Rodent Regatta

I saw something this week I had often wondered about, but never knew how it was done. It happened at McDonald’s. [Since this entry is categorized to go into the ”quality” category, please suspend your focus on quality food for a moment.]

McDonald’s was founded and improved on a premise of providing fast food. When a hamburger and french fries were the only menu items, fast food was pretty fast and usually an order was accurate. It didn’t hurt that the first people behind the counters were often the original franchise owners who had left other careers to take a ”flyer” on a McDonald’s franchise. These facts predate the million dollar fees now required.

As the franchisees matured and grew, quality slipped. Often the restaurants were dirty. More often a counter clerk wouldn’t even make eye contact. Driving through became its own special adventure.

This week I saw a ”quality team” in action at a McDonald’s. It was approaching the end of the breakfast menu and preparations for lunch. The team was working along side the regular employees of the business.

The big difference was the coaching that was going on. It was fantastic. I actually witnessed one of the guys telling another employee to head for the bathroom to get his uniform together. He was very specific about what needed to be fixed. Another wanted things cleaned up out front. It was done in less than a minute.

I saw another working with the ”drive-thru team” to make sure they had everything they needed as the menu rolled over from breakfast to lunch. Again, there were specifics. Measuring from the first tone of the system when a car pulled in to order, they wanted a 90-second finish. That meant take the order, get the food, get the money, greet the customer, present the food and have the transaction closed in 90 seconds or less.

>From there, each and every obstacle that might prevent a 90-second ”win” was evaluated and fixes were designed and put in place. They weren’t taking notes to research for some point in the future. They were fixing problems on the fly while the business was running at full speed.

Here’s the ultimate kicker. I watched a bunch of people having great fun. No one seemed ”over-managed.” Everyone was looking for ways to make it work. It was great to watch it all coming together.

The mere presence of the outsiders, who were there to understand the problems and fix them, was reason enough for the regulars to feel positive about what they were doing. I couldn’t help but wonder where those original franchise owners were. It should have been their jobs to put this kind of joy back in the work!