McDonald's Three-Legged Stool Doesn't Include Customers
My bet initially was that the three-legged stool included management, customers, and, maybe, suppliers. I was wrong. It includes the relationship between owners/operators, suppliers and corporate staff. I forgot that McDonald's is a franchise. Owners/operators are a big part of the mix. The owners/operators were the key leg (Facella, 26) because they are closest to the customer. Obviously, the operators were also close to corporate. The key word here, though, in all of this, is relationship.
That leads to the second story in the mythology, trust. Over the years, as in any company, profits waxed and waned. In one of the down times, corporate, really the CEO, knew they needed a new product. Chicken McNuggets was born. It was created not by the McDonald's development kitchen but by a couple supplier's CEOs, locked in a room. The guy who created Filet-of-Fish was in the room, along with a primary meat supplier to McDonald's. They worked because they were friends of the CEO of McDonald's USA. They weren't working because they had a contract. They worked because they knew that in the end, senior management at McDonald's would remember their work and reward it with a "relationship" to manufacture the supplies owner/operators would turn into Chicken McNuggets. No contract. No nothing. Just a willingness to make a better product for their big client. All this based on the next key word, trust.
The mythology of McDonald's includes the story that many of the suppliers supplied McDonald's on a hand-shake agreement. That's the way it is. Deliver what you say, when you say it, and McDonald's will reward you. Early on, McDonald's had problems making payroll, and the suppliers came through by helping with crucial loans at crucial times. Those were the cornerstones of the relationship that over time became very important to both McDonald's and their suppliers all over the world. Do things right, and McDonald's will remember you - and reward you.
Not a bad system. Tricky to stick to in these days of profits over everything, but McDonald's has pulled it off. Maybe it'll work for you.
Facella, Paul with Adina Genn. Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald's. The 7 Leadership Principles That Drive Break Out Success. McGraw Hill. 2009.