[{"_1":2,"_3":-5,"_4":-5},"loaderData",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"actionData","errors","root",{"_136":-5,"_137":-5,"_138":139,"_140":141,"_142":143},"routes/clips.$id.$slug",{"_9":10,"_11":12},"clip",{"_13":14,"_15":16,"_17":-5,"_18":19,"_20":-5,"_21":22,"_23":24,"_25":26,"_27":28,"_29":30,"_31":32,"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_44":45,"_46":-5,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":-5},"canonicalUrl","https://howleaderslead.com/clips/991/make-your-strategy-clear-and-memorable","id",991,"title","Make your strategy clear and memorable","subtitle","transcript","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.960\nBut I brought together a group of our leaders,\n\n2\n00:00:02.960 --> 00:00:05.440\nand we started to look at all this information,\n\n3\n00:00:05.440 --> 00:00:08.280\nand it got us to the strategy that we have now,\n\n4\n00:00:08.280 --> 00:00:10.320\nwhich we call accelerating the arches.\n\n5\n00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:14.680\nAnd the strategy has three primary tenants or pillars.\n\n6\n00:00:14.680 --> 00:00:17.240\nThe first is that we thought we have\n\n7\n00:00:17.240 --> 00:00:20.040\none of the world's great brands in McDonald's,\n\n8\n00:00:20.040 --> 00:00:22.880\nbut that we have not sufficiently fed\n\n9\n00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:23.960\nand nurtured that brand,\n\n10\n00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:25.360\nand that there was a lot of upside\n\n11\n00:00:25.360 --> 00:00:29.440\nif we could tap into the cultural relevance of our brand.\n\n12\n00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.680\nAnd so we made brand one of the features there.\n\n13\n00:00:32.680 --> 00:00:35.280\nAnd I would tell you that it was relevant\n\n14\n00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:36.520\nin the context of COVID,\n\n15\n00:00:36.520 --> 00:00:38.800\nbecause part of what we were seeing in the data\n\n16\n00:00:38.800 --> 00:00:40.440\nis when there's uncertainty,\n\n17\n00:00:40.440 --> 00:00:43.840\npeople start to want to gravitate to what's known.\n\n18\n00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:47.120\nSo having a brand like McDonald's that's trusted,\n\n19\n00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:48.760\nserved us very well in COVID,\n\n20\n00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:50.360\nand in times of uncertainty,\n\n21\n00:00:50.360 --> 00:00:52.280\nleaning into a brand like that is powerful.\n\n22\n00:00:52.280 --> 00:00:53.680\nSo that was one.\n\n23\n00:00:53.680 --> 00:00:57.320\nThe second is, I touched on this earlier, but core menu.\n\n24\n00:00:57.320 --> 00:01:00.680\nWe thought we had a great core menu with our Big Macs,\n\n25\n00:01:00.680 --> 00:01:02.720\nour quarter pounders, our French fries,\n\n26\n00:01:02.720 --> 00:01:04.760\nour MacFlores, our chicken nuggets.\n\n27\n00:01:04.760 --> 00:01:08.200\nWe didn't need to be doing all of these peripheral products\n\n28\n00:01:08.200 --> 00:01:09.640\non top of that.\n\n29\n00:01:09.640 --> 00:01:11.840\nWhat we did in a lot of the research showed this\n\n30\n00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:15.600\nis that we were able to meet most of our core customers' needs,\n\n31\n00:01:15.600 --> 00:01:17.240\njust with our core product.\n\n32\n00:01:17.240 --> 00:01:20.000\nThe only reason to add product is if there are needs out there\n\n33\n00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:21.520\nthat you're currently not meeting,\n\n34\n00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:23.680\nwe didn't have those needs that we weren't meeting.\n\n35\n00:01:23.680 --> 00:01:26.880\nSo the second part of the strategy was core menu\n\n36\n00:01:26.880 --> 00:01:28.960\nwhere it's C of our strategy.\n\n37\n00:01:28.960 --> 00:01:32.040\nAnd then the last thing is what we described as the 3Ds.\n\n38\n00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:35.960\nAnd the 3Ds for us were digital drive-through and delivery.\n\n39\n00:01:35.960 --> 00:01:39.600\nAnd what we were observing was that consumer interest\n\n40\n00:01:39.600 --> 00:01:42.440\nin those channels was significantly elevated.\n\n41\n00:01:42.440 --> 00:01:44.760\nAgain, COVID is a big part of it,\n\n42\n00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:47.200\nbut we also expected that consumer interest\n\n43\n00:01:47.200 --> 00:01:49.120\nin those channels was gonna stay elevated\n\n44\n00:01:49.120 --> 00:01:50.320\nfor the foreseeable future.\n\n45\n00:01:50.320 --> 00:01:53.760\nWe thought this business has now sort of fundamentally changed.\n\n46\n00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.120\nThere will always be a dine-in component to it,\n\n47\n00:01:56.120 --> 00:01:59.320\nbut being great at drive-through digital and delivery,\n\n48\n00:01:59.320 --> 00:02:01.400\nif we can be great at those things,\n\n49\n00:02:01.400 --> 00:02:02.880\nthat offers a lot of opportunity.\n\n50\n00:02:02.880 --> 00:02:05.920\nSo that sort of was the basis for our strategy.\n\n51\n00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:08.320\nAnd part of being able to come up with a strategy\n\n52\n00:02:08.320 --> 00:02:12.000\nis you also have to be able to explain it to the organization.\n\n53\n00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:15.440\nEverybody in the organization needs to know what the strategy is.\n\n54\n00:02:15.440 --> 00:02:17.760\nIf the CEO and the senior team are the only people\n\n55\n00:02:17.760 --> 00:02:20.760\nthat know what the strategy is, it kind of is useless.\n\n56\n00:02:20.760 --> 00:02:24.000\nSo we came up with this moniker of MCD,\n\n57\n00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:26.080\nMarketing Core Menu 3Ds,\n\n58\n00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:29.720\nwhich by the way is the McDonald's Stock ticker, MCD.\n\n59\n00:02:29.720 --> 00:02:31.680\nAnd we said that's our strategy, guys.\n\n60\n00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:35.960\nAccelerating the arches is about marketing core menu 3Ds.\n\n61\n00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:38.000\nThat's what we need to be doing day in and day out.\n\n62\n00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:39.800\nAnd fortunately for us, it's been working.\n\n63\n00:02:39.800 --> 00:02:41.280\nAnd it's also been something that,\n\n64\n00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:45.200\nwhether you go into the C suite or whether you go down\n\n65\n00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:47.080\nand talk to the local franchisee,\n\n66\n00:02:47.080 --> 00:02:48.920\neverybody can play back that strategy,\n\n67\n00:02:48.920 --> 00:02:50.640\nwhich is a big part of leadership,\n\n68\n00:02:50.640 --> 00:02:51.800\ngetting everybody on board\n\n69\n00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:53.640\nwith which direction you're trying to go.\n","pretty_transcript","start_time",1244540,"end_time",1417253,"keywords","Strategy, clarity, communication, branding, marketing, product development, simplicity, alignment, restaurant, McDonalds, fast food, restaurant","slug","make-your-strategy-clear-and-memorable","origin","cms","mux_playback_id","yW00Tgr4ni4OUGRIR5A002kPKE11gTsyz02JjWwU7YLnHM","mux_asset_id","ZT009dOVXH7sJis0200zSSDOgbd65q9mkBdOlSSkn9thME","leader_id",26,"episode_id",173,"updated_at","2025-02-26T19:38:05.000000Z","meta_title","meta_description","og_image_media_id","web_url","https://www.howleaderslead.com/clips/991/make-your-strategy-clear-and-memorable","og_image_url","leader",{"_13":36,"_100":101,"_102":103,"_104":105,"_25":106,"_107":108,"_61":109,"_58":109,"_110":111,"_68":112,"_39":113,"_114":-5,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_115":116,"_88":117,"_44":118,"_119":120,"_121":122,"_46":-5,"_123":124,"_125":126,"_92":127,"_51":-5},"episode",{"_13":38,"_15":52,"_27":53,"_17":-5,"_54":55,"_18":56,"_20":57,"_58":59,"_60":-5,"_61":59,"_62":-5,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":-5,"_68":-5,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":-5,"_35":36,"_39":74,"_41":-5,"_42":-5,"_43":-5,"_75":76,"_77":78,"_79":80,"_81":82,"_83":-5,"_84":-5,"_85":86,"_87":-5,"_88":-5,"_46":-5,"_89":90,"_91":-5,"_92":-5,"_51":-5},"og_image_media","Make key strategies memorable","make-key-strategies-memorable","summary","

I gotta make a little confession. Back when I was the CEO of Yum! Brands, my team and I would do what we called McDonald’s Immersion Days. We just went into McDonald’s restaurants for the whole day and observed all the smart things they were doing. Then we’d figure out how we could make those smart ideas work at KFC, Taco Bell, or Pizza Hut. That’s just how much we admired McDonald’s.

These days, McDonald’s is still at the top of their game – and I’m honored to have McDonald’s President and CEO, Chris Kempczinski, joining me today. As you’ll hear in this conversation, Chris leads in the real world. He’s not the kind of guy who’s just locked away in an office lost in data and paperwork and big-picture strategies. In fact, he believes that your strategies really don’t count for much unless they’re actually showing up in the day-to-day operation of your business. And when you listen to this conversation, you will learn a LOT about how to take a smart strategy and then actually make it memorable and easy for everyone to implement.

So here is my conversation with my good friend – and soon to be yours – Chris Kempczinski.

