27A - Reading Reflection 3

For my 3rd Reading Reflection, I chose to review Grinding it Out: The Making of Mcdonald's by Ray Kroc and Robert Anderson.

1) You read about an entrepreneur:

• What surprised you the most?
• Ray Kroc was not the one who founded McDonald's, but he was the one that turned it into the monster franchise that it is today. McDonald's was originally founded by the McDonald's brothers - Richard and Maurice in San Bernardino, California. 
• What about the entrepreneur did you most admire?
• His ability to recognize the franchising opportunity of McDonald's and his risk-tasking personality. I also admired his dedication to up-keeping the consistency in quality within each McDonald's franchise.
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• What about the entrepreneur did you least admire?
• Ray Kroc was a risk-taker, but he was also somewhat of a shark. He was a ruthless opportunist, and eventually drove out the McDonald's brothers from their own business. 
• After selling the fast-food franchise to Kroc, the brothers were allowed to keep their original store in San Bernardino. Yet, Kroc was annoyed by this and sought out his revenge by opening a McDonald's right across the street that eventually drove the brother's restaurant completely out of business. 
• Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?
• Yes, Ray Kroc took huge risks to pursue his dream, even risking his personal life to do so. In the beginning, Kroc leveraged his house as collateral for a bank loan without telling his wife, in order to start franchising. 

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

I was very impressed by Ray Kroc's ability to see the massive opportunity within McDonald's. The McDonald's brothers transformed fast-food into a whole new concept that was based on speed, lower prices, and volume. The brothers developed a more efficient internal operations system, known as the "Speedee Service System", that allowed McDonald's to prepare its food quickly and even ahead of orders. 

Immediately upon his visit to the San Berardino restaurant in 1954, Kroc was impressed by the business model and saw the opportunity to franchise the restaurant across the nation. Kroc didn't wait - he bought the rights to franchise McDonald's within the next year.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you.

There was a lot of strife in the relationship between Ray Kroc and the McDonald's brothers once Kroc expanded the McDonald's with his franchising efforts. The friction between the two parties only grew worse overtime. On a basic level, Kroc and the McDonald's brothers held different philosophies about how to run the business. Kroc, an aggressive salesman, wanted to expand the business across the nation opening as many franchises as he could. The Brothers, who were more conservative, wanted less franchises in order to ensure quality in each franchise. In Grinding it Out, Kroc even wrote that "it was almost as if they (McDonald's brothers) were hoping I would fail". 

The reason why I found this confusing was that I wanted to know why it was so difficult for them to see eye-to-eye. Had there been more face-to-face meetings between the two parties, they could have come to some sort of compromise.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

1. What are the traits that made you so successful as a franchisee salesman?
2. Do you have any regrets?

I want to ask these 2 questions because I think they are related. I believe part of the reason why Kroc was so successful as a salesman was due to his ruthlessness. Kroc has definitely made decisions that are controversial, but many of them were key decisions towards his success

5) For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

I think Kroc's definition of hard work is to never stop working. Once Kroc recognized the opportunity, he was working nonstop around the clock to grow the McDonald's franchise. Even taking risks to his personal life, Kroc completely tunnel-visioned in his goal.

While I don't agree with all of Kroc's methods, I do believe that in order to achieve the level of success that Kroc had, one must be as completely focused on achieving a goal as Kroc was.