Customer Reviews

None of Us is As Good As All of Us: How McDonald's Prospers by Embracing Inclusion and Diversity

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McDonald's statistics tell the story of its impressive business achievements. The company serves 58 million customers daily at 32,000 restaurants in 118 nations. It employs 1.6 million people, and had 2008 sales of more than $70 billion. That's a lot of "secret sauce." Through its vaunted Hamburger University, which opened in 1956 in an Illinois restaurant basement, McDonald's teaches store managers, owners and operators how to do things "the McDonald's way." Author Patricia Sowell Harris is in charge of diversity at McDonald's. She must be doing a good job, given that Fortune magazine cited McDonalds as the number one company for diversity two years in a row. Though Harris's book is, by nature, promotional, she does a good job of explaining how diversity works at McDonald's, why a diverse workforce is important and why it makes good business sense. getAbstract recommends her lessons on equitable employment to CEOs, as well as to human resource personnel, and training and hiring managers.

While it's trendy and easy to be for diversity, staying in it for the long haul in a disciplined, doggedly determined way is much less glamorous and exceptionally difficult. McDonald's is one of those companies that took the long view to create sustainable diversity at every level of their business: from their customers to their menus, from their franchisees to their employees, from entry level ranks to management to executive leadership.

The people behind the Golden Arches have been responsible for creating hundreds of thousands of entry level jobs for people for every walk of life just getting started in their work lives and thousands of business ownerships including for urban entrepreneurs with very few other lucrative business start-up possibilities within their reach.

Not only can the people at McDonald's speak authoritatively about their diversity strategies and their breakthrough results, but author Pat Harris, McDonald's gracious and dedicated diversity leader for much of McDonald's diversity journey, can speak credibly and personally about the twists and turns, setbacks and breakthroughs the journey took along the way.

I have seen McDonald's diversity story from the distance and up close. The words and deeds of affinity group leaders, managers, and executives in this inspiring corporate diversity story have been consistent whether in public forums, one-on-one conversations, or in the pages of this book. These folks are passionate about diversity not only because it's the right thing to do but because it has also been good for business. When it comes to this book's story, "I'm lovin' it."