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","WEBVTT\n\n1\n00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.630\nWelcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I\n\n2\n00:00:07.630 --> 00:00:08.500\ninterview some\n\n3\n00:00:08.500 --> 00:00:10.600\nof the very best leaders in the world.\n\n4\n00:00:10.600 --> 00:00:14.060\nI break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have\n\n5\n00:00:14.060 --> 00:00:14.660\nsomething\n\n6\n00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:18.500\nsimple you can apply as you develop into a better leader.\n\n7\n00:00:18.500 --> 00:00:20.900\nThat's what this podcast is all about.\n\n8\n00:00:20.900 --> 00:00:26.680\nOkay, before we go too far, I got to make a little confession.\n\n9\n00:00:26.680 --> 00:00:30.830\nLike when I was the CEO of Young Brands, my team and I would do what we called\n\n10\n00:00:30.830 --> 00:00:31.540\nMcDonald\n\n11\n00:00:31.540 --> 00:00:33.100\nimmersion days.\n\n12\n00:00:33.100 --> 00:00:36.870\nWe just went into McDonald's restaurants for the whole day and observed all the\n\n13\n00:00:36.870 --> 00:00:37.220\nsmart\n\n14\n00:00:37.220 --> 00:00:39.220\nthings that they were doing.\n\n15\n00:00:39.220 --> 00:00:44.320\nThen, we'd figure out how we could make those smart ideas work at KFC, Taco\n\n16\n00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:45.500\nBell, or Pizza\n\n17\n00:00:45.500 --> 00:00:46.500\nHot.\n\n18\n00:00:46.500 --> 00:00:49.000\nThat's just how much we admired McDonald's.\n\n19\n00:00:49.000 --> 00:00:52.640\nThese days, McDonald's is still at the top of their game, and I'm honored to\n\n20\n00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:53.520\nhave McDonald's\n\n21\n00:00:53.520 --> 00:00:57.960\npresident and CEO, Chris Kymchinsky, joining me today.\n\n22\n00:00:57.960 --> 00:01:01.830\nAs you'll hear in this conversation, Chris really understands what's happening\n\n23\n00:01:01.830 --> 00:01:02.200\nin the\n\n24\n00:01:02.200 --> 00:01:03.200\nreal world.\n\n25\n00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:07.400\nHe's not the kind of guy who's just locked away in an office, lost in data and\n\n26\n00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:08.000\npaperwork\n\n27\n00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:09.560\nand big picture strategies.\n\n28\n00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:13.390\nIn fact, he believes that your strategies really don't count for much unless\n\n29\n00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:13.800\nthey're\n\n30\n00:01:13.800 --> 00:01:18.240\nactually showing up in the day-to-day operations of your business.\n\n31\n00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:22.450\nWhen you listen to this conversation, you will learn a lot about how to take a\n\n32\n00:01:22.450 --> 00:01:22.880\nsmart\n\n33\n00:01:22.880 --> 00:01:28.530\nstrategy and then actually make it memorable and easy for everyone to implement\n\n34\n00:01:28.530 --> 00:01:28.600\n.\n\n35\n00:01:28.600 --> 00:01:34.200\nSo here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours, Chris Kymch\n\n36\n00:01:34.200 --> 00:01:35.000\ninsky.\n\n37\n00:01:35.000 --> 00:01:44.110\nChris, I understand both you and your wife went to Duke, and I've seen in your\n\n38\n00:01:44.110 --> 00:01:45.080\noffice\n\n39\n00:01:45.080 --> 00:01:50.790\nyou actually have a bobblehead of Coach K. I got to ask, if you ever met Coach\n\n40\n00:01:50.790 --> 00:01:51.120\nK, and\n\n41\n00:01:51.120 --> 00:01:54.880\nif so, what have you learned about leadership just watching him in action?\n\n42\n00:01:54.880 --> 00:01:57.720\nYeah, well, Coach K, as you know, is an icon.\n\n43\n00:01:57.720 --> 00:02:02.670\nYou can't go to Duke, certainly during my area, without knowing Coach K. And I\n\n44\n00:02:02.670 --> 00:02:03.240\nwas fortunate\n\n45\n00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:06.040\nwhen I was there in that we went to the final four every year.\n\n46\n00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:08.360\nWe won the National Championship my senior year.\n\n47\n00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:12.320\nSo Coach K is someone I've always had a ton of respect for.\n\n48\n00:02:12.320 --> 00:02:14.560\nAnd it's about how he leads.\n\n49\n00:02:14.560 --> 00:02:19.330\nAnd he's a leader that always talks about being honest with his players and\n\n50\n00:02:19.330 --> 00:02:19.960\nthat his\n\n51\n00:02:19.960 --> 00:02:23.760\njob is about how do you make his players better, but he does it through honesty\n\n52\n00:02:23.760 --> 00:02:24.120\nand\n\n53\n00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:25.360\nthrough feedback.\n\n54\n00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:30.960\nThe other thing that I always thought was a great way about Coach K is that he\n\n55\n00:02:30.960 --> 00:02:31.640\nadjusted\n\n56\n00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:33.960\nhis coaching style to his players.\n\n57\n00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:38.070\nSo as opposed to a coach who says, this is the way I do it, and the player has\n\n58\n00:02:38.070 --> 00:02:38.760\nto conform\n\n59\n00:02:38.760 --> 00:02:43.230\nto me, Coach K had an opposite approach, which is it's my job to figure out\n\n60\n00:02:43.230 --> 00:02:44.120\nwhat works for\n\n61\n00:02:44.120 --> 00:02:45.120\nthat player.\n\n62\n00:02:45.120 --> 00:02:47.360\nAnd I, as the coach, have to adjust my style.\n\n63\n00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:50.080\nSo he's somebody that I've admired and respected.\n\n64\n00:02:50.080 --> 00:02:54.030\nAnd it was only until maybe a couple of years ago that I actually was able to\n\n65\n00:02:54.030 --> 00:02:54.880\nmeet with him.\n\n66\n00:02:54.880 --> 00:02:58.960\nHe had his own interview radio show on SiriusXM.\n\n67\n00:02:58.960 --> 00:03:03.310\nAnd he asked me if I would participate in his SiriusXM radio show, which was a\n\n68\n00:03:03.310 --> 00:03:04.080\nhuge treat\n\n69\n00:03:04.080 --> 00:03:09.150\nfor me and really cool to just share some of what I was doing, but also get his\n\n70\n00:03:09.150 --> 00:03:09.760\nadvice\n\n71\n00:03:09.760 --> 00:03:10.760\non stuff.\n\n72\n00:03:10.760 --> 00:03:14.200\nAnd yes, I have the Coach K. Bobblehead in my office.\n\n73\n00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:18.960\nAnd I've read the Coach K books and I use Coach K quotes and anecdotes with my\n\n74\n00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:19.560\nteam and they're\n\n75\n00:03:19.560 --> 00:03:22.400\nall thoroughly sick of hearing about Coach K.\n\n76\n00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:26.290\nYou know, I've heard that McDonald's goes through three billion pounds of\n\n77\n00:03:26.290 --> 00:03:27.000\npotatoes a\n\n78\n00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:32.460\nyear, which is enough fries to make 22 round trips to the moon if it was laid\n\n79\n00:03:32.460 --> 00:03:33.520\nend to end.\n\n80\n00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:37.750\nNow, how many pounds of fries do you think you were responsible for eating this\n\n81\n00:03:37.750 --> 00:03:37.960\npast\n\n82\n00:03:37.960 --> 00:03:38.960\nyear?\n\n83\n00:03:38.960 --> 00:03:41.480\nOh boy, I certainly eat a fair share of them.\n\n84\n00:03:41.480 --> 00:03:44.280\nI'll tell you that I eat our french fries almost every single day.\n\n85\n00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:45.520\nThey're that good.\n\n86\n00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:49.210\nWhat that adds up into pounds, I don't know, probably more than I'd like it to\n\n87\n00:03:49.210 --> 00:03:49.920\nthough.\n\n88\n00:03:49.920 --> 00:03:53.530\nAnd it's a constant battle, as you know, when you're in these jobs, one of the\n\n89\n00:03:53.530 --> 00:03:54.320\noccupational\n\n90\n00:03:54.320 --> 00:03:57.560\nhazards is you're constantly surrounded by great tasting food.\n\n91\n00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:01.700\nAnd so I have to also balance it with a pretty regular exercise routine so I\n\n92\n00:04:01.700 --> 00:04:02.720\ncan keep eating\n\n93\n00:04:02.720 --> 00:04:04.320\nthose french fries all the time.\n\n94\n00:04:04.320 --> 00:04:05.320\nYeah.\n\n95\n00:04:05.320 --> 00:04:06.560\nWell, you and I have that in common.\n\n96\n00:04:06.560 --> 00:04:11.040\nYou know, on a serious note, I know that you go to McDonald's at least five\n\n97\n00:04:11.040 --> 00:04:12.120\ntimes a week.\n\n98\n00:04:12.120 --> 00:04:14.360\nWhat's a store visit look like for you?\n\n99\n00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:16.840\nWhen you go into the store, what do you try to accomplish?\n\n100\n00:04:16.840 --> 00:04:20.040\nI think there's a few different things that I'm trying to do.\n\n101\n00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:24.410\nOne is to try to just make sure that what we're talking about from a strategy\n\n102\n00:04:24.410 --> 00:04:25.440\nstandpoint,\n\n103\n00:04:25.440 --> 00:04:27.840\nhow is that actually translating into the restaurant?\n\n104\n00:04:27.840 --> 00:04:31.680\nAnd is there a good connection between what we are hoping and trying to get\n\n105\n00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:32.520\naccomplished\n\n106\n00:04:32.520 --> 00:04:36.310\nat a strategic level at the headquarters, is that actually what's happening in\n\n107\n00:04:36.310 --> 00:04:37.160\nthe restaurant?\n\n108\n00:04:37.160 --> 00:04:41.030\nWe have an expression that we use here all the time, which is it's not real if\n\n109\n00:04:41.030 --> 00:04:41.600\nit's not\n\n110\n00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:42.600\nin the restaurants.\n\n111\n00:04:42.600 --> 00:04:45.590\nAnd so when you're out in the restaurants, you're actually trying to see what's\n\n112\n00:04:45.590 --> 00:04:46.120\nhappening\n\n113\n00:04:46.120 --> 00:04:49.590\nin reality versus maybe what somebody's showing you on a PowerPoint when you're\n\n114\n00:04:49.590 --> 00:04:50.200\nsitting back\n\n115\n00:04:50.200 --> 00:04:51.200\nin the headquarters.\n\n116\n00:04:51.200 --> 00:04:53.560\nSo that's one thing that I'm certainly trying to do.\n\n117\n00:04:53.560 --> 00:04:58.360\nI think a second thing is to just bring some energy to the team there and some\n\n118\n00:04:58.360 --> 00:04:59.600\nappreciation.\n\n119\n00:04:59.600 --> 00:05:05.050\nThese are challenging jobs and anytime that I can show up at a restaurant, I\n\n120\n00:05:05.050 --> 00:05:05.720\nwant it to\n\n121\n00:05:05.720 --> 00:05:06.720\nbe a celebration.\n\n122\n00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:09.160\nI want it to be something that's positive.\n\n123\n00:05:09.160 --> 00:05:12.370\nWhen I'm going in, I think a lot of times there's this perception of I'm going\n\n124\n00:05:12.370 --> 00:05:12.720\nin to\n\n125\n00:05:12.720 --> 00:05:13.720\ninspect it.\n\n126\n00:05:13.720 --> 00:05:17.480\nI'm going in to find problems or see what's not working.\n\n127\n00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:18.880\nAnd it's actually the opposite.\n\n128\n00:05:18.880 --> 00:05:23.020\nI'm going in to find examples of things that are going great so that I can put\n\n129\n00:05:23.020 --> 00:05:23.800\na spotlight\n\n130\n00:05:23.800 --> 00:05:27.890\non where people are really doing great work and have that be something that\n\n131\n00:05:27.890 --> 00:05:28.840\ninspires and\n\n132\n00:05:28.840 --> 00:05:30.440\ngoes through the rest of the system.\n\n133\n00:05:30.440 --> 00:05:35.230\nBecause those I find are much more motivational to focus on the good stuff as\n\n134\n00:05:35.230 --> 00:05:36.120\nopposed to kind\n\n135\n00:05:36.120 --> 00:05:38.480\nof just nitpicking and saying, well, this could be better.\n\n136\n00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:39.640\nThis could be better.\n\n137\n00:05:39.640 --> 00:05:42.400\nThere are other people that will do that in the organization.\n\n138\n00:05:42.400 --> 00:05:44.840\nSo that's a second thing, bringing energy.\n\n139\n00:05:44.840 --> 00:05:48.730\nAnd then the third is I'm going in and listening for ideas and the people that\n\n140\n00:05:48.730 --> 00:05:49.280\nare in our\n\n141\n00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:53.140\nrestaurant, whether they're the customers, whether they're our franchisees, the\n\n142\n00:05:53.140 --> 00:05:53.320\ncrew\n\n143\n00:05:53.320 --> 00:05:56.680\npeople, they're the source of so many great ideas.\n\n144\n00:05:56.680 --> 00:06:00.760\nAnd so to hear from them, what are the problems, what are the opportunities?\n\n145\n00:06:00.760 --> 00:06:04.070\nAnd as you do enough of these things, you start to get some pattern recognition\n\n146\n00:06:04.070 --> 00:06:04.600\nand then bring\n\n147\n00:06:04.600 --> 00:06:08.440\nthose back and get some people here at the headquarters or maybe in some of our\n\n148\n00:06:08.440 --> 00:06:08.920\nmarkets\n\n149\n00:06:08.920 --> 00:06:12.520\nto figure out how do we actually bring some of those ideas to life.\n\n150\n00:06:12.520 --> 00:06:13.960\nAll makes sense to me.\n\n151\n00:06:13.960 --> 00:06:18.840\nYou've been CEO of McDonald's since November of 2019.\n\n152\n00:06:18.840 --> 00:06:22.840\nDescribe the business you took over and the status of the business today.\n\n153\n00:06:22.840 --> 00:06:26.480\nYeah, it was a business that was performing well.\n\n154\n00:06:26.480 --> 00:06:30.920\nWe had had several years of good performance, but we were just in the beginning\n\n155\n00:06:30.920 --> 00:06:31.800\nstages of\n\n156\n00:06:31.800 --> 00:06:35.320\nwhat I would describe as sort of the digitization of our business.\n\n157\n00:06:35.320 --> 00:06:39.000\nThis is a business that was largely either came to the drive-through.\n\n158\n00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:42.120\nYou walked in the lobby and you did an order at the counter.\n\n159\n00:06:42.120 --> 00:06:43.680\nMaybe it went sat in.\n\n160\n00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:46.390\nMaybe it did take away, but it was a business that was largely what I would\n\n161\n00:06:46.390 --> 00:06:46.960\ndescribe as\n\n162\n00:06:46.960 --> 00:06:48.840\nan analog business.\n\n163\n00:06:48.840 --> 00:06:53.680\nAnd we were in the very early stages of bringing digital in with a global\n\n164\n00:06:53.680 --> 00:06:55.360\nmobile app for us,\n\n165\n00:06:55.360 --> 00:06:57.280\nstarting to do delivery.\n\n166\n00:06:57.280 --> 00:07:01.610\nAnd then what happened through the pandemic is the pandemic just turbocharged\n\n167\n00:07:01.610 --> 00:07:02.440\nthe delivery\n\n168\n00:07:02.440 --> 00:07:03.560\nside of our business.\n\n169\n00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:08.160\nNow, over a third of our transactions are what we would describe as a digital\n\n170\n00:07:08.160 --> 00:07:09.040\ntransaction\n\n171\n00:07:09.040 --> 00:07:13.490\nhappening either on an app, maybe happening through a new barit or a door dash\n\n172\n00:07:13.490 --> 00:07:14.360\nor happening\n\n173\n00:07:14.360 --> 00:07:16.560\non one of our kiosks that we have in the lobby.\n\n174\n00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:20.600\nSo we're now, we have a very different sort of relationship with the customer.\n\n175\n00:07:20.600 --> 00:07:21.960\nWe're in the past.\n\n176\n00:07:21.960 --> 00:07:25.560\nThe customer was almost always going to be interfacing with the crew person who\n\n177\n00:07:25.560 --> 00:07:26.040\n's going\n\n178\n00:07:26.040 --> 00:07:27.440\nto be taking their order.\n\n179\n00:07:27.440 --> 00:07:31.080\nAnd now you have a third of your orders where there's a different interaction.\n\n180\n00:07:31.080 --> 00:07:35.840\nYou don't have a crew person who's smiling and having that good back and forth\n\n181\n00:07:35.840 --> 00:07:36.280\nwith the\n\n182\n00:07:36.280 --> 00:07:37.280\ncustomer.\n\n183\n00:07:37.280 --> 00:07:39.160\nIt's happening in a digital context.\n\n184\n00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:43.430\nSo we've had to think a little bit about how do we continue to make sure that\n\n185\n00:07:43.430 --> 00:07:44.240\nwe're able\n\n186\n00:07:44.240 --> 00:07:48.040\nto provide as distinctive an experience when you don't have that personal\n\n187\n00:07:48.040 --> 00:07:48.880\nelement to it.\n\n188\n00:07:48.880 --> 00:07:51.200\nAnd that's been one thing that we've thought about.\n\n189\n00:07:51.200 --> 00:07:56.710\nThe second thing for us that we have seen as a big change in this is we have\n\n190\n00:07:56.710 --> 00:07:57.360\ntried to\n\n191\n00:07:57.360 --> 00:07:59.800\njust dramatically simplify our business.\n\n192\n00:07:59.800 --> 00:08:05.370\nAnd we had over time, I think allowed for a lot of complexity to creep into the\n\n193\n00:08:05.370 --> 00:08:06.200\nbusiness\n\n194\n00:08:06.200 --> 00:08:10.640\nmenu as an example where we got much more complicated on menu.\n\n195\n00:08:10.640 --> 00:08:15.040\nCOVID in the pandemic required us to flush out a lot of that complexity out.\n\n196\n00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:19.090\nAnd we saw significant benefits from that from both the crew satisfaction\n\n197\n00:08:19.090 --> 00:08:19.880\nstandpoint,\n\n198\n00:08:19.880 --> 00:08:21.800\ncustomer satisfaction.\n\n199\n00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:26.760\nSo that's another thing where we are much more focused on just about core menu\n\n200\n00:08:26.760 --> 00:08:26.880\nand\n\n201\n00:08:26.880 --> 00:08:31.970\ndriving our core menu as opposed to doing limited time only or we call them LTO\n\n202\n00:08:31.970 --> 00:08:32.080\ns,\n\n203\n00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:34.320\ndoing all sorts of one off things.\n\n204\n00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:38.680\nWe're focused on driving our core brands, our Big Macs, our McFlurries, our\n\n205\n00:08:38.680 --> 00:08:39.640\nchicken nuggets.