McDonald's

It seems appropriate that Fred Turner, McDonald's current chairman, started out as a shoe salesman. In such ways the leaders in many people-intensive organizations learned what it was to get the basics right – to meet customers, provide real-time service, and take pride in and responsibility for a mundane job*.

McDonald's believes that senior managers should be out in the field, paying attention to employees, training, and execution.

McDonald's talks endlessly about the individual's contribution. Says the founder, Kay Kroc, "A well-run restaurant is like a winning baseball team, it makes the most of every crew member's talent and takes advantage of every split-second opportunity to speed up service*." Kroc focuses on the little things, "I emphasize the importance of details. You must perfect every fundamental of your business if you expect it to perform well." Getting the details right, McDonald's way, requires an astonishing amount of learning and intensity. Says a former employee, "When I first started, they put a little white hat on me that said 'trainee.'* They started me right off in the easiest of the jobs-cooking French fries*. Then I moved to fries and shakes*. So it went, on up to handling the buns* and cooking the burgers*. We only had one small room where we could take breaks. There was a TV and cassette going on all the time, stressing some aspect or another of the way McDonald's does things. How to cook a better burger, how to keep the fries crisp, the whole bit."

"The book" at McDonald's spells out procedures and details. For instance, "Cooks must turn, never flip, hamburgers." Or, "If they haven't been purchased, Big Macs must be discarded in ten minutes after being cooked* and French fries in seven minutes. Cashiers must make eye contact with and smile at every customer." And on it goes.

Despite the rigidity of procedure surrounding many such areas, store managers are encouraged to exercise autonomy and keep things lively. Fortune reports that "Debbie Thompson, who started out at McDonald's as a cashier eight years ago, and now, at 24, manages the company-owned store at Elk Grove Village, sometimes livens up the lunchtime rush hour by offering $5 bonuses to the cashiers for taking in the most dollars and handling the most customers."' Another employee adds, "We always got paid a dollar for making a record amount of sales for an hour. Also, if you had a three hundred dollar hour [in food sales] you got a dollar. Everyone working in that period got a dollar. On the record days you got two dollars. We were all shooting for the extra bucks*. It meant something."

A vital part of the system is Hamburger U. ... [there are] 18 courses from one or two day seminars to week long sessions on "market evaluation," "management skills," and "area supervision." ... McDonald's success is based on fast food and friendly service at a low price. Courses deal with McDonald's style and emphasize motivation. ... Two thousand students "graduated" from the school [Hamburger U.] last year. ... One lucky student in each course receives a golden chef's hat for making the largest contribution to class discussion*. ... Another walks away with a ceramic abstract model of a hamburger for highest academic honors*...

McDonald's also turns to hoopla and razzle-dazzle*. As one employee recalls:

One of the guys in our store was an "All-American Hamburger Maker." He was the best hamburger cooker in McDonald's chains across the country. The competition begins in the spring. They have an All-American contest to see who is the best, literally the best hamburger cooker in the country. It means the quickest, but also the most nearly perfect, the top quality, cooking them exactly the way they are supposed to be cooked. To do it really right you get a little thermometer and you stick it on top of the grill. The grill would be shining, absolutely spotless. Then you lay out the burgers just so, six in a row, perfectly in line. You sear them all with the back of a spatula, you sate them at the right moment, put the onions on at the right moment. Then you take them off properly, lay them on the buns. ... First, you have the in-store competition to find the best hamburger cooker in the store. The guy who won that then goes on to the regional championships. Then they go to the next level. Finally, they go to the All-American contest – I think it was in Chicago. There was a big trophy involved*, and I think there was money involved, but I don't know how much. The important thing was that you got to wear an All-American patch on your shirt.