unvarnished Look at One of America's Great Entrepreneurs, July 11, 2000
This review is from: Grinding It Out: The Making Of McDonald's (Mass Market Paperback)
Go into McDonald's today, and you see a complex, well-operated business system operated by ordinary people. That is impressive in and of itself. What is even more impressive is to understand the roots of how this business was established, which you can do by reading this entertaining and revealing book. Unlike most people who write about themselves and their businesses, Ray Kroc was pretty candid about the problems he had, the people who gave him a hard time, the mistakes he made, and his personal life. That makes this book very valuable to those who want to understand what entrepreneurship is all about. As an adjunct to reading this book, I suggest that you also visit the McDonald's museum near O'Hare airport in Ray Kroc's first store. There are notes there about all of the problems that he had to solve over the years, many of which are described in the book. Ray Kroc did not invent the original McDonald's concept, but what he franchised and eventually bought from the McDonald brothers was not yet a real business system. For example, when he first tried to duplicate the french fries that were so famous in San Bernardino, California, his french fries turned to mush. It turned out that the storage methods used by the McDonald brothers aged and dehydrated the potatoes a bit so that they could fry up nicely. Kroc had to invest in finding a process for doing that outside of the near-desert climate of San Bernardino. The McDonald's system that we see today is the creation of Kroc's attention to detail, appreciation for consumer value, ability to solve problems, taking calculated risks that he could not afford to lose, and attracting talented people into the system. The book gives you a great sense of what that was like. Anyone starting an e-business today will be going through many of the same trials and tribulations. The book is filled with wonderful stories about McDonald's and the people of McDonald's. I have a special fondness for the subject since I grew up about a mile from the first McDonald's in San Bernardino, and have been eating their hamburgers now for over 50 years. It is truly awe-inspiring to me to see what has been accomplished from such humble beginnings. Clearly, this book is a stallbuster for you in business. Kroc was 52 when he became interested in McDonald's. He had no special skills in restaurants. (The closest he came was in selling Lily cups and milk shake machines to restaurants, lunch counters, and drive-ins.) He had relatively little money to invest compared to the size of the opportunity. He ran into many obstacles that could have broken most businesses. Yet he just put his head down, and kept moving forward on the most important things. You can learn a lot from his determination. Good luck with using this example to create a new set of practices for business that exceed what anyone has ever accomplished before!
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Kroc on Kroc for Kroc, May 25, 2005
This review is from: Grinding It Out: The Making Of McDonald's (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the autobiography of one of the great entrepreneurs of the 20C. If only for that, it is worth the read of anyone who is interested in understanding business or the fast-food industry. For all his earthy common sense and lack of formal education, the system that Kroc set up can only be described as a work of genius. Afterall, MCdonald's at the moment has surpassed Coca Cola as the most recognized brand in the world: it serves nearly 45 million people every day, commands unparalelled influence in every related industry, and often serves as the symbol of the US itself.
THe great strength of this book is that you get Kroc's view of what makes himself tick: he devoted himself relentlessly to a single business purpose within the capitalist system, was open to suggestions from talent that he cultivated regarding that purpose, and adapted it as he needed to thrive. It is a remarkable story of a man who re-made himself many times, and began what became the McDonald's corporation in his 50s! You simply have to respect what he accomplished at a time when most men would have given up.
The pillars of his business model are well known: 1) it is more an ecosystem of separate companies that grow together with long-term bonds of trust and the highest standards of professional conduct; 2) it pursues operational efficiency while refusing to compromise safety and cleanliness; 3) it is adept at finding innovations pioneered by both its suppliers and owner-operators and then disseminating them into the system; 4) it sticks to its core competency - hamburger and fries - and with few exceptions listens to consumers. That is about it, really, in an idealist version, but it explains why the company's many competitors failed to grow as big and fast.
During the process, furthermore, Kroc did not go for making a quick buck - by selling franchise rights for a killing or gouging his owner-operators by monopolising what supplies they had to buy from him - and focused instead on treating his suppliers and owner-operators fairly, reasoning that if they could thrive, so would he. No other fast-food chain did that.
Of course, as an autobio, Kroc focuses far more on the bright side of what he has done. He does not ask himself any hard questions and comes off, not surprisingly, as distrusting of the motives of his critics as well as the legitimate concerns of many intellectuals and political activists. While open-minded, we see, he was myopically focused on refining his business model and hence unaware of his impact on the wider society.
Moreover, except for some quotes and quirky details, the business issues are also covered better in McDonald's Behind the Arches, by John F. Love. But then, both are authorised versions of the McDonald's view. The reader will need to look elsewhere for more thoughtful critiques.
Recommended. The curious reader can get a lot from this book.
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17 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Life Begins at 52, January 19, 2001
By A Customer
This review is from: Grinding It Out: The Making Of McDonald's (Mass Market Paperback)
Ray Kroc was an itinerant piano player, a paper cup salesman, a multi-mixer super-salesman and, in his most incandescent incarnation, the visionary middle-aged genius behind the McDonald's megalith. This is his gilded story, offered with all the self-serving bombast you might expect from someone who reinvented himself and the world when most of us are beginning to resignedly look down the slow slope towards retirement. Someone once said that reading biographies is worthwhile only so long as the life in question glitters. A strange epitaph, perhaps, to give to someone who made a difference with armies of beef-slinging, coke-sloshing, fry-sizzling, hygiene-obsessed foot-soldiers. But that was Ray Kroc. And "Grinding it Out" is his improbable journey through this dream we call life. We have all been affected by his original reverie, long ago, when he clandestinely watched two brothers named McDonald serving burgers from their oddly shaped fast-food stand. A book to be enjoyed for those who say, "only in America", not with a sneer, but with a wistful smile.
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