\n\n206\n00:08:39.640 --> 00:08:41.800\nBecause we think there's a ton of growth in those.\n\n207\n00:08:41.800 --> 00:08:45.880\nAnd then I'd say the last thing is just the business is different around the\n\n208\n00:08:45.880 --> 00:08:46.360\nemployee\n\n209\n00:08:46.360 --> 00:08:47.400\nexpectations.\n\n210\n00:08:47.400 --> 00:08:51.560\nI think through the pandemic and also what's going on more broadly in society,\n\n211\n00:08:51.560 --> 00:08:56.160\nthere's just a different expectation about the role of the company, the role of\n\n212\n00:08:56.160 --> 00:08:56.680\npurpose\n\n213\n00:08:56.680 --> 00:09:01.200\nin why an employee chooses to work at a particular place and having that be\n\n214\n00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:01.480\nmuch\n\n215\n00:09:01.480 --> 00:09:06.200\nmore front and center and talking about it in a much more overt way is a\n\n216\n00:09:06.200 --> 00:09:06.640\ndifferent\n\n217\n00:09:06.640 --> 00:09:08.280\npart of the company as well.\n\n218\n00:09:08.280 --> 00:09:13.880\nSo it's an exciting time to be at McDonald's, but it's one where for 65 years\n\n219\n00:09:13.880 --> 00:09:14.080\nwe were\n\n220\n00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:19.080\ndefined by Brooks and Mortar and now increasingly we're defined by a digital\n\n221\n00:09:19.080 --> 00:09:19.920\nexperience and\n\n222\n00:09:19.920 --> 00:09:23.560\nwe're all learning kind of through the process of how to make that change.\n\n223\n00:09:23.560 --> 00:09:26.080\n>> How have you had to adapt to that yourself as a leader?\n\n224\n00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:30.840\nHow have you gotten yourself up to speed on the whole digital revolution?\n\n225\n00:09:30.840 --> 00:09:36.140\n>> I don't think I'm ever going to be at a place where I am a technology expert\n\n226\n00:09:36.140 --> 00:09:36.280\n.\n\n227\n00:09:36.280 --> 00:09:40.600\nWhat I always try to keep going back to and what I do think my training allows\n\n228\n00:09:40.600 --> 00:09:41.160\nme to do\n\n229\n00:09:41.160 --> 00:09:45.360\nis to focus on what's the consumer problem that we're trying to solve.\n\n230\n00:09:45.360 --> 00:09:49.570\nAnd one thing I've seen that can happen with technology is a lot of times\n\n231\n00:09:49.570 --> 00:09:50.600\norganizations\n\n232\n00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:55.930\ncan get excited, captivated about a technology for technology's sake and lose\n\n233\n00:09:55.930 --> 00:09:56.720\nsight of is\n\n234\n00:09:56.720 --> 00:09:59.480\nthere actually a consumer problem that we're trying to solve here?\n\n235\n00:09:59.480 --> 00:10:03.220\nAre we just coming up with a new technology because we can and because a few\n\n236\n00:10:03.220 --> 00:10:03.680\npeople in\n\n237\n00:10:03.680 --> 00:10:07.440\nthe organization get excited about it and think it's neat.\n\n238\n00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:11.960\nSo that's what I try to do is almost being as ignorant as I am about some of\n\n239\n00:10:11.960 --> 00:10:12.760\nthis technology\n\n240\n00:10:12.760 --> 00:10:16.760\nand everything that goes on in a way is an asset for me because I can ask the\n\n241\n00:10:16.760 --> 00:10:17.480\nquestions\n\n242\n00:10:17.480 --> 00:10:22.120\nthat a customer would be asking and then testing is my team able to do that.\n\n243\n00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:26.480\nSo I end up, I'm just asking a lot of questions and then I think the other\n\n244\n00:10:26.480 --> 00:10:26.960\nthing that I try\n\n245\n00:10:26.960 --> 00:10:31.450\nto do and this gets back to what we were talking about earlier is let's see how\n\n246\n00:10:31.450 --> 00:10:32.000\nit actually\n\n247\n00:10:32.000 --> 00:10:33.200\nworks in the restaurant.\n\n248\n00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:39.030\nAnd so we've had to get much more adept at faster cycle times where we still\n\n249\n00:10:39.030 --> 00:10:39.680\nlike to\n\n250\n00:10:39.680 --> 00:10:44.380\nthink of ourselves as being relatively innovative company, but we've had to\n\n251\n00:10:44.380 --> 00:10:45.680\ntake that up 2x,\n\n252\n00:10:45.680 --> 00:10:50.090\n3x and how do we test and learn much more quickly and whether it's at an\n\n253\n00:10:50.090 --> 00:10:50.960\nindividual\n\n254\n00:10:50.960 --> 00:10:56.470\nrestaurant or maybe we'll take a region that will do this, but we've had to get\n\n255\n00:10:56.470 --> 00:10:57.400\na lot faster\n\n256\n00:10:57.400 --> 00:10:59.560\nof, okay, let's go put this up on the app.\n\n257\n00:10:59.560 --> 00:11:03.130\nLet's go see how customers respond to it and then let's change it tomorrow or\n\n258\n00:11:03.130 --> 00:11:03.760\nlet's change\n\n259\n00:11:03.760 --> 00:11:08.300\nit a week from now and just getting in that mindset of rapidly innovating has\n\n260\n00:11:08.300 --> 00:11:09.160\nbeen another\n\n261\n00:11:09.160 --> 00:11:12.170\nthing that I've had myself to get comfortable with but also get the\n\n262\n00:11:12.170 --> 00:11:13.360\norganization thinking\n\n263\n00:11:13.360 --> 00:11:14.360\nabout.\n\n264\n00:11:14.360 --> 00:11:19.020\nYou know, before taking over as CEO, you were the president of McDonald's USA\n\n265\n00:11:19.020 --> 00:11:19.760\nleading close\n\n266\n00:11:19.760 --> 00:11:24.160\nto 15,000 stores in the United States, that's a huge job.\n\n267\n00:11:24.160 --> 00:11:29.440\nBut what's something about becoming CEO that took you by surprise?\n\n268\n00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:31.800\nThere's a lot of things that take you by surprise.\n\n269\n00:11:31.800 --> 00:11:38.560\nI think this job as CEO is about as different a job as any other job I've had.\n\n270\n00:11:38.560 --> 00:11:43.610\nWhen you're going up through kind of the ranks of an organization like a\n\n271\n00:11:43.610 --> 00:11:44.400\nMcDonald's, going\n\n272\n00:11:44.400 --> 00:11:49.380\nfrom running a region to then going and running a larger territory to then\n\n273\n00:11:49.380 --> 00:11:50.680\ngoing and running\n\n274\n00:11:50.680 --> 00:11:53.880\na market, those jobs aren't that different.\n\n275\n00:11:53.880 --> 00:11:55.920\nYour scope is just getting a little bit bigger.\n\n276\n00:11:55.920 --> 00:11:57.280\nYou're managing more people.\n\n277\n00:11:57.280 --> 00:12:01.320\nThere's another zero or two on the end of your P&L statement.\n\n278\n00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:04.680\nBut the job is pretty similar.\n\n279\n00:12:04.680 --> 00:12:09.300\nAnd then you go and you become CEO and I would say my job went from being\n\n280\n00:12:09.300 --> 00:12:11.640\nprobably 90% internally\n\n281\n00:12:11.640 --> 00:12:17.240\nfocused and 10% externally focused to now probably being about 50/50.\n\n282\n00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:22.510\n50% of my time is internally focused, but 50% of my time is externally focused\n\n283\n00:12:22.510 --> 00:12:23.000\nand whether\n\n284\n00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:28.960\nthat's interfacing with investors, media, NGOs, you name it.\n\n285\n00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:32.410\nThat's been one thing that I've had to sort of get comfortable with because\n\n286\n00:12:32.410 --> 00:12:33.080\nhonestly,\n\n287\n00:12:33.080 --> 00:12:37.570\nthe part of the job I loved was the day to day being in the restaurants, waking\n\n288\n00:12:37.570 --> 00:12:38.160\nup every\n\n289\n00:12:38.160 --> 00:12:40.840\nmorning and seeing what the comp sales report was.\n\n290\n00:12:40.840 --> 00:12:44.520\nAnd it's just it's a different cadence, a different set of activities.\n\n291\n00:12:44.520 --> 00:12:45.880\nSo that's been one big change.\n\n292\n00:12:45.880 --> 00:12:51.460\nI think the second thing for me is in some of the jobs below the CEO, you kind\n\n293\n00:12:51.460 --> 00:12:52.080\nof take\n\n294\n00:12:52.080 --> 00:12:56.360\nculture for granted and the culture is just there.\n\n295\n00:12:56.360 --> 00:12:58.400\nIt's sort of around you.\n\n296\n00:12:58.400 --> 00:13:01.880\nAnd so your job is operating within the culture.\n\n297\n00:13:01.880 --> 00:13:05.520\nWhen you become CEO, the CEO sets the culture.\n\n298\n00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:09.960\nIf the CEO is not setting the culture, nobody else is going to set the culture.\n\n299\n00:13:09.960 --> 00:13:13.850\nAnd so I've had to spend a lot more time just thinking about what do I want the\n\n300\n00:13:13.850 --> 00:13:14.400\nculture\n\n301\n00:13:14.400 --> 00:13:15.680\nof McDonald's to be?\n\n302\n00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:19.470\nWhat parts of the culture that we've historically had do we want to celebrate\n\n303\n00:13:19.470 --> 00:13:20.280\nand raise up?\n\n304\n00:13:20.280 --> 00:13:23.320\nAnd maybe what parts of the culture do we need to change?\n\n305\n00:13:23.320 --> 00:13:28.250\nAnd that's been just another fun thing to think about is culture and values and\n\n306\n00:13:28.250 --> 00:13:28.560\nhow\n\n307\n00:13:28.560 --> 00:13:32.160\nwe make that something special and unique to McDonald's.\n\n308\n00:13:32.160 --> 00:13:36.280\nWhat are you trying to bring to the company that's new on the cultural front?\n\n309\n00:13:36.280 --> 00:13:38.440\nI'd say there's a few things for us.\n\n310\n00:13:38.440 --> 00:13:43.470\nOne is certainly around risk appetite and McDonald's is an organization where\n\n311\n00:13:43.470 --> 00:13:44.080\nwe would\n\n312\n00:13:44.080 --> 00:13:45.880\nlove to test things.\n\n313\n00:13:45.880 --> 00:13:50.580\nAnd part of the strength of the company has been we will test and test and test\n\n314\n00:13:50.580 --> 00:13:51.360\nand refine\n\n315\n00:13:51.360 --> 00:13:54.240\nand refine and refine until we get it perfectly right.\n\n316\n00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:58.560\nAnd you see that operationally in our restaurants where we just love to get\n\n317\n00:13:58.560 --> 00:13:59.680\ninto the details.\n\n318\n00:13:59.680 --> 00:14:05.160\nBut that approach that culture doesn't work in this much more digital like I\n\n319\n00:14:05.160 --> 00:14:06.360\nwas describing\n\n320\n00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:08.600\nearlier, rapid innovation environment.\n\n321\n00:14:08.600 --> 00:14:12.600\nAnd when you are rapidly innovating, there is more risk attached to that.\n\n322\n00:14:12.600 --> 00:14:15.560\nSo how do I get the organization more comfortable with risk?\n\n323\n00:14:15.560 --> 00:14:19.460\nThere's been one area that I've spent some time and it's a process that's going\n\n324\n00:14:19.460 --> 00:14:20.280\nto take\n\n325\n00:14:20.280 --> 00:14:21.280\nseveral years.\n\n326\n00:14:21.280 --> 00:14:24.510\nBut that's something I think the second thing for me is one of the benefits of\n\n327\n00:14:24.510 --> 00:14:25.120\nMcDonald's\n\n328\n00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:30.760\nis we have 40,000 restaurants in close to 120 some odd countries.\n\n329\n00:14:30.760 --> 00:14:35.990\nWe have a lot of reinventing the wheel that happens all across the globe where\n\n330\n00:14:35.990 --> 00:14:36.920\neven though\n\n331\n00:14:36.920 --> 00:14:40.640\nour business is very similar, we're selling burgers and french fries pretty\n\n332\n00:14:40.640 --> 00:14:41.240\nmuch in every\n\n333\n00:14:41.240 --> 00:14:42.840\nmarket where we operate.\n\n334\n00:14:42.840 --> 00:14:47.390\nWe had a tendency to always want if you were running a country, I've got to\n\n335\n00:14:47.390 --> 00:14:47.880\ncome up with\n\n336\n00:14:47.880 --> 00:14:49.200\nmy own solution.\n\n337\n00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:54.000\nAnd we celebrated the innovators who were coming up with their own local\n\n338\n00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:54.920\nsolution.\n\n339\n00:14:54.920 --> 00:14:58.860\nWhat we didn't celebrate were the people who were able to shamelessly steal\n\n340\n00:14:58.860 --> 00:14:59.720\nfrom others.\n\n341\n00:14:59.720 --> 00:15:03.910\nSo how do I get this organization to actually see it as a good thing, to see it\n\n342\n00:15:03.910 --> 00:15:04.760\nas a strength\n\n343\n00:15:04.760 --> 00:15:07.200\nof I don't need to come up with the solution.\n\n344\n00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:11.440\nMost likely the solution already exists somewhere in McDonald's around the\n\n345\n00:15:11.440 --> 00:15:12.040\nworld.\n\n346\n00:15:12.040 --> 00:15:15.830\nMy job as a leader is first to go see who else has already encountered this and\n\n347\n00:15:15.830 --> 00:15:16.240\nhave they\n\n348\n00:15:16.240 --> 00:15:21.140\ncome up with the answer and bring that back and be celebrated for that versus\n\n349\n00:15:21.140 --> 00:15:21.640\nfeeling\n\n350\n00:15:21.640 --> 00:15:26.420\nlike I have to come up with a unique answer that only I can see and nobody else\n\n351\n00:15:26.420 --> 00:15:27.280\nis doing.\n\n352\n00:15:27.280 --> 00:15:30.900\nThose have been two areas that I'm trying to get the culture to just adapt or\n\n353\n00:15:30.900 --> 00:15:31.240\nevolve\n\n354\n00:15:31.240 --> 00:15:32.240\na little bit.\n\n355\n00:15:32.240 --> 00:15:33.240\nThat makes sense.\n\n356\n00:15:33.240 --> 00:15:36.650\nIt's really tough to get people to wipe out not admitted here and take somebody\n\n357\n00:15:36.650 --> 00:15:37.040\nelse's\n\n358\n00:15:37.040 --> 00:15:38.040\nideas.\n\n359\n00:15:38.040 --> 00:15:41.560\nBut if you celebrate that, more and more people do it because that's the way\n\n360\n00:15:41.560 --> 00:15:42.020\nyou drive\n\n361\n00:15:42.020 --> 00:15:48.360\nbehavior change.\n\n362\n00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:52.400\nLet's face it, your life is just too important to delegate to someone else.\n\n363\n00:15:52.400 --> 00:15:55.040\nThat's why I'm so passionate about self coaching.\n\n364\n00:15:55.040 --> 00:15:58.970\nIf you're new to this concept, I put together a free self coaching guide that\n\n365\n00:15:58.970 --> 00:15:59.560\nwill walk you\n\n366\n00:15:59.560 --> 00:16:03.020\nthrough the principles of how to become a great self coach to really find\n\n367\n00:16:03.020 --> 00:16:03.760\nfulfillment\n\n368\n00:16:03.760 --> 00:16:05.480\nin your life and career.\n\n369\n00:16:05.480 --> 00:16:09.400\nYou can get it at takechargeofu.com/guide.\n\n370\n00:16:09.400 --> 00:16:13.580\nThis free guide will give you a simple plan you can follow to kickstart your\n\n371\n00:16:13.580 --> 00:16:14.460\nself coaching\n\n372\n00:16:14.460 --> 00:16:15.460\njourney.\n\n373\n00:16:15.460 --> 00:16:19.460\nThis guide will help you become the very best you you can be.\n\n374\n00:16:19.460 --> 00:16:23.860\nGet in at takechargeofu.com/guide.\n\n375\n00:16:23.860 --> 00:16:35.300\nYou started in your role unexpectedly with your predecessor being let go for\n\n376\n00:16:35.300 --> 00:16:35.960\nconduct\n\n377\n00:16:35.960 --> 00:16:41.220\nresins and you were named CEO almost immediately after.\n\n378\n00:16:41.220 --> 00:16:47.700\nWhat was the biggest challenge coming into a job in such a surprising fashion?\n\n379\n00:16:47.700 --> 00:16:53.320\nI'm sure you were loving your job as CEO of the U.S. business and here you are\n\n380\n00:16:53.320 --> 00:16:53.600\nnow.\n\n381\n00:16:53.600 --> 00:16:55.340\nThat's pretty jarring to have that change.\n\n382\n00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:57.500\nOh, it was huge.\n\n383\n00:16:57.500 --> 00:17:00.180\nI never expected to be CEO of McDonald's.\n\n384\n00:17:00.180 --> 00:17:02.980\nWhen I came to McDonald's, I came here.\n\n385\n00:17:02.980 --> 00:17:07.050\nI was recruited by Steve, my predecessor, and Steve was only a year older than\n\n386\n00:17:07.050 --> 00:17:07.440\nme.\n\n387\n00:17:07.440 --> 00:17:13.420\nI came here never expecting to be CEO, but excited about being part of this\n\n388\n00:17:13.420 --> 00:17:14.680\ngreat company\n\n389\n00:17:14.680 --> 00:17:19.220\nand excited about the industry and what I thought was possible here and being\n\n390\n00:17:19.220 --> 00:17:19.960\nperfectly\n\n391\n00:17:19.960 --> 00:17:24.600\nhappy to do that for the rest of my career, but not as the CEO, but as somebody\n\n392\n00:17:24.600 --> 00:17:25.120\nwho's\n\n393\n00:17:25.120 --> 00:17:26.440\non the supporting cast.\n\n394\n00:17:26.440 --> 00:17:31.820\nAs you said, I got a call on the weekend telling me about the change and asking\n\n395\n00:17:31.820 --> 00:17:32.080\nme to\n\n396\n00:17:32.080 --> 00:17:34.940\nbe the CEO and it was quite a shock.\n\n397\n00:17:34.940 --> 00:17:40.780\nI needed to remind the company about the importance of values and actually\n\n398\n00:17:40.780 --> 00:17:41.600\nhighlight that the\n\n399\n00:17:41.600 --> 00:17:46.460\nreason I was here in this job is because of how seriously we take our values at\n\n400\n00:17:46.460 --> 00:17:47.500\nour company.\n\n401\n00:17:47.500 --> 00:17:51.930\nNo matter whether you're the fry cook or whether you're the CEO, we're all held\n\n402\n00:17:51.930 --> 00:17:52.500\nto the same\n\n403\n00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:57.730\nstandard and that people through this change could actually take some comfort\n\n404\n00:17:57.730 --> 00:17:58.380\nfrom the fact\n\n405\n00:17:58.380 --> 00:18:00.420\nthat there aren't different sets of standards.\n\n406\n00:18:00.420 --> 00:18:04.990\nWe're all held to the same set of standards about McDonald's and I tried to\n\n407\n00:18:04.990 --> 00:18:05.760\nturn it into\n\n408\n00:18:05.760 --> 00:18:07.480\na celebration of our values.\n\n409\n00:18:07.480 --> 00:18:12.470\nRay Crock, when he founded this company, Ray and he had a partner, Fred Turner,\n\n410\n00:18:12.470 --> 00:18:12.880\nthey\n\n411\n00:18:12.880 --> 00:18:17.680\nhad a very, very clear sense of what they wanted McDonald's to stand for.\n\n412\n00:18:17.680 --> 00:18:20.120\nThey wanted it to stand for our people and our customers.\n\n413\n00:18:20.120 --> 00:18:22.640\nThey wanted it to be an inclusive company.\n\n414\n00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:26.570\nThey wanted it to be one that was very much focused on the community about\n\n415\n00:18:26.570 --> 00:18:27.560\nworking together\n\n416\n00:18:27.560 --> 00:18:28.960\nto get better.\n\n417\n00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:32.690\nThose are great values for us to build on and there was also a strong sense of\n\n418\n00:18:32.690 --> 00:18:33.100\nethics\n\n419\n00:18:33.100 --> 00:18:34.100\nwith Ray.\n\n420\n00:18:34.100 --> 00:18:39.470\nI took the circumstances of me coming into the role as let's celebrate the\n\n421\n00:18:39.470 --> 00:18:40.300\nvalues and\n\n422\n00:18:40.300 --> 00:18:44.960\nsee this as why we're such a great company as opposed to, hey, this is\n\n423\n00:18:44.960 --> 00:18:46.020\nsomething we should\n\n424\n00:18:46.020 --> 00:18:49.890\nbe embarrassed about or that somehow suggests that there's a problem at the\n\n425\n00:18:49.890 --> 00:18:50.580\ncompany.\n\n426\n00:18:50.580 --> 00:18:52.820\nNo, actually the company's working just fine.\n\n427\n00:18:52.820 --> 00:18:55.100\nYeah, that makes a ton of sense.\n\n428\n00:18:55.100 --> 00:18:58.870\nThere are a lot of listeners I'm sure that have just been given a leadership\n\n429\n00:18:58.870 --> 00:19:00.300\nopportunity.\n\n430\n00:19:00.300 --> 00:19:05.020\nAnd I'd love to have you walk through your process for how you put together\n\n431\n00:19:05.020 --> 00:19:05.900\nyour initial\n\n432\n00:19:05.900 --> 00:19:10.550\nstrategy, how you arrived at the key tenants, how long it took you to create it\n\n433\n00:19:10.550 --> 00:19:11.340\n, those kind\n\n434\n00:19:11.340 --> 00:19:12.340\nof things.\n\n435\n00:19:12.340 --> 00:19:15.560\nI mean, just so I'm sure there was a strategy in place, but you're the new\n\n436\n00:19:15.560 --> 00:19:16.940\nsheriff in town.\n\n437\n00:19:16.940 --> 00:19:21.460\nHow did you begin to put your stamp on where you wanted to take the company?\n\n438\n00:19:21.460 --> 00:19:25.440\nI do think the first thing, a lot of times when you put new leaders into jobs,\n\n439\n00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:26.180\nthey almost\n\n440\n00:19:26.180 --> 00:19:29.740\nfeel like, well, I'm required to come up with a new strategy.\n\n441\n00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:34.180\nAnd I think that can be a mistake in a lot of cases because the strategy should\n\n442\n00:19:34.180 --> 00:19:34.700\nchange\n\n443\n00:19:34.700 --> 00:19:37.460\nbecause the business situation requires a change.\n\n444\n00:19:37.460 --> 00:19:40.890\nIt shouldn't be a new change in strategy just because you got a new person\n\n445\n00:19:40.890 --> 00:19:41.620\nsitting in the\n\n446\n00:19:41.620 --> 00:19:42.860\nseat.\n\n447\n00:19:42.860 --> 00:19:46.750\nAnd when I came in, I very much actually said the strategy is completely\n\n448\n00:19:46.750 --> 00:19:47.620\nunchanged.\n\n449\n00:19:47.620 --> 00:19:51.060\nSo when I first came in, I said, there is no change in the strategy.\n\n450\n00:19:51.060 --> 00:19:55.300\nWe are continuing to execute against the strategy that we had.\n\n451\n00:19:55.300 --> 00:19:58.500\nAnd then we had this little thing called COVID that happened that upended our\n\n452\n00:19:58.500 --> 00:19:59.780\nworlds completely.\n\n453\n00:19:59.780 --> 00:20:03.620\nAnd it was only through that that I then said, okay, I think the changes that\n\n454\n00:20:03.620 --> 00:20:04.740\nhave happened\n\n455\n00:20:04.740 --> 00:20:08.540\nas a result of COVID and some other things with the business, those are\n\n456\n00:20:08.540 --> 00:20:09.620\nfundamental enough\n\n457\n00:20:09.620 --> 00:20:13.950\nthat the strategy that we had probably doesn't make sense for what the future\n\n458\n00:20:13.950 --> 00:20:14.980\nholds for us.\n\n459\n00:20:14.980 --> 00:20:19.070\nAnd so I then tried to make sure that our strategy is always grounded in the\n\n460\n00:20:19.070 --> 00:20:19.860\nconsumer.\n\n461\n00:20:19.860 --> 00:20:24.260\nWe did a lot of consumer research to understand how they were thinking about\n\n462\n00:20:24.260 --> 00:20:25.780\nwhat the role of\n\n463\n00:20:25.780 --> 00:20:30.010\nMcDonald's would be in a world where maybe they were not going in and sitting\n\n464\n00:20:30.010 --> 00:20:30.740\nin a restaurant\n\n465\n00:20:30.740 --> 00:20:34.340\nas much or in a world where there was more uncertainty.\n\n466\n00:20:34.340 --> 00:20:38.950\nAnd through a lot of research, and as you know, David, there's statistical\n\n467\n00:20:38.950 --> 00:20:39.460\ntools and\n\n468\n00:20:39.460 --> 00:20:42.840\nyou get insights teams and everybody else that can give you all sorts of\n\n469\n00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:43.940\ninformation.\n\n470\n00:20:43.940 --> 00:20:48.020\nBut I brought together a group of our leaders and we started to look at all\n\n471\n00:20:48.020 --> 00:20:49.780\nthis information.\n\n472\n00:20:49.780 --> 00:20:53.660\nAnd it got us to the strategy that we have now, which we call accelerating the\n\n473\n00:20:53.660 --> 00:20:54.100\narches.\n\n474\n00:20:54.100 --> 00:20:57.860\nAnd the strategy has three primary tenants or pillars.\n\n475\n00:20:57.860 --> 00:21:02.950\nThe first is that we thought we have one of the world's great brands in\n\n476\n00:21:02.950 --> 00:21:03.780\nMcDonald's,\n\n477\n00:21:03.780 --> 00:21:08.110\nbut that we have not sufficiently fed and nurtured that brand and that there\n\n478\n00:21:08.110 --> 00:21:08.500\nwas a lot\n\n479\n00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:12.660\nof upside if we could tap into the cultural relevance of our brand.\n\n480\n00:21:12.660 --> 00:21:16.420\nAnd so we made brand one of the features there.\n\n481\n00:21:16.420 --> 00:21:20.830\nAnd I would tell you that it was relevant in the context of COVID because part\n\n482\n00:21:20.830 --> 00:21:21.380\nof what we were\n\n483\n00:21:21.380 --> 00:21:25.860\nseeing in the data is when there's uncertainty, people start to want to grav\n\n484\n00:21:25.860 --> 00:21:27.620\nitate to what's known.\n\n485\n00:21:27.620 --> 00:21:32.580\nSo having a brand like McDonald's that's trusted served us very well in COVID\n\n486\n00:21:32.580 --> 00:21:33.460\nand in times of\n\n487\n00:21:33.460 --> 00:21:36.820\nuncertainty leaning into a brand like that is powerful. So that was one.\n\n488\n00:21:36.820 --> 00:21:40.500\nThe second is I touched on this earlier, but core menu.\n\n489\n00:21:41.140 --> 00:21:45.540\nWe thought we had a great core menu with our big Macs, our quarter pounders,\n\n490\n00:21:45.540 --> 00:21:46.420\nour French fries,\n\n491\n00:21:46.420 --> 00:21:50.740\nour McFlurries, our chicken nuggets. We didn't need to be doing all of these\n\n492\n00:21:50.740 --> 00:21:52.020\nperipheral products\n\n493\n00:21:52.020 --> 00:21:56.330\non top of that. What we did in a lot of the research showed this is that we\n\n494\n00:21:56.330 --> 00:21:57.380\nwere able to meet\n\n495\n00:21:57.380 --> 00:22:01.760\nmost of our core customers needs just with our core product. The only reason to\n\n496\n00:22:01.760 --> 00:22:02.660\nadd product is if\n\n497\n00:22:02.660 --> 00:22:05.910\nthere are needs out there that you're currently not meeting, we didn't have\n\n498\n00:22:05.910 --> 00:22:06.740\nthose needs that we\n\n499\n00:22:06.740 --> 00:22:12.020\nweren't meeting. So the second part of this strategy was core menu where it's C\n\n500\n00:22:12.020 --> 00:22:12.820\nof our strategy. And\n\n501\n00:22:12.820 --> 00:22:17.510\nthen the last thing is what we described as the 3D's and the 3D's for us were\n\n502\n00:22:17.510 --> 00:22:18.900\ndigital drive-through\n\n503\n00:22:18.900 --> 00:22:23.860\nand delivery. And what we were observing was that consumer interest in those\n\n504\n00:22:23.860 --> 00:22:24.500\nchannels was\n\n505\n00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:29.900\nsignificantly elevated. Again, COVID is a big part of it, but we also expected\n\n506\n00:22:29.900 --> 00:22:30.580\nthat consumer\n\n507\n00:22:30.580 --> 00:22:33.560\ninterest in those channels was going to stay elevated for the foreseeable\n\n508\n00:22:33.560 --> 00:22:34.660\nfuture. We thought\n\n509\n00:22:34.660 --> 00:22:38.500\nthis business has now sort of fundamentally changed. There will always be a\n\n510\n00:22:38.500 --> 00:22:43.060\ndining component to it, but being great at drive-through digital and delivery,\n\n511\n00:22:43.060 --> 00:22:47.060\nif we can be great at those things, that offers a lot of opportunity. So that\n\n512\n00:22:47.060 --> 00:22:48.740\nsort of was the basis\n\n513\n00:22:48.740 --> 00:22:52.700\nfor our strategy. And part of being able to come up with a strategy is you also\n\n514\n00:22:52.700 --> 00:22:53.620\nhave to be able to\n\n515\n00:22:53.620 --> 00:22:58.260\nexplain it to the organization. Everybody in the organization needs to know\n\n516\n00:22:58.260 --> 00:22:59.220\nwhat the strategy is.\n\n517\n00:22:59.220 --> 00:23:03.300\nIf the CEO and the senior team are the only people that know what the strategy\n\n518\n00:23:03.300 --> 00:23:04.100\nis, it kind of is\n\n519\n00:23:04.100 --> 00:23:09.860\nuseless. So we came up with this moniker of MCD, Marketing Core Menu 3D's,\n\n520\n00:23:09.860 --> 00:23:10.660\nwhich by the way is\n\n521\n00:23:10.660 --> 00:23:15.590\nthe McDonald's stock ticker, MCD. And we said that's our strategy, guys.\n\n522\n00:23:15.590 --> 00:23:16.740\nAccelerating the arches is\n\n523\n00:23:16.740 --> 00:23:21.230\nabout marketing core menu 3D's. That's what we need to be doing day in and day\n\n524\n00:23:21.230 --> 00:23:21.940\nout. And\n\n525\n00:23:21.940 --> 00:23:25.200\nfortunately for us, it's been working. And it's also been something that\n\n526\n00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:27.780\nwhether you go into the C suite\n\n527\n00:23:27.780 --> 00:23:31.590\nor whether you go down and talk to the local franchisee, everybody can play\n\n528\n00:23:31.590 --> 00:23:32.660\nback that strategy,\n\n529\n00:23:32.660 --> 00:23:35.880\nwhich is a big part of leadership, getting everybody on board with which\n\n530\n00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:37.380\ndirection you're trying to go.\n\n531\n00:23:37.380 --> 00:23:41.700\nYeah, if you can get everybody understanding what you want to do and why,\n\n532\n00:23:41.700 --> 00:23:45.940\nyou're more than halfway there. So congratulations on that. That's fantastic.\n\n533\n00:23:45.940 --> 00:23:46.580\nYou know,\n\n534\n00:23:46.580 --> 00:23:51.430\nI also love Chris, how you celebrate the past of McDonald's as you're taking\n\n535\n00:23:51.430 --> 00:23:52.580\nthe company forward.\n\n536\n00:23:52.580 --> 00:23:57.380\nI understand one of the guiding principles of McDonald's came from your founder\n\n537\n00:23:57.380 --> 00:23:57.700\n, who you\n\n538\n00:23:57.700 --> 00:24:02.020\nmentioned, Ray Crock. He said, \"If you're not green and growing, you're red and\n\n539\n00:24:02.020 --> 00:24:02.820\nrotten.\"\n\n540\n00:24:02.820 --> 00:24:06.770\nTell me a story of how you might have put this principle into action in the\n\n541\n00:24:06.770 --> 00:24:07.460\ncompany.\n\n542\n00:24:07.460 --> 00:24:12.740\nWell, Ray's got a whole sort of book of fantastic quotes. And anytime I'm\n\n543\n00:24:12.740 --> 00:24:13.860\nlooking for inspiration,\n\n544\n00:24:13.860 --> 00:24:19.380\nwe have an archivist here at McDonald's who has every speech, every interview,\n\n545\n00:24:19.380 --> 00:24:21.300\netc. Ray ever did.\n\n546\n00:24:21.300 --> 00:24:24.980\nAnd there's some real nuggets in there, some real jewels. So it's a great\n\n547\n00:24:24.980 --> 00:24:26.100\nsource of inspiration\n\n548\n00:24:26.100 --> 00:24:30.230\nwhen you're looking for a way to tap back into the genius of Ray Crock. But\n\n549\n00:24:30.230 --> 00:24:31.220\nthat's a great one that\n\n550\n00:24:31.220 --> 00:24:36.820\nyou highlighted there. And where I use it a lot of times is about this need for\n\n551\n00:24:36.820 --> 00:24:37.460\nus to be a more\n\n552\n00:24:37.460 --> 00:24:42.220\nrisk-taking organization. And one of the challenges that you have when you\n\n553\n00:24:42.220 --> 00:24:44.420\nbecome a brand or a company\n\n554\n00:24:44.420 --> 00:24:49.150\nlike McDonald's and you're in a leadership position is it can create a false\n\n555\n00:24:49.150 --> 00:24:50.980\nsense of complacency or\n\n556\n00:24:50.980 --> 00:24:55.480\na false sense of comfort that we're the leader now. We're preordained to be the\n\n557\n00:24:55.480 --> 00:24:56.500\nleader forever.\n\n558\n00:24:56.500 --> 00:25:01.860\nAnd as you well know, in fact, it's constantly it's a moving bar. And if you're\n\n559\n00:25:01.860 --> 00:25:02.500\nnot green and\n\n560\n00:25:02.500 --> 00:25:06.660\ngrowing, you are red and rotten. And so I've used that time and again, where\n\n561\n00:25:06.660 --> 00:25:07.620\nthe organization\n\n562\n00:25:07.620 --> 00:25:11.850\nwill ask about things. For example, we did a big remodel program in the US\n\n563\n00:25:11.850 --> 00:25:13.700\nseveral years ago.\n\n564\n00:25:13.700 --> 00:25:17.760\nAnd there were questions about, well, why do we need a remodel right now? And\n\n565\n00:25:17.760 --> 00:25:18.100\nby the way,\n\n566\n00:25:18.100 --> 00:25:22.020\na big part of what we were doing is we were getting ready for a digital future.\n\n567\n00:25:22.020 --> 00:25:22.900\nSo we were putting\n\n568\n00:25:22.900 --> 00:25:27.660\nin kiosks in all of our restaurants. We were putting in digital menu boards\n\n569\n00:25:27.660 --> 00:25:28.660\ninto all of our\n\n570\n00:25:28.660 --> 00:25:32.680\ndrive-throughs. We were putting perimeters or geofencing around all of our\n\n571\n00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:33.780\nrestaurants so that\n\n572\n00:25:33.780 --> 00:25:38.120\nif someone came across the geofence with an app that we would actually know\n\n573\n00:25:38.120 --> 00:25:39.380\nthat someone now was\n\n574\n00:25:39.380 --> 00:25:44.070\non property. So we had to do all of those investments and those all the way all\n\n575\n00:25:44.070 --> 00:25:46.340\nhappened before COVID.\n\n576\n00:25:46.340 --> 00:25:49.780\nBut there was pushback, as you would imagine, because those things cost a lot\n\n577\n00:25:49.780 --> 00:25:50.340\nof money and\n\n578\n00:25:50.340 --> 00:25:54.100\nthey cause a lot of disruption. And sort of why do we need to do this? And it's\n\n579\n00:25:54.100 --> 00:25:55.060\nbecause of what we\n\n580\n00:25:55.060 --> 00:25:59.510\nsaw where the consumer was going and lo and behold, thank God we did because\n\n581\n00:25:59.510 --> 00:26:00.180\nthose things\n\n582\n00:26:00.180 --> 00:26:03.510\nended up being game changers for us when we went through COVID. So it's a lot\n\n583\n00:26:03.510 --> 00:26:04.580\naround innovation that\n\n584\n00:26:04.580 --> 00:26:08.180\nI dust off those Ray Crock quotes and they still carry residents today.\n\n585\n00:26:08.180 --> 00:26:13.460\nThat's great. I love you having archivists. Chris, you're known for being one\n\n586\n00:26:13.460 --> 00:26:13.860\nof the best\n\n587\n00:26:13.860 --> 00:26:18.740\nmarketing minds in the business. You are a true consumer, behaviorist. You\n\n588\n00:26:18.740 --> 00:26:19.860\nreally understand\n\n589\n00:26:19.860 --> 00:26:25.300\nthe customer. What tips can you give people on how to make sure you can really\n\n590\n00:26:25.300 --> 00:26:26.100\nunderstand\n\n591\n00:26:26.100 --> 00:26:31.990\nyour customers? Well, one thing that I try to make sure is you'll certainly\n\n592\n00:26:31.990 --> 00:26:34.340\nhear anecdotes on stuff.\n\n593\n00:26:34.340 --> 00:26:40.740\nAnd there is sometimes a tendency to dismiss the anecdote and to dismiss the\n\n594\n00:26:40.740 --> 00:26:42.100\none-off story. But I\n\n595\n00:26:42.100 --> 00:26:47.590\noftentimes will say and remind our teams the plural of anecdotes is data,\n\n596\n00:26:47.590 --> 00:26:48.180\nmeaning that you\n\n597\n00:26:48.180 --> 00:26:52.250\nadd enough of those anecdotes together and lo and behold, you start to have\n\n598\n00:26:52.250 --> 00:26:53.540\ndata that's suggesting\n\n599\n00:26:53.540 --> 00:26:57.300\na particular way to go. And so when I'm out there in the market, it's trying to\n\n600\n00:26:57.300 --> 00:26:58.260\nmake sure that I'm\n\n601\n00:26:58.260 --> 00:27:02.440\nfinding time to connect with the customer to actually hear what's on their mind\n\n602\n00:27:02.440 --> 00:27:03.380\n. So that then when I\n\n603\n00:27:03.380 --> 00:27:07.810\nstart to get the data, because in these jobs, you're inundated with data. You\n\n604\n00:27:07.810 --> 00:27:09.300\n're getting new reports,\n\n605\n00:27:09.300 --> 00:27:13.620\nnew studies, new whatever, all the time. But you've got to be able to have your\n\n606\n00:27:13.620 --> 00:27:15.060\nown internal antenna\n\n607\n00:27:15.060 --> 00:27:19.530\nto sort of compare what you're getting on a piece of paper to, does that\n\n608\n00:27:19.530 --> 00:27:20.500\nresonate with what I'm\n\n609\n00:27:20.500 --> 00:27:24.300\nactually hearing from the customer? Does that make sense? And a lot of times it\n\n610\n00:27:24.300 --> 00:27:25.140\ndoes, but there are\n\n611\n00:27:25.140 --> 00:27:29.950\nsome times that it doesn't. So how do you refine that your own internal antenna\n\n612\n00:27:29.950 --> 00:27:30.900\n? That would be one\n\n613\n00:27:30.900 --> 00:27:34.740\nthing I would encourage every marketer to do. And that only comes through\n\n614\n00:27:34.740 --> 00:27:35.780\ntalking to customers and\n\n615\n00:27:35.780 --> 00:27:39.700\nbeing out in the market. You're not going to be able to develop that antenna by\n\n616\n00:27:39.700 --> 00:27:40.260\nsitting in your\n\n617\n00:27:40.260 --> 00:27:44.240\noffice. So that would be one thing to do. The second thing that I like to do is\n\n618\n00:27:44.240 --> 00:27:44.980\nI'm just a\n\n619\n00:27:44.980 --> 00:27:48.750\nvoracious learner and someone who studies what other people are doing out there\n\n620\n00:27:48.750 --> 00:27:51.140\n. And I love to,\n\n621\n00:27:51.140 --> 00:27:55.530\nwhether it's going on to websites like ad age or there's a magazine called Cont\n\n622\n00:27:55.530 --> 00:27:56.020\nagious,\n\n623\n00:27:56.020 --> 00:28:01.240\nsee what are other campaigns or other ideas that people are doing. But also\n\n624\n00:28:01.240 --> 00:28:01.940\njust comparing\n\n625\n00:28:01.940 --> 00:28:05.860\nnotes and talking to leaders at other companies to just hear their insights,\n\n626\n00:28:05.860 --> 00:28:06.420\nsee what they're\n\n627\n00:28:06.420 --> 00:28:10.650\ncoming up with. I find a lot of times I get great ideas just by listening to\n\n628\n00:28:10.650 --> 00:28:11.700\nwhat other people\n\n629\n00:28:11.700 --> 00:28:14.960\nare seeing and some of the things that I might then bring back to the team and\n\n630\n00:28:14.960 --> 00:28:15.460\nsay, \"Hey,\n\n631\n00:28:15.460 --> 00:28:19.330\nI was talking to so-and-so.\" And they said this, \"Have we thought about that?\"\n\n632\n00:28:19.330 --> 00:28:20.580\nAnd sometimes those\n\n633\n00:28:20.580 --> 00:28:24.850\nideas don't make sense for us, but a lot of times they do. And then I think the\n\n634\n00:28:24.850 --> 00:28:26.340\nlast thing for me is\n\n635\n00:28:26.340 --> 00:28:30.520\nyou do have to be willing to take a position on things. And what I talk a lot\n\n636\n00:28:30.520 --> 00:28:31.620\nof times about with\n\n637\n00:28:31.620 --> 00:28:36.830\nour ad agencies, but also with our internal marketing teams, for advertising or\n\n638\n00:28:36.830 --> 00:28:38.100\nfor marketing to be\n\n639\n00:28:38.100 --> 00:28:42.980\nimpactful, to break through, there has to be attention. You have to be pushing\n\n640\n00:28:42.980 --> 00:28:44.020\nup against something\n\n641\n00:28:44.020 --> 00:28:49.700\nwhere it creates interest for people. If you're just doing, call it slice of\n\n642\n00:28:49.700 --> 00:28:50.740\nlife advertising,\n\n643\n00:28:50.740 --> 00:28:54.420\nwhich is people that are happy sitting in a McDonald's, \"Oh, isn't this food\n\n644\n00:28:54.420 --> 00:28:55.060\ngreat? Well,\n\n645\n00:28:55.060 --> 00:28:59.630\nwhere's the tension in that?\" So inherently, when you start to take positions\n\n646\n00:28:59.630 --> 00:29:00.260\non things,\n\n647\n00:29:00.260 --> 00:29:05.050\nand one of the things that we did several years ago was we said, as opposed to\n\n648\n00:29:05.050 --> 00:29:06.580\ntrying to go after\n\n649\n00:29:06.580 --> 00:29:10.980\nthe consumers that don't like McDonald's or will tell you all the reasons why\n\n650\n00:29:10.980 --> 00:29:11.300\nthey don't think\n\n651\n00:29:11.300 --> 00:29:15.440\nMcDonald's is a good place to go eat, we're going to actually lean into the\n\n652\n00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:16.820\nbrand lovers. And\n\n653\n00:29:16.820 --> 00:29:21.940\nthat was a lot of what was the genesis behind our famous orders campaign, where\n\n654\n00:29:21.940 --> 00:29:23.540\nwe found celebrities\n\n655\n00:29:23.540 --> 00:29:27.860\nwho loved McDonald's and we're actually proud to talk about what their favorite\n\n656\n00:29:27.860 --> 00:29:28.420\norder is.\n\n657\n00:29:28.980 --> 00:29:33.280\nAnd that was leaning into this tension, which is in a time where maybe people\n\n658\n00:29:33.280 --> 00:29:33.700\nare saying,\n\n659\n00:29:33.700 --> 00:29:36.800\n\"Hey, this isn't a place to go eat,\" that you have people out there who are\n\n660\n00:29:36.800 --> 00:29:37.700\nactually saying,\n\n661\n00:29:37.700 --> 00:29:41.380\n\"Hey, I love McDonald's and let me tell you why I love them.\" So it's finding\n\n662\n00:29:41.380 --> 00:29:42.100\nall those sorts of\n\n663\n00:29:42.100 --> 00:29:46.280\nthings and also just being surrounded by great people because I've never\n\n664\n00:29:46.280 --> 00:29:47.060\nwritten one ad,\n\n665\n00:29:47.060 --> 00:29:52.890\nI've never done a marketing campaign, I just approve stuff or reject stuff. And\n\n666\n00:29:52.890 --> 00:29:53.300\nso you got to\n\n667\n00:29:53.300 --> 00:29:56.340\nhave a great team around you as well to bring it to life. You're right about\n\n668\n00:29:56.340 --> 00:29:57.460\nthat. And you talk\n\n669\n00:29:57.460 --> 00:30:02.100\nabout meeting consumers where they are. What do you mean by that?\n\n670\n00:30:02.100 --> 00:30:09.160\nSometimes we will try to run our restaurants for what works for us as opposed\n\n671\n00:30:09.160 --> 00:30:10.260\nto what works for\n\n672\n00:30:10.260 --> 00:30:15.460\nthe customer. And I talk about with our teams and franchisees, for many years,\n\n673\n00:30:15.460 --> 00:30:16.100\nwe ran our\n\n674\n00:30:16.100 --> 00:30:19.180\nrestaurants from the back of the house to the front of the house, meaning what\n\n675\n00:30:19.180 --> 00:30:20.180\nworks for kitchen\n\n676\n00:30:20.180 --> 00:30:26.190\noperations, what works for our staffing model, and then lo and behold, customer\n\n677\n00:30:26.190 --> 00:30:27.220\n, here you go,\n\n678\n00:30:27.220 --> 00:30:31.290\nand this is how you need to interface with us as opposed to what I would\n\n679\n00:30:31.290 --> 00:30:32.580\ndescribe as working from\n\n680\n00:30:32.580 --> 00:30:36.520\nthe front of the house to the back of the house where we start with, \"How does\n\n681\n00:30:36.520 --> 00:30:37.300\na customer want to\n\n682\n00:30:37.300 --> 00:30:41.800\ninterface with us?\" And then we've got to figure out on the back end how we do\n\n683\n00:30:41.800 --> 00:30:42.980\nall of that. So as an\n\n684\n00:30:42.980 --> 00:30:47.620\nexample, one of the areas that is a challenge for us is all the customization\n\n685\n00:30:47.620 --> 00:30:48.980\nthat happens around\n\n686\n00:30:48.980 --> 00:30:54.370\nfood and beverage items. And every time that you are doing customization, it\n\n687\n00:30:54.370 --> 00:30:55.860\nadds complexity to\n\n688\n00:30:55.860 --> 00:30:59.750\nthe back of the house. And so a traditional approach would be to say, \"I'm\n\n689\n00:30:59.750 --> 00:31:01.620\ngoing to try to limit all\n\n690\n00:31:01.620 --> 00:31:05.240\nthe ways that a customer could do customization because it doesn't work for us\n\n691\n00:31:05.240 --> 00:31:06.580\n.\" And the reality is,\n\n692\n00:31:06.580 --> 00:31:11.620\nin this day and age, today's consumer, Gen Z consumer, they want to customize\n\n693\n00:31:11.620 --> 00:31:13.780\neverything. And so in\n\n694\n00:31:13.780 --> 00:31:19.170\nour app, in our kiosk, we provide them with an ease to be able to customize\n\n695\n00:31:19.170 --> 00:31:20.420\ntheir product,\n\n696\n00:31:20.420 --> 00:31:25.210\nwhether I want extra pickles, I want triple whole milk, I want caramel,\n\n697\n00:31:25.210 --> 00:31:26.660\nwhatever, we need to make\n\n698\n00:31:26.660 --> 00:31:30.400\nit easy for the customer to be able to adjust their product to be what they\n\n699\n00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:31.300\nwant it to be as\n\n700\n00:31:31.300 --> 00:31:35.510\nopposed to what we'd want it to be. And that, for us, has been a mindset shift\n\n701\n00:31:35.510 --> 00:31:35.940\nbecause, again,\n\n702\n00:31:35.940 --> 00:31:39.500\nit is more complicated and challenging for us to do, but that's the customer\n\n703\n00:31:39.500 --> 00:31:40.340\nexpectations.\n\n704\n00:31:40.340 --> 00:31:43.650\nThat'd be just an example of meeting the customer where they are versus\n\n705\n00:31:43.650 --> 00:31:45.140\nstarting with what we want.\n\n706\n00:31:45.140 --> 00:31:50.950\nThat's a good one. And I read that every day McDonald's feeds 1% of the world's\n\n707\n00:31:50.950 --> 00:31:51.540\npopulation.\n\n708\n00:31:51.540 --> 00:31:55.380\nWhen you hear a statistic like that, Chris, what comes to mind?\n\n709\n00:31:55.380 --> 00:31:57.300\nLove to get it to 2%.\n\n710\n00:31:57.300 --> 00:32:03.490\nWell, along those lines, the company's mission is to feed and foster\n\n711\n00:32:03.490 --> 00:32:04.020\ncommunities.\n\n712\n00:32:04.020 --> 00:32:10.420\nTalk to me about the larger why of the organization and why it is that people\n\n713\n00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:11.140\nshow up\n\n714\n00:32:11.140 --> 00:32:15.320\nto serve your customers each and every day. It goes back to a little bit of\n\n715\n00:32:15.320 --> 00:32:16.260\nthis changing\n\n716\n00:32:16.260 --> 00:32:20.900\nrelationship between a company and the people that work in the company.\n\n717\n00:32:20.900 --> 00:32:25.700\nBack when I started my career 30 some years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of\n\n718\n00:32:25.700 --> 00:32:26.420\ndiscussion\n\n719\n00:32:26.420 --> 00:32:32.230\nabout sort of purpose. And I started my career at Procter & Gamble. There wasn\n\n720\n00:32:32.230 --> 00:32:33.220\n't a lot of discussion\n\n721\n00:32:33.220 --> 00:32:36.880\nabout what's the purpose of Procter & Gamble. It was about, frankly, just\n\n722\n00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:38.180\nselling more product.\n\n723\n00:32:38.180 --> 00:32:44.980\nAnd I think a good thing that has happened over time is a greater appreciation\n\n724\n00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:45.860\nfor the fact that\n\n725\n00:32:45.860 --> 00:32:50.020\ncompanies, big companies like a McDonald's or a Procter & Gamble or a Young\n\n726\n00:32:50.020 --> 00:32:51.220\nBrands, etc.,\n\n727\n00:32:51.220 --> 00:32:57.220\nthat we do have a lot of influence in society. We have influence not just\n\n728\n00:32:57.220 --> 00:32:58.020\nthrough the people that\n\n729\n00:32:58.020 --> 00:33:02.540\nwe hire, but through the platform that our company is able to occupy through\n\n730\n00:33:02.540 --> 00:33:03.620\nour relationships with\n\n731\n00:33:03.620 --> 00:33:09.140\npolicymakers, etc. And so how do we want to use that influence? What are we\n\n732\n00:33:09.140 --> 00:33:10.580\ntrying to do beyond just\n\n733\n00:33:10.580 --> 00:33:15.130\nselling more product? And by the way, it's what our employees are asking for us\n\n734\n00:33:15.130 --> 00:33:16.020\n. They can pick\n\n735\n00:33:16.020 --> 00:33:19.380\nand choose where they're going to go work. The best ones can pick and choose.\n\n736\n00:33:19.380 --> 00:33:19.860\nAnd you're seeing,\n\n737\n00:33:19.860 --> 00:33:24.700\nparticularly with this generation, much more concern and interest with how am I\n\n738\n00:33:24.700 --> 00:33:25.380\ngoing to be\n\n739\n00:33:25.380 --> 00:33:29.440\nimpacting the world by working at McDonald's versus if I go and work somewhere\n\n740\n00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:29.940\nelse? Because\n\n741\n00:33:29.940 --> 00:33:34.580\nI have that choice today. And we've had to get much sharper about being able to\n\n742\n00:33:34.580 --> 00:33:35.140\narticulate.\n\n743\n00:33:35.140 --> 00:33:39.140\nSo why McDonald's? Why should you make this place a career? Why should you be\n\n744\n00:33:39.140 --> 00:33:39.940\nexcited about\n\n745\n00:33:39.940 --> 00:33:45.620\ncoming into work every day and sometimes spending weekends and sacrificing\n\n746\n00:33:45.620 --> 00:33:46.660\nfamily time and all the\n\n747\n00:33:46.660 --> 00:33:50.360\nother things that you have to occasionally do to support this business? And it\n\n748\n00:33:50.360 --> 00:33:51.300\ngoes back to what\n\n749\n00:33:51.300 --> 00:33:55.190\nwas Ray Crock's kind of founding vision? And that's what we were talking\n\n750\n00:33:55.190 --> 00:33:57.380\nearlier. Ray is a constant\n\n751\n00:33:57.380 --> 00:34:01.580\nfountain of inspiration on these things. The whole idea that Ray had when he\n\n752\n00:34:01.580 --> 00:34:03.220\nstarted this company was\n\n753\n00:34:03.220 --> 00:34:08.020\nabout being a brand that's of the community. And the whole reason that Ray\n\n754\n00:34:08.020 --> 00:34:10.180\nwanted these restaurants\n\n755\n00:34:10.180 --> 00:34:15.610\nto be in the hands of franchisees is because he had the view, which is for this\n\n756\n00:34:15.610 --> 00:34:16.260\ncompany to be\n\n757\n00:34:16.260 --> 00:34:20.400\nsuccessful, it's not going to happen by having this business managed out of\n\n758\n00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:22.500\nheadquarters in Chicago.\n\n759\n00:34:22.500 --> 00:34:26.820\nIt's going to be about having a franchisee who's in that restaurant every day,\n\n760\n00:34:26.820 --> 00:34:27.780\nwho's also part of\n\n761\n00:34:27.780 --> 00:34:31.940\nthe community, who's serving their neighbors day in and day out at customers.\n\n762\n00:34:31.940 --> 00:34:32.900\nThat's going to be\n\n763\n00:34:32.900 --> 00:34:37.160\nwhere the brand gets its residents and gets its cultural value. And so that\n\n764\n00:34:37.160 --> 00:34:38.340\nwhole business was\n\n765\n00:34:38.340 --> 00:34:42.820\nbuilt up around that notion of being in the community. And we talk about our\n\n766\n00:34:42.820 --> 00:34:43.540\nrestaurants as\n\n767\n00:34:43.540 --> 00:34:47.880\nnot just being 40,000 restaurants, but they're 40,000 community centers, which\n\n768\n00:34:47.880 --> 00:34:48.580\nis where people\n\n769\n00:34:48.580 --> 00:34:51.790\nbring little league teams, which is where people get married, which is where\n\n770\n00:34:51.790 --> 00:34:52.980\npeople go on dates.\n\n771\n00:34:52.980 --> 00:34:57.140\nAnd so that's the value that McDonald's. That's our purpose of feeding and\n\n772\n00:34:57.140 --> 00:34:58.340\nfostering community.\n\n773\n00:34:58.340 --> 00:35:02.500\nIt's everybody has this strong connection at the community level. And if\n\n774\n00:35:02.500 --> 00:35:04.420\nMcDonald's can be a part\n\n775\n00:35:04.420 --> 00:35:08.830\nof that, it's a tremendous power from all of that. So that has sort of been the\n\n776\n00:35:08.830 --> 00:35:09.940\nhistory for us.\n\n777\n00:35:09.940 --> 00:35:13.040\nAnd it felt very natural. That's the other thing when you're doing these\n\n778\n00:35:13.040 --> 00:35:14.740\npurpose and values.\n\n779\n00:35:14.740 --> 00:35:20.020\nIf you have to explain it to somebody, you probably have it wrong. And as soon\n\n780\n00:35:20.020 --> 00:35:20.420\nas we\n\n781\n00:35:20.420 --> 00:35:24.070\nstarted talking to people about our purpose being the feed and foster community\n\n782\n00:35:24.070 --> 00:35:25.460\n, we didn't even\n\n783\n00:35:25.460 --> 00:35:29.460\nhave to explain it because of course, that's what we do every day. But we now\n\n784\n00:35:29.460 --> 00:35:30.500\nhad a language to\n\n785\n00:35:30.500 --> 00:35:33.700\nbe able to attach to it. And then everybody just went about kind of what they\n\n786\n00:35:33.700 --> 00:35:34.740\n've already been doing\n\n787\n00:35:34.740 --> 00:35:37.140\nwith a better understanding of how it all connects together.\n\n788\n00:35:42.420 --> 00:35:46.230\nWe'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Chris in just a moment. As\n\n789\n00:35:46.230 --> 00:35:47.220\nyou've just heard\n\n790\n00:35:47.220 --> 00:35:52.150\nus talk about, Chris is very good at making sure his strategy is clear and\n\n791\n00:35:52.150 --> 00:35:53.060\nrepeatable.\n\n792\n00:35:53.060 --> 00:35:58.170\nSo others can understand it and then go to work implementing it. It reminds me\n\n793\n00:35:58.170 --> 00:35:59.300\nof the big strategic\n\n794\n00:35:59.300 --> 00:36:04.130\nshift that Larry Merloh made at CVS when he was CEO and how he used a simple\n\n795\n00:36:04.130 --> 00:36:05.860\ncompelling vision to do\n\n796\n00:36:05.860 --> 00:36:11.220\nit. We were in Long Island and walked into the store with the region manager.\n\n797\n00:36:11.220 --> 00:36:12.580\nAnd I had observed\n\n798\n00:36:12.580 --> 00:36:17.860\none of our colleagues that was helping an elderly customer taking bags out to\n\n799\n00:36:17.860 --> 00:36:18.660\nher car.\n\n800\n00:36:18.660 --> 00:36:23.440\nOur employee comes back and I introduced myself and I said, I observed what you\n\n801\n00:36:23.440 --> 00:36:24.500\nwere doing and\n\n802\n00:36:24.500 --> 00:36:29.350\nthanked him. And the employee said to me, well, it's my way of helping people\n\n803\n00:36:29.350 --> 00:36:29.940\non their pet\n\n804\n00:36:29.940 --> 00:36:33.960\nbetter health. This was someone who wasn't working in the pharmacy. They were\n\n805\n00:36:33.960 --> 00:36:34.900\nworking in what we call\n\n806\n00:36:34.900 --> 00:36:41.300\nthe front of store. And they were able to internalize what those words meant as\n\n807\n00:36:41.300 --> 00:36:42.500\nto the job that they were\n\n808\n00:36:42.500 --> 00:36:47.550\ndoing every day. And there are countless examples out there like that where\n\n809\n00:36:47.550 --> 00:36:49.220\npeople have internalized\n\n810\n00:36:49.220 --> 00:36:54.470\nthat in very meaningful ways. Go back and listen to my entire conversation with\n\n811\n00:36:54.470 --> 00:36:54.900\nLarry.\n\n812\n00:36:54.900 --> 00:36:58.100\nEpisode 18 here on How Leaders Lead.\n\n813\n00:37:03.300 --> 00:37:07.700\nYou know, McDonald's is famous for its Hamburger University and training his\n\n814\n00:37:07.700 --> 00:37:08.660\npeople in the basics\n\n815\n00:37:08.660 --> 00:37:13.050\nof the business. But you also have what I understand is Speedy Labs, which is\n\n816\n00:37:13.050 --> 00:37:14.420\nthe name of your innovation\n\n817\n00:37:14.420 --> 00:37:19.100\ncenter. And you spent a couple of years in the innovation part of your business\n\n818\n00:37:19.100 --> 00:37:20.420\nbefore you became\n\n819\n00:37:20.420 --> 00:37:26.420\nCEO. What does a winning innovation strategy look like from your perspective?\n\n820\n00:37:26.420 --> 00:37:30.740\nWell, Speedy Labs takes its genesis from the McDonald's brothers and the\n\n821\n00:37:30.740 --> 00:37:31.860\nMcDonald's brothers\n\n822\n00:37:31.860 --> 00:37:35.970\nproduction system in their first restaurant in California was called the Speedy\n\n823\n00:37:35.970 --> 00:37:36.820\nproduction system.\n\n824\n00:37:36.820 --> 00:37:42.020\nAnd so when Ray Crock visited their restaurant, he was so impressed by the\n\n825\n00:37:42.020 --> 00:37:43.220\nproduction system that\n\n826\n00:37:43.220 --> 00:37:47.420\nthese guys had devised to be able to serve the number of burgers that they did\n\n827\n00:37:47.420 --> 00:37:48.260\nand the time that\n\n828\n00:37:48.260 --> 00:37:52.150\nthey did with speed of service. That that was why Ray ultimately bought the\n\n829\n00:37:52.150 --> 00:37:53.460\nbusiness from them and\n\n830\n00:37:53.460 --> 00:37:57.800\nthen the rest is history. But we've taken Speedy, which is we'd like to\n\n831\n00:37:57.800 --> 00:37:59.220\ndescribe it as the first\n\n832\n00:37:59.220 --> 00:38:03.300\ninnovation that McDonald's really what's made McDonald's what it is. And we've\n\n833\n00:38:03.300 --> 00:38:04.020\ngot a whole\n\n834\n00:38:04.020 --> 00:38:08.200\ngroup now that works in there. And it's all about solving problems, either\n\n835\n00:38:08.200 --> 00:38:09.540\ncustomer problems\n\n836\n00:38:09.540 --> 00:38:15.860\nor solving crew problems. And so we get all sorts of different opportunities or\n\n837\n00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:16.740\nissues for the\n\n838\n00:38:16.740 --> 00:38:20.910\nSpeedy Labs team to go work on. And they will then pick and choose. And we've\n\n839\n00:38:20.910 --> 00:38:21.540\ngot a whole\n\n840\n00:38:21.540 --> 00:38:25.920\nprioritization process, as you would imagine, which is what are the problems\n\n841\n00:38:25.920 --> 00:38:26.980\nthat are affecting the\n\n842\n00:38:26.980 --> 00:38:30.600\nmost people? And then if we could fix them, would have the biggest impact. And\n\n843\n00:38:30.600 --> 00:38:31.220\nthose are the ones\n\n844\n00:38:31.220 --> 00:38:36.580\nthat we get our Speedy teams focused on. You know, I've heard you say, whatever\n\n845\n00:38:36.580 --> 00:38:38.420\nis happening in society,\n\n846\n00:38:38.420 --> 00:38:43.300\ngood or bad, you can be sure it's happening at McDonald's. Yeah, when you're in\n\n847\n00:38:43.300 --> 00:38:44.260\na crisis mode,\n\n848\n00:38:44.260 --> 00:38:48.080\nwhen the things go, you know, when it hits the fan, and it's not what you\n\n849\n00:38:48.080 --> 00:38:49.060\nreally want to have\n\n850\n00:38:49.060 --> 00:38:52.910\nhappen at McDonald's, what are the things that you try to keep top of mind as a\n\n851\n00:38:52.910 --> 00:38:54.740\nleader? Well,\n\n852\n00:38:54.740 --> 00:38:59.460\nI think one thing is when things go wrong, I think people need to hear from the\n\n853\n00:38:59.460 --> 00:39:00.420\nleader. So\n\n854\n00:39:00.420 --> 00:39:04.310\nto me, it's much more important that a leader steps forward when things are\n\n855\n00:39:04.310 --> 00:39:05.220\ngoing wrong than\n\n856\n00:39:05.220 --> 00:39:08.660\nwhen things are going right. When things are going right, you want the other\n\n857\n00:39:08.660 --> 00:39:09.700\npeople on your team to\n\n858\n00:39:09.700 --> 00:39:13.300\nbe the ones that are stepping forward and celebrating them, which when things\n\n859\n00:39:13.300 --> 00:39:14.180\nare going wrong,\n\n860\n00:39:14.180 --> 00:39:18.600\nthat I think that that's when people need to hear first from the leader. And\n\n861\n00:39:18.600 --> 00:39:19.460\nthen you might bring\n\n862\n00:39:19.460 --> 00:39:22.900\nother people in. And so for me, when there are things that happen in our\n\n863\n00:39:22.900 --> 00:39:24.020\nrestaurants that either\n\n864\n00:39:24.020 --> 00:39:29.020\nwe're not proud of, mistakes can get made, sometimes things don't happen as we\n\n865\n00:39:29.020 --> 00:39:29.620\nwant.\n\n866\n00:39:29.620 --> 00:39:33.730\nIt depends, obviously, on the magnitude. But certainly if it's a sufficient\n\n867\n00:39:33.730 --> 00:39:34.340\nmagnitude,\n\n868\n00:39:34.340 --> 00:39:39.300\npeople need to hear from me on those topics. And because what happens in the\n\n869\n00:39:39.300 --> 00:39:40.100\nworld happens in\n\n870\n00:39:40.100 --> 00:39:45.780\nMcDonald's, what I also remind our teams about all the time is, you're probably\n\n871\n00:39:45.780 --> 00:39:46.660\nnot the first one\n\n872\n00:39:46.660 --> 00:39:50.930\nwho's gone through whatever that situation is. Most likely, there's somebody\n\n873\n00:39:50.930 --> 00:39:51.940\nelse in the world\n\n874\n00:39:51.940 --> 00:39:56.260\nwho has already encountered exactly what you're experiencing in your restaurant\n\n875\n00:39:56.260 --> 00:39:56.420\n.\n\n876\n00:39:56.420 --> 00:40:00.730\nIt's probably already happened somewhere else. So how do I help connect you\n\n877\n00:40:00.730 --> 00:40:01.700\nwith whoever's had\n\n878\n00:40:01.700 --> 00:40:05.770\nthat experience so that you can learn from them and then kind of move on from\n\n879\n00:40:05.770 --> 00:40:06.820\nthat? So that's the\n\n880\n00:40:06.820 --> 00:40:10.880\nother thing for me is how do we get into connecting people to the right\n\n881\n00:40:10.880 --> 00:40:12.340\nresources, because the more\n\n882\n00:40:12.340 --> 00:40:15.520\nthat we can support each other and learn from what's already happened, the\n\n883\n00:40:15.520 --> 00:40:16.820\nbetter off we're going to be.\n\n884\n00:40:16.820 --> 00:40:21.220\n- You know, shifting gears for a minute, I want to take you back. What's a\n\n885\n00:40:21.220 --> 00:40:22.500\nstory from your childhood\n\n886\n00:40:22.500 --> 00:40:28.120\nthat shaped the kind of leader you are today? - Well, my dad growing up was a\n\n887\n00:40:28.120 --> 00:40:30.260\nsurgeon and my dad was\n\n888\n00:40:30.260 --> 00:40:36.180\na real stickler for detail. And I will give you an example, which is I had a m\n\n889\n00:40:36.180 --> 00:40:37.620\now the yard every\n\n890\n00:40:37.620 --> 00:40:41.940\nweekend growing up, but it wasn't just mow the yard. My dad had a particular\n\n891\n00:40:41.940 --> 00:40:42.820\nway that he liked\n\n892\n00:40:42.820 --> 00:40:47.420\nthe yard mode, because he liked to see a certain pattern, a checkerboard\n\n893\n00:40:47.420 --> 00:40:49.140\npattern in the yard.\n\n894\n00:40:49.140 --> 00:40:53.320\nAnd if I didn't do the mowing of the yard in a particular right way, then I\n\n895\n00:40:53.320 --> 00:40:54.100\nwould have to go out\n\n896\n00:40:54.100 --> 00:40:59.410\nand redo the yard. So I grew up kind of in that environment where my father\n\n897\n00:40:59.410 --> 00:41:00.980\nalways had this expression,\n\n898\n00:41:00.980 --> 00:41:04.270\nif you're going to do a job, do it right. - I've heard that before, Chris. -\n\n899\n00:41:04.270 --> 00:41:05.780\nYeah, yeah, we all have.\n\n900\n00:41:05.780 --> 00:41:09.620\nBut I think what it has driven me as a leader to do is to be able to make sure\n\n901\n00:41:09.620 --> 00:41:10.340\nthat we continue\n\n902\n00:41:10.340 --> 00:41:15.360\nto set the bar high. And it doesn't mean that we're always going to hit the bar\n\n903\n00:41:15.360 --> 00:41:16.580\n. In many cases,\n\n904\n00:41:16.580 --> 00:41:19.740\nmaybe we're not going to hit the bar. And if we're hitting it all the time, the\n\n905\n00:41:19.740 --> 00:41:20.420\nbar is probably\n\n906\n00:41:20.420 --> 00:41:24.580\nnot high enough. But to set the bar high, to set the expectations high, because\n\n907\n00:41:24.580 --> 00:41:26.020\nanother expression\n\n908\n00:41:26.020 --> 00:41:29.670\nthat I use all the time is you are what you settle for. If you settle for being\n\n909\n00:41:29.670 --> 00:41:30.420\nmediocre,\n\n910\n00:41:30.420 --> 00:41:34.710\nif you settle for good enough, then that's what you're going to end up being.\n\n911\n00:41:34.710 --> 00:41:35.540\nBut if you set the\n\n912\n00:41:35.540 --> 00:41:39.490\nbar for I want to be great, and I want this company to be great, and that's\n\n913\n00:41:39.490 --> 00:41:40.020\nwhat you're\n\n914\n00:41:40.020 --> 00:41:44.740\nhaving everybody's expectations, then chances are you've got a much better\n\n915\n00:41:44.740 --> 00:41:45.780\nchance of being great.\n\n916\n00:41:45.780 --> 00:41:50.020\nSo that's been one leadership lesson for me. I didn't appreciate it at the time\n\n917\n00:41:50.020 --> 00:41:50.580\nwhen I was out\n\n918\n00:41:50.580 --> 00:41:54.540\nthere mowing the yard. But sometimes dad is right about things, and that one\n\n919\n00:41:54.540 --> 00:41:55.380\nended up being one\n\n920\n00:41:55.380 --> 00:41:59.780\nthat was right. - I learned in my research that your dad was wheelchair-bound.\n\n921\n00:41:59.780 --> 00:42:00.180\nHow has that\n\n922\n00:42:00.180 --> 00:42:05.230\ninfluenced the decisions you're making today as CEO? - My dad actually growing\n\n923\n00:42:05.230 --> 00:42:06.420\nup, he didn't get\n\n924\n00:42:06.980 --> 00:42:12.020\ninjured until he was 54. So actually at the age I am right now, and my father\n\n925\n00:42:12.020 --> 00:42:13.780\nhappened to be\n\n926\n00:42:13.780 --> 00:42:20.330\nswimming in Hawaii, and a wave took him and flipped him, and he broke his neck\n\n927\n00:42:20.330 --> 00:42:20.980\non the bottom of the\n\n928\n00:42:20.980 --> 00:42:26.650\nocean in Maui, and it rendered him quadriplegic. And he was quadriplegic for 23\n\n929\n00:42:26.650 --> 00:42:27.780\nyears. He passed\n\n930\n00:42:27.780 --> 00:42:34.810\naway in 2017. But it was pretty remarkable to see my father who had lived this\n\n931\n00:42:34.810 --> 00:42:36.420\nincredible life up\n\n932\n00:42:36.420 --> 00:42:40.880\nto age 54. And by the way, part of the patient population that he treated as a\n\n933\n00:42:40.880 --> 00:42:41.780\ndoctor were people\n\n934\n00:42:41.780 --> 00:42:46.650\nwho were quadriplegic. And then all of a sudden my father is now himself quadri\n\n935\n00:42:46.650 --> 00:42:47.700\nplegic. And\n\n936\n00:42:47.700 --> 00:42:55.150\nyou learn so much about one how luck is such a big component of life. And I\n\n937\n00:42:55.150 --> 00:42:56.980\nthink in just telling\n\n938\n00:42:56.980 --> 00:43:01.160\nmy story, that's an example of bad luck, but I've also had a lot of good luck\n\n939\n00:43:01.160 --> 00:43:02.340\nin my life as well.\n\n940\n00:43:02.340 --> 00:43:07.220\nAnd to just appreciate the role that luck can play in life, both good and bad\n\n941\n00:43:07.220 --> 00:43:08.340\nluck, that's been one\n\n942\n00:43:08.340 --> 00:43:14.900\nthing. I think another thing for me is to just see how at the end of the day,\n\n943\n00:43:14.900 --> 00:43:16.100\nmy father was very\n\n944\n00:43:16.100 --> 00:43:21.490\nfocused on his career growing up. And he had a lot of success in his career,\n\n945\n00:43:21.490 --> 00:43:22.660\nbut once he stripped\n\n946\n00:43:22.660 --> 00:43:29.750\naway the career part of his life, and it was about people. And he very quickly\n\n947\n00:43:29.750 --> 00:43:31.220\nsaw in his own life,\n\n948\n00:43:31.220 --> 00:43:35.620\nwho were people that were in his life because of who he was as a person, and\n\n949\n00:43:35.620 --> 00:43:36.340\nwho were people that\n\n950\n00:43:36.340 --> 00:43:40.390\nwere in his life because of maybe what he could do for them. I think that was\n\n951\n00:43:40.390 --> 00:43:41.380\nalso something that\n\n952\n00:43:41.380 --> 00:43:46.560\nstuck with me, which is we're all in these jobs for brief periods of time. But\n\n953\n00:43:46.560 --> 00:43:47.300\nthere are going to\n\n954\n00:43:47.300 --> 00:43:51.370\nbe people that are going to be with us in the long haul. And to make sure that\n\n955\n00:43:51.370 --> 00:43:52.340\nno matter what the\n\n956\n00:43:52.340 --> 00:43:55.730\njob is that you're making time for those people, because they're the ones that\n\n957\n00:43:55.730 --> 00:43:56.660\nultimately give you\n\n958\n00:43:56.660 --> 00:44:00.700\nhappiness, these jobs can be very time consuming. And you can become all\n\n959\n00:44:00.700 --> 00:44:02.260\nconsumed with whatever you're\n\n960\n00:44:02.260 --> 00:44:07.220\ndoing. To do that at the detriment of those relationships is a big mistake. And\n\n961\n00:44:07.220 --> 00:44:08.180\nmy father's\n\n962\n00:44:08.180 --> 00:44:12.490\nexperience showed me that. And so I'm mindful of that when I sometimes can get\n\n963\n00:44:12.490 --> 00:44:13.620\ncaught up in my own\n\n964\n00:44:13.620 --> 00:44:18.820\nhype on stuff here at McDonald's. This is CEO that this is a moment in time.\n\n965\n00:44:18.820 --> 00:44:19.860\nAnd ultimately,\n\n966\n00:44:19.860 --> 00:44:22.980\nI need to make sure that I've got those relationships because ultimately that's\n\n967\n00:44:22.980 --> 00:44:23.940\ngoing to be what matters.\n\n968\n00:44:23.940 --> 00:44:28.020\nThere's a lot of wisdom in what you just shared and thanks for sharing it.\n\n969\n00:44:28.020 --> 00:44:33.620\nYou know, as a global CEO, I know you're doing a lot of travel. I did a lot of\n\n970\n00:44:33.620 --> 00:44:34.260\ntravel by\n\n971\n00:44:34.260 --> 00:44:40.420\nself. What's a story about one of your recent trips that really excited you and\n\n972\n00:44:40.420 --> 00:44:41.620\nthe big learning\n\n973\n00:44:41.620 --> 00:44:46.180\nyou got from it? You do do a lot of travel in these jobs. And I was in\n\n974\n00:44:46.180 --> 00:44:48.500\nScandinavia. So we went to\n\n975\n00:44:49.140 --> 00:44:55.300\nDenmark and Sweden and visited a bunch of markets there. And something that I\n\n976\n00:44:55.300 --> 00:44:57.380\nsaw from our franchisees,\n\n977\n00:44:57.380 --> 00:45:01.820\nwhich I just I left there so excited about is they have come up with a\n\n978\n00:45:01.820 --> 00:45:03.460\ncompletely different way\n\n979\n00:45:03.460 --> 00:45:08.230\nfor us to think about the construction process of how we build new restaurants.\n\n980\n00:45:08.230 --> 00:45:09.140\nAnd you would think\n\n981\n00:45:09.140 --> 00:45:14.430\nafter building 40,000 restaurants that we would kind of have the construction\n\n982\n00:45:14.430 --> 00:45:15.220\npart of building a\n\n983\n00:45:15.220 --> 00:45:19.940\nrestaurant down to a science and in many places that we do. But these guys had\n\n984\n00:45:19.940 --> 00:45:21.060\nfigured out a way\n\n985\n00:45:21.060 --> 00:45:27.300\nto take about 30% of the cost out of construction without having any impact on\n\n986\n00:45:27.300 --> 00:45:28.660\nthe customer experience,\n\n987\n00:45:28.660 --> 00:45:33.580\nany impact on quality, visual, et cetera. And so to just think about the\n\n988\n00:45:33.580 --> 00:45:34.740\nopportunities that we\n\n989\n00:45:34.740 --> 00:45:39.320\nstill have in this business, here we are 65 years later, 40,000 some odd\n\n990\n00:45:39.320 --> 00:45:40.340\nrestaurants later,\n\n991\n00:45:40.340 --> 00:45:45.530\nand someone comes along. And by looking at a process in a completely different\n\n992\n00:45:45.530 --> 00:45:45.860\nway,\n\n993\n00:45:45.860 --> 00:45:50.480\nfigure out how to build that same box for 30% less than what we've been doing\n\n994\n00:45:50.480 --> 00:45:51.940\nfor years and years,\n\n995\n00:45:51.940 --> 00:45:55.140\nyou just walk away from that scratching your head saying, there's so much more\n\n996\n00:45:55.140 --> 00:45:56.020\nwe can do here.\n\n997\n00:45:56.020 --> 00:45:59.620\nThere always is this that unfinished business that gets us really turned on.\n\n998\n00:45:59.620 --> 00:46:00.500\nThere's no question\n\n999\n00:46:00.500 --> 00:46:04.900\nabout that. How do you take an idea like that and then transfer it around the\n\n1000\n00:46:04.900 --> 00:46:05.460\nworld?\n\n1001\n00:46:05.460 --> 00:46:09.780\nIt starts with celebrating the success. And that goes a little bit back to what\n\n1002\n00:46:09.780 --> 00:46:10.340\nwe were talking\n\n1003\n00:46:10.340 --> 00:46:15.140\nabout earlier. But I like to describe it sometimes as positive shaming. So as\n\n1004\n00:46:15.140 --> 00:46:16.340\nopposed to pointing\n\n1005\n00:46:16.340 --> 00:46:19.970\nout the things that aren't working so well, you take the things that are\n\n1006\n00:46:19.970 --> 00:46:21.300\nworking great and you make\n\n1007\n00:46:21.300 --> 00:46:26.660\nthose people heroes. And what happens in the room when you're bringing up John\n\n1008\n00:46:26.660 --> 00:46:27.940\nor Sally or\n\n1009\n00:46:27.940 --> 00:46:31.300\npick whatever the name is and you're talking about all the great stuff that\n\n1010\n00:46:31.300 --> 00:46:31.860\nthey did,\n\n1011\n00:46:31.860 --> 00:46:35.340\neverybody in the audience there is listening and they're excited for John or\n\n1012\n00:46:35.340 --> 00:46:35.940\nSally or Sue.\n\n1013\n00:46:35.940 --> 00:46:39.380\nBut they're also kind of in the back of their mind thinking, I kind of would\n\n1014\n00:46:39.380 --> 00:46:40.420\nlike to be up there\n\n1015\n00:46:40.420 --> 00:46:44.970\nand they're not talking about me that way. And it starts to get the wheels\n\n1016\n00:46:44.970 --> 00:46:46.180\nspinning a little bit\n\n1017\n00:46:46.180 --> 00:46:50.080\nof, well, I kind of would like to get some of that recognition. And so then\n\n1018\n00:46:50.080 --> 00:46:51.220\nthey go back and they\n\n1019\n00:46:51.220 --> 00:46:54.520\nstart to say, well, hey, you know, we need to go do something like this. So\n\n1020\n00:46:54.520 --> 00:46:55.380\nthere's power in\n\n1021\n00:46:55.380 --> 00:47:00.240\ncelebrating success, both because of the receiver of the praise. They love to\n\n1022\n00:47:00.240 --> 00:47:00.900\nbe praise,\n\n1023\n00:47:00.900 --> 00:47:04.900\nbut also the all the other people that are hearing it are kind of also thinking\n\n1024\n00:47:04.900 --> 00:47:04.900\n,\n\n1025\n00:47:04.900 --> 00:47:08.060\nwell, I want some of that. So I'm going to go back and use this and I'll show\n\n1026\n00:47:08.060 --> 00:47:08.340\nyou,\n\n1027\n00:47:08.340 --> 00:47:12.100\nI'll come up with my own whatever that success is, which is great. I'm happy to\n\n1028\n00:47:12.100 --> 00:47:12.980\npraise everybody.\n\n1029\n00:47:12.980 --> 00:47:17.940\nThat's great. Yeah, Chris, this has been so much fun. And now I'd like to have\n\n1030\n00:47:17.940 --> 00:47:18.420\na little bit more\n\n1031\n00:47:18.420 --> 00:47:22.920\nwith my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Okay. What's one\n\n1032\n00:47:22.920 --> 00:47:23.860\nword others\n\n1033\n00:47:23.860 --> 00:47:29.960\nwould use to describe you? I'd like to think approachable. What's the one word\n\n1034\n00:47:29.960 --> 00:47:30.580\nthat you think\n\n1035\n00:47:30.580 --> 00:47:37.180\nbest describes you driven? If you could be someone beside yourself for a day,\n\n1036\n00:47:37.180 --> 00:47:38.020\nwho would it be and why?\n\n1037\n00:47:38.020 --> 00:47:45.610\nI'd like to be Bono, both because I love you too. And I think that they've got\n\n1038\n00:47:45.610 --> 00:47:46.820\njust incredible\n\n1039\n00:47:46.820 --> 00:47:50.820\nset of songs, but also just the life he's led, the people he's met, the things\n\n1040\n00:47:50.820 --> 00:47:51.780\nthat he's been able to\n\n1041\n00:47:51.780 --> 00:47:58.120\ndo. It'd be pretty cool to be Bono for a day. What's your biggest pet peeve\n\n1042\n00:47:58.120 --> 00:48:00.020\nexcuses and not taking\n\n1043\n00:48:00.020 --> 00:48:04.660\nownership for stuff? Have you ever dressed up as Ronald McDonald's? And is that\n\n1044\n00:48:04.660 --> 00:48:05.700\na rite of passage\n\n1045\n00:48:05.700 --> 00:48:11.740\nfor McDonald's CEO? I have not dressed up as Ronald McDonald. Although I feel\n\n1046\n00:48:11.740 --> 00:48:12.820\nlike by admitting\n\n1047\n00:48:12.820 --> 00:48:16.700\nthat I'm now setting myself up to be dressed up like Bono McDonald. But no, I\n\n1048\n00:48:16.700 --> 00:48:18.100\nhave not yet done\n\n1049\n00:48:18.100 --> 00:48:21.300\nthat nor do I have that as a career aspiration, even though it probably is\n\n1050\n00:48:21.300 --> 00:48:22.420\ngoing to happen now.\n\n1051\n00:48:22.420 --> 00:48:27.680\nAs a due graduate, what's the first word or phrase that comes to mind when I\n\n1052\n00:48:27.680 --> 00:48:29.300\nsay tar heels? Go to hell.\n\n1053\n00:48:29.780 --> 00:48:31.700\n[laughs]\n\n1054\n00:48:31.700 --> 00:48:36.230\nYour favorite McDonald's product? Quarter pounder. If you turned on the radio\n\n1055\n00:48:36.230 --> 00:48:37.620\nin your car, what would\n\n1056\n00:48:37.620 --> 00:48:45.160\nwe hear? You would hear college rock music, which is not age appropriate. That\n\n1057\n00:48:45.160 --> 00:48:46.580\n's the end of the\n\n1058\n00:48:46.580 --> 00:48:50.980\nlightning round. Very well done. I just have a few more questions and we'll\n\n1059\n00:48:50.980 --> 00:48:51.940\nwrap this up.\n\n1060\n00:48:51.940 --> 00:48:56.400\nYou run an incredible franchise business. You have franchisees or key to your\n\n1061\n00:48:56.400 --> 00:48:57.140\nsuccess.\n\n1062\n00:48:57.700 --> 00:49:03.390\nWhat advice can you give to people who work with franchisees or in a franchise\n\n1063\n00:49:03.390 --> 00:49:04.100\nbusiness\n\n1064\n00:49:04.100 --> 00:49:09.240\nso that you maximize the opportunity? You got to be a good listener and it's\n\n1065\n00:49:09.240 --> 00:49:09.700\nthat old\n\n1066\n00:49:09.700 --> 00:49:14.090\nadage of you got two ears and one mouth. And so you've got to go into those\n\n1067\n00:49:14.090 --> 00:49:15.140\nrelationships\n\n1068\n00:49:15.140 --> 00:49:20.020\nin a learning mode because most likely the franchisee knows a whole lot more\n\n1069\n00:49:20.020 --> 00:49:20.500\nabout what's\n\n1070\n00:49:20.500 --> 00:49:25.280\ngoing on on a day to day basis in their restaurant than you do. And so go in\n\n1071\n00:49:25.280 --> 00:49:26.660\nwith a listening mentality.\n\n1072\n00:49:26.660 --> 00:49:32.170\nThat is one. I think second is you've got to find areas of mutual alignment.\n\n1073\n00:49:32.170 --> 00:49:34.020\nAnd there are\n\n1074\n00:49:34.020 --> 00:49:39.030\na whole variety of things that you can always prioritize. I try to say, let's\n\n1075\n00:49:39.030 --> 00:49:39.780\nfocus on the things\n\n1076\n00:49:39.780 --> 00:49:43.720\nthat we agree on versus spending all of our time on the things that we disagree\n\n1077\n00:49:43.720 --> 00:49:44.820\non. And so getting\n\n1078\n00:49:44.820 --> 00:49:49.030\nalignment with your franchisees about the things that you can actually do\n\n1079\n00:49:49.030 --> 00:49:50.420\ntogether and making that\n\n1080\n00:49:50.420 --> 00:49:54.570\nthe centerpiece of the relationship as opposed to the relationship being pred\n\n1081\n00:49:54.570 --> 00:49:55.540\nicated on just the\n\n1082\n00:49:55.540 --> 00:49:59.380\nthings that you don't agree on. I think that's a second thing. And then the\n\n1083\n00:49:59.380 --> 00:50:01.780\nlast is the franchisee\n\n1084\n00:50:01.780 --> 00:50:07.210\nneeds to believe that you are there to make them be successful and that your\n\n1085\n00:50:07.210 --> 00:50:08.500\nsuccess is not going\n\n1086\n00:50:08.500 --> 00:50:12.590\nto come at their expense. And so the more that you can build up that trust\n\n1087\n00:50:12.590 --> 00:50:13.860\nwhere the franchisee\n\n1088\n00:50:13.860 --> 00:50:18.130\nultimately the relationship only works if there's trust. You know, you've\n\n1089\n00:50:18.130 --> 00:50:19.220\nworked at such great\n\n1090\n00:50:19.220 --> 00:50:23.440\ncompanies. You mentioned Procter and Gamble as one, your Boston consulting\n\n1091\n00:50:23.440 --> 00:50:24.500\ngroup, PepsiCo,\n\n1092\n00:50:24.500 --> 00:50:29.780\nKraft, and now McDonald's. What's the single most important thing you think\n\n1093\n00:50:29.780 --> 00:50:30.500\nsomebody should\n\n1094\n00:50:30.500 --> 00:50:35.890\nthink about before they change jobs? For me, it's always been about the people\n\n1095\n00:50:35.890 --> 00:50:36.740\nof who I was\n\n1096\n00:50:36.740 --> 00:50:40.580\nworking with. Each one of those jobs with the exception of BCG, which I did\n\n1097\n00:50:40.580 --> 00:50:41.700\nright out of business\n\n1098\n00:50:41.700 --> 00:50:45.260\nschool, but each one of those jobs I went to because there was someone there\n\n1099\n00:50:45.260 --> 00:50:46.660\nthat I already knew.\n\n1100\n00:50:46.660 --> 00:50:51.060\nAnd there was someone there that I actually trusted, respected, and I wanted to\n\n1101\n00:50:51.060 --> 00:50:51.700\nbe a part\n\n1102\n00:50:51.700 --> 00:50:58.330\nof that organization. And so for me, it goes to how important relationships are\n\n1103\n00:50:58.330 --> 00:50:59.620\nand relationships\n\n1104\n00:50:59.620 --> 00:51:04.100\nin my life in my career have been how I've gotten almost every single\n\n1105\n00:51:04.100 --> 00:51:06.100\nopportunity. And those\n\n1106\n00:51:06.100 --> 00:51:11.630\nrelationships also take time. And I got a great piece of advice very early in\n\n1107\n00:51:11.630 --> 00:51:12.900\nmy career. It was\n\n1108\n00:51:12.900 --> 00:51:17.460\nactually my first boss at P&G who asked me, he said, \"What's the most important\n\n1109\n00:51:17.460 --> 00:51:17.860\nbrand you're\n\n1110\n00:51:17.860 --> 00:51:23.220\ngoing to manage here?\" And it being P&G, I said, \"I don't know, crust or tied\n\n1111\n00:51:23.220 --> 00:51:24.260\nor something like that.\"\n\n1112\n00:51:24.260 --> 00:51:27.860\nHe goes, \"No.\" He said, \"It's the Chris Kimchinsky brand. That's going to be\n\n1113\n00:51:27.860 --> 00:51:28.740\nthe most important\n\n1114\n00:51:28.740 --> 00:51:32.800\nbrand that you're going to manage here at Procter and Gamble and in your career\n\n1115\n00:51:32.800 --> 00:51:33.700\n.\" So you better\n\n1116\n00:51:33.700 --> 00:51:37.620\nfigure out what you stand for as the Chris Kimchinsky brand, because depending\n\n1117\n00:51:37.620 --> 00:51:38.580\non how you position\n\n1118\n00:51:38.580 --> 00:51:43.130\nyour own brand, that's going to be what determines your career success. Super,\n\n1119\n00:51:43.130 --> 00:51:44.660\nsuper advice, because\n\n1120\n00:51:44.660 --> 00:51:49.070\nit's what created those opportunities later where someone said, \"Hey, I've got\n\n1121\n00:51:49.070 --> 00:51:50.020\nthis need. You know\n\n1122\n00:51:50.020 --> 00:51:53.000\nwhat? Maybe you should give Chris a call.\" And that's opened up for me so many\n\n1123\n00:51:53.000 --> 00:51:53.700\ndifferent things\n\n1124\n00:51:53.700 --> 00:51:58.820\nin my career. So it's about relationships and just nurturing those and making\n\n1125\n00:51:58.820 --> 00:51:59.620\nsure that you're\n\n1126\n00:51:59.620 --> 00:52:02.550\nthinking about what do you want when people are talking about you? What do you\n\n1127\n00:52:02.550 --> 00:52:03.220\nwant them to be\n\n1128\n00:52:03.220 --> 00:52:08.030\nsaying about you? Speaking of relationships, you've met your wife at Duke and\n\n1129\n00:52:08.030 --> 00:52:09.220\nshe's your partner.\n\n1130\n00:52:09.220 --> 00:52:14.610\nHow do you two interact on the business front? My wife is zero interest in my\n\n1131\n00:52:14.610 --> 00:52:15.380\nbusiness,\n\n1132\n00:52:15.380 --> 00:52:21.460\nto be honest. So when I'm at home, she's really not that interested in hearing\n\n1133\n00:52:21.460 --> 00:52:22.340\nabout what went on\n\n1134\n00:52:22.340 --> 00:52:26.680\nat work, which is actually a refreshing thing, because I know I have to leave\n\n1135\n00:52:26.680 --> 00:52:27.620\nit at work, because\n\n1136\n00:52:27.620 --> 00:52:31.130\nshe's not going to be interested in doing that. That said, incredibly\n\n1137\n00:52:31.130 --> 00:52:32.420\nsupportive to me,\n\n1138\n00:52:32.420 --> 00:52:37.220\nand my wife was a pediatrician, but she ultimately had to give up her career to\n\n1139\n00:52:37.220 --> 00:52:38.340\nsupport me,\n\n1140\n00:52:38.340 --> 00:52:42.820\nbecause of just the jobs and the rotations and moving around her career and it\n\n1141\n00:52:42.820 --> 00:52:43.460\nended up not being\n\n1142\n00:52:43.460 --> 00:52:48.860\ncompatible with my own career. She's out of dedication and support of me was\n\n1143\n00:52:48.860 --> 00:52:50.100\nwilling to make that\n\n1144\n00:52:50.100 --> 00:52:54.970\ntrade off there. So I'm hugely appreciative of my wife. I wouldn't be where I\n\n1145\n00:52:54.970 --> 00:52:56.340\nam without all the\n\n1146\n00:52:56.340 --> 00:52:59.970\nsupport that she's given me throughout my career, but when it comes to work,\n\n1147\n00:52:59.970 --> 00:53:00.900\nshe doesn't want to\n\n1148\n00:53:00.900 --> 00:53:04.780\nhear about it. She wants me to go walk the dog or go run errands or whatever\n\n1149\n00:53:04.780 --> 00:53:05.940\nwhen I get home.\n\n1150\n00:53:05.940 --> 00:53:09.760\nOne thing I love about you is you tell it like it is, you're very honest and I\n\n1151\n00:53:09.760 --> 00:53:10.900\nfind that extremely\n\n1152\n00:53:10.900 --> 00:53:16.170\nrefreshing. Sometimes you don't want to hear it, but by gosh, you speak which\n\n1153\n00:53:16.170 --> 00:53:17.380\nis on your mind.\n\n1154\n00:53:17.380 --> 00:53:21.690\nLet's wrap this up with just this last question here. What's one piece of\n\n1155\n00:53:21.690 --> 00:53:22.660\nadvice you'd give to\n\n1156\n00:53:22.660 --> 00:53:28.260\naspiring leaders? Find somebody who's going to tell you the truth, because as\n\n1157\n00:53:28.260 --> 00:53:29.700\nyou go up in your\n\n1158\n00:53:29.700 --> 00:53:34.390\njobs and you get into bigger and bigger jobs, there are fewer and fewer people\n\n1159\n00:53:34.390 --> 00:53:34.820\nthat are willing\n\n1160\n00:53:34.820 --> 00:53:38.360\nto tell you the truth. If there's people that are not going to tell you the\n\n1161\n00:53:38.360 --> 00:53:38.900\ntruth,\n\n1162\n00:53:38.900 --> 00:53:43.390\nyou're going to miss stuff and you're not going to be as successful. I think\n\n1163\n00:53:43.390 --> 00:53:44.420\nfinding ways that\n\n1164\n00:53:44.420 --> 00:53:47.480\nyou're going to surround yourself with people and you're going to create the\n\n1165\n00:53:47.480 --> 00:53:48.180\nconditions for\n\n1166\n00:53:48.180 --> 00:53:51.670\npeople to tell you the truth that's going to make you a better leader. That's\n\n1167\n00:53:51.670 --> 00:53:52.740\ngreat advice, Chris.\n\n1168\n00:53:52.740 --> 00:53:56.340\nI'm going to give you a little bit of truth telling here. We talked about\n\n1169\n00:53:56.340 --> 00:53:57.140\nMcDonald's French\n\n1170\n00:53:57.140 --> 00:54:02.410\nfries a little bit earlier. When I was CEO of Young Brands, I would probably\n\n1171\n00:54:02.410 --> 00:54:03.780\nsneak out once a\n\n1172\n00:54:03.780 --> 00:54:10.250\nquarter and just go to McDonald's just to get those fries. They are so good. I\n\n1173\n00:54:10.250 --> 00:54:12.420\n'm sure you've\n\n1174\n00:54:12.420 --> 00:54:15.290\nhad a lot more of them than me, but I have to tell you, I don't know if you've\n\n1175\n00:54:15.290 --> 00:54:16.020\nenjoyed them more\n\n1176\n00:54:16.020 --> 00:54:20.880\nthan I have. Thank you for sharing that. It is good to know that some of our\n\n1177\n00:54:20.880 --> 00:54:22.420\ncompetitors out there\n\n1178\n00:54:22.420 --> 00:54:26.740\ndo appreciate our product. Listen, I will not share that with any of your young\n\n1179\n00:54:26.740 --> 00:54:27.300\npeople, although I\n\n1180\n00:54:27.300 --> 00:54:30.350\nguess since we just did it on a podcast, you've shared it with everybody. You\n\n1181\n00:54:30.350 --> 00:54:31.940\nalso should know\n\n1182\n00:54:31.940 --> 00:54:35.940\nthat when I was CEO, we had McDonald's Immersion Day. We admired your company\n\n1183\n00:54:35.940 --> 00:54:37.780\nso much that we spent\n\n1184\n00:54:37.780 --> 00:54:43.540\na day all around the world. I had our general managers and their teams go into\n\n1185\n00:54:43.540 --> 00:54:44.260\nMcDonald's for\n\n1186\n00:54:44.260 --> 00:54:48.240\na day. Then we codified all the things we thought you were doing that we could\n\n1187\n00:54:48.240 --> 00:54:49.620\nlearn from. We share\n\n1188\n00:54:49.620 --> 00:54:54.180\nthat the learning mentality. I can tell you that, yes, I've spent a fair bit of\n\n1189\n00:54:54.180 --> 00:54:55.140\ntime when I do my\n\n1190\n00:54:55.140 --> 00:54:58.990\nmarket visits and KFCs, particularly, we've given your global footprint around\n\n1191\n00:54:58.990 --> 00:54:59.700\nthe world.\n\n1192\n00:54:59.700 --> 00:55:03.700\nSo there's a lot we can learn from each other. Chris, I want to thank you so\n\n1193\n00:55:03.700 --> 00:55:04.500\nmuch for taking the\n\n1194\n00:55:04.500 --> 00:55:09.380\ntime to do this podcast. I've learned a lot just listening to you. I can tell\n\n1195\n00:55:09.380 --> 00:55:09.780\nyou,\n\n1196\n00:55:09.780 --> 00:55:14.330\nMcDonald's is very blessed to have you at the helm. You're really doing some\n\n1197\n00:55:14.330 --> 00:55:15.460\nfantastic things.\n\n1198\n00:55:15.460 --> 00:55:22.420\nOh, thank you so much. It's been fun.\n\n1199\n00:55:22.420 --> 00:55:31.040\nWell, great. I guess I'm going to have to sneak out and go and have some of\n\n1200\n00:55:31.040 --> 00:55:31.860\nthose McDonald's\n\n1201\n00:55:31.860 --> 00:55:36.500\nfries again. But hey, it's worth it for the chance to sit down with the leader\n\n1202\n00:55:36.500 --> 00:55:37.220\nlike Chris,\n\n1203\n00:55:37.220 --> 00:55:42.490\nwho's so real and connected and positive in the way he leads. You know, I love\n\n1204\n00:55:42.490 --> 00:55:43.380\nhis phrase,\n\n1205\n00:55:43.380 --> 00:55:48.330\nit's not real if it's not in the restaurant. Boy, isn't that the truth. Leaders\n\n1206\n00:55:48.330 --> 00:55:49.620\ncan get so caught up\n\n1207\n00:55:49.620 --> 00:55:54.260\nin crafting the perfect strategy. But even the best strategy is pretty useless\n\n1208\n00:55:54.260 --> 00:55:54.900\nif your team\n\n1209\n00:55:54.900 --> 00:55:59.860\nmembers can't remember it and actually execute it. Chris knows that if you want\n\n1210\n00:55:59.860 --> 00:56:00.740\nto implement a\n\n1211\n00:56:00.740 --> 00:56:05.320\nstrategy, you've got to make it memorable. And McDonald's big strategy is\n\n1212\n00:56:05.320 --> 00:56:07.060\nsummed up with an acronym,\n\n1213\n00:56:08.020 --> 00:56:15.210\nCD, M for marketing, C for core menu, and D for digital drive-through and\n\n1214\n00:56:15.210 --> 00:56:16.580\ndelivery.\n\n1215\n00:56:16.580 --> 00:56:22.820\nMCD is also fun because it's their stock ticker abbreviation. It's so simple\n\n1216\n00:56:22.820 --> 00:56:23.620\nand is something\n\n1217\n00:56:23.620 --> 00:56:28.900\nevery local franchisee and team member in the restaurant can grasp and act on.\n\n1218\n00:56:28.900 --> 00:56:30.260\nAnd look,\n\n1219\n00:56:30.260 --> 00:56:34.340\nif you can get people understanding what you want to do and why, well, you're\n\n1220\n00:56:34.340 --> 00:56:35.380\nhalfway to actually\n\n1221\n00:56:35.380 --> 00:56:40.020\ngetting it done. I want you to think of a big strategy you've got in the works.\n\n1222\n00:56:40.020 --> 00:56:45.990\nNow, I asked yourself, how can you simplify it so it's easy to communicate? How\n\n1223\n00:56:45.990 --> 00:56:46.820\ncan you make it\n\n1224\n00:56:46.820 --> 00:56:50.960\neven more memorable? Devote some thinking to it this week and I guarantee you\n\n1225\n00:56:50.960 --> 00:56:51.620\n'll see your\n\n1226\n00:56:51.620 --> 00:56:56.310\nstrategies take root in your business. So do you want to know how leaders lead?\n\n1227\n00:56:56.310 --> 00:56:56.740\nWhat we learned\n\n1228\n00:56:56.740 --> 00:57:02.070\ntoday is that great leaders make their key strategies memorable. Coming up next\n\n1229\n00:57:02.070 --> 00:57:03.460\non how leaders lead\n\n1230\n00:57:03.460 --> 00:57:10.100\nis Carol Tomay, CEO of UPS. If you've got a culture where you put people first,\n\n1231\n00:57:10.100 --> 00:57:14.830\nyou're serving them, right? Leaders second, people first. It makes a huge big\n\n1232\n00:57:14.830 --> 00:57:15.380\ndifference on the\n\n1233\n00:57:15.380 --> 00:57:20.030\ncustomer experience and the financial results. So be sure to come back again\n\n1234\n00:57:20.030 --> 00:57:21.060\nnext week to hear\n\n1235\n00:57:21.060 --> 00:57:25.520\nour entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How\n\n1236\n00:57:25.520 --> 00:57:26.660\nLeaders Lead, where\n\n1237\n00:57:26.660 --> 00:57:30.510\nevery Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best\n\n1238\n00:57:30.510 --> 00:57:31.860\nleaders in the world.\n\n1239\n00:57:31.860 --> 00:57:36.260\nI make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can\n\n1240\n00:57:36.260 --> 00:57:37.700\napply to your business\n\n1241\n00:57:37.700 --> 00:57:40.500\nso that you will become the best leader you can be.\n\n1242\n00:57:40.500 --> 00:57:50.500\n[BLANK_AUDIO]\n\n1243\n00:57:50.500 --> 00:58:14.500\n[ Silence ]","

David Novak 0:04

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple, you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Okay, before we go too far, I got to make a little confession. Back when I was the CEO of yum brands, my team and I would do what we called McDonald immersion days, we just went into McDonald's restaurants for the whole day and observed all the smart things that they were doing. Then we'd figure out how we could make those smart ideas work at KFC, Taco Bell, or pizza. And that's just how much we admired McDonald's. These days, McDonald's is still at the top of their game. And I'm honored to have McDonald's President CEO, Chris Kim Schinsky. Joining me today, as you'll hear in this conversation, Chris really understands what's happening in the real world. He's not the kind of guy who's just locked away in an office lost in data and paperwork and big picture strategies. In fact, he believes that your strategies really don't count for much, unless they're actually showing up in the day to day operations of your business. And when you listen to this conversation, you will learn a lot about how to take a smart strategy, and then actually make it memorable and easy for everyone to implement. So here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Chris Kaczynski.

So Chris, I understand both you and your wife went to Duke. And I've seen in your office, you actually have a bobble head of Coach K. I got to ask if you ever bet Coach K? And if so what have you learned about leadership just watching him in action?

Chris Kempczinski 1:54

Yeah, well, Coach K, as you know, is an icon. You can't go to Duke, certainly during my era, without knowing Coach K. And I was fortunate when I was there, and that we went to the Final Four every year, we won the national championship my senior year. So Coach Kay is someone I've always had a ton of respect for. And it's about how he leads. And he's a leader that always talks about being honest with his players, and that his job is about how to make his players better. But He does it through honesty and through feedback. The other thing that I always thought was a great way about Coach K is that He adjusted his coaching style to his players. So as opposed to a coach who says this is the way I do it, and the player has to conform to me, Coach Kay, had an opposite approach, which is, it's my job to figure out what works for that player and is the coach have to adjust my style. So he's somebody that I've admired and respected. And it was only until maybe a couple of years ago that I actually was able to meet with him. He had his own interview as a radio show on Sirius XM. And he asked me if I would participate in his Sirius XM radio show, which was a huge treat for me, and really cool to just share some of what I was doing, but also get his advice on stuff. And yes, I have the Coach K bobblehead, in my office, and I've read the Coach K books, and I use Coach K quotes and anecdotes with my team, and they're all thoroughly sick of hearing about Coach gay.

David Novak 3:22

You know, I've heard that McDonald's goes through 3 billion pounds of potatoes a year, which is enough fries to make 22 round trips to the moon, if it was laid into Ed. Now, how many pounds of fries? Do you think you are responsible for eating this past year?

Chris Kempczinski 3:38

Boy, I certainly eat a fair share of I'll tell you that I eat our french fries almost every single day. They're that good. What that adds up into pounds. I don't know probably more than I'd like it to though. And it's a constant battle. As you know, when you're in these jobs. One of the occupational hazards is you're constantly surrounded by great tasting food. And so I have to also balance it with a pretty regular exercise routine. So I can keep eating those French fries all the time.

David Novak 4:04

Yeah, well, you and I have that in common. You know, on a serious note, I know that you go to McDonald's at least five times a week. What's a store visit look like for you when you go into the store? What do you try to accomplish?

Chris Kempczinski 4:16

I think there's a few different things that I'm trying to do. One is to try to just make sure that what we're talking about, from a strategy standpoint, how is that actually translating into the restaurant? And is there a good connection between what we are hoping and trying to get accomplished at a strategic level at the headquarters? Is that actually what's happening in the restaurant, we have an expression that we use here all the time, which is it's not real if it's not in the restaurants. And so when you're out in the restaurants, you're actually trying to see what's happening in reality versus maybe what somebody's showing you on a PowerPoint when you're sitting back in the headquarters. So that's one thing that I'm certainly trying to do. I think a second thing is to just bring some energy to the team there and some appreciation these are I'm challenging jobs. And anytime that I can show up at a restaurant, I want it to be a celebration, I want it to be something that's positive. When I'm going in, I think a lot of times there's this perception of I'm going in to inspect I'm going in to find problems or see if what's not working. And it's actually the opposite. I'm going in to find examples of things that are going great. So that I can put a spotlight on where people are really doing great work and have that be something that inspires and goes through the rest of the system. Because those, I find are much more motivational to focus on the good stuff, as opposed to kind of just nitpicking and saying, Well, this could be better, this could be better. There are other people that will do that in the organization. So that's a second thing bringing energy. And then the third is I'm going in and listening for ideas. And the people that are in our restaurant, whether they're the customers, whether they're our franchisees, the crew people, they're the source of so many great ideas. And so to hear from them, what are the problems? What are the opportunities, and as you do enough of these things, you start to get some pattern recognition, and then bring those back and get some people here at the headquarters or maybe in some of our markets to figure out how do we actually bring some of those ideas to life.

David Novak 6:12

All make sense to me, you know, you've been CEO of McDonald's since November of 2019. Describe the business you took over and the status of the business today.

Chris Kempczinski 6:23

Yeah, it was a business that was performing well, we had had several years of good performance. But we were just in the beginning stages of what I would describe as sort of the digitization of our business. This was a business that was largely either came to the drive thru, you walked in the lobby, and you did an order at the counter, or maybe you went sat in maybe did takeaway, but it was a business that was largely what I would describe as an analog business. And we were in the very early stages of bringing digital in with a global mobile app for us starting to do delivery. And then what happened through the pandemic is the pandemic, just turbocharged the delivery side of our business. Now, over a third of our transactions are what we would describe as a digital transaction happening either on an app maybe happening through an Uber Eats or DoorDash, or happening on one of our kiosks that we have in the lobby. So we're now we have a very different sort of relationship with the customer where in the past, the customer was almost always going to be interfacing with the crew person who is going to be taking their order. And now you have a third of your orders where there's a different interaction, you don't have a crew person who's smiling and having that good back and forth with the customer. It's happening in a in a digital context. So we've had to think a little bit about how do we continue to make sure that we're able to provide as distinctive and experience when you don't have that personal element to it. And that's been one thing that we've thought about. The second thing for us that we have seen as a big change in this is we have tried to just dramatically simplify our business. And we had over time, I think allowed for a lot of complexity to creep into the business menu as an example where we got much more complicated on menu COVID. And the pandemic required us to flush out a lot of that complexity out and we saw significant benefits from that from both a crew satisfaction standpoint, customer satisfaction. So that's another thing where we are much more focused on just about core menu and driving our core menu as opposed to doing limited time only or we call them LT O's doing all sorts of one off things we're focused on driving our core brands are Big Macs or MC flurries are chicken nuggets, because we think there's a ton of growth in those. And then I'd say the last thing is just the business is different around the employee expectations, I think through the pandemic, and also what's going on more broadly in society, there's just a different expectation about the role of the company, the role of purpose in why a employee chooses to work a particular place, and having that be much more front and center and talking about it in a much more overt way is a different part of the company as well. So it's an exciting time to be at McDonald's. But it's one where for 65 years, we were defined by bricks and mortar. And now increasingly, we're defined by a digital experience. And we're all learning kind of through the process of how to make that change. How have

David Novak 9:23

you had to adapt to that yourself as a leader? How have you gotten yourself up to speed on the whole digital revolution?

Chris Kempczinski 9:30

I don't think I'm ever going to be at a place where I am a technology expert. What I always try to keep going back to and what I do think my training allows me to do is to focus on what's the consumer problem that we're trying to solve. And one thing I've seen that can happen with technology is a lot of times organizations can get excited a captivated about a technology for technology's sake, and lose sight of is there actually a consumer problem that we're trying to solve here? Are we just Coming up with a new technology because we can, because a few people in the organization, get excited about it and think it's neat. So that's what I tried to do is almost being as ignorant as I am about some of this technology and everything that goes on, in a way as an asset for me, because I can ask the questions that a customer would be asking, and then testing, is my team able to do that? So I ended up, I'm just asking a lot of questions. And then I think the other thing that I tried to do, and this gets back to what we were talking about earlier, is, let's see how it actually works in the restaurant. And so we've had to get much more adept at faster cycle times where we still like to think of ourselves as being a relatively innovative company. But we've had to take that up to x, and how do we test and learn much more quickly, and whether it's at an individual restaurant, or maybe we'll take, you know, a region that will do this, but we've had to get a lot faster of Okay, let's go put this up on the app, let's go see how customers respond to it. And then let's change it tomorrow, or let's change it a week from now. And just getting in that mindset of rapidly innovating has been another thing that I've had myself to get comfortable with, but also get the organization thinking about,

David Novak 11:14

you know, before taking over as CEO, you are the president of McDonald's, USA, you're leading close to 15,000 stores in the United States. That's a huge job. But what's something about becoming CEO that took you by surprise,

Chris Kempczinski 11:29

there's a lot of things that take you by surprise, I think this job as CEO is about as different a job as any other job I've had, when you're going up through kind of the ranks of an organization like a McDonald's, going from running a region to then going and running a larger territory to then going and running a market, those jobs aren't that different, your scope is just getting a little bit bigger, you're managing more people, there's another zero or two on the end of your p&l statement. But the job is pretty similar. And then you go and you become CEO. And I would say my job went from being probably 90%, internally focused and 10%, externally focused, to now probably being about 5050 50% of my time is internally focused, but 50% of my time is externally focused, and whether that's interfacing with investors, media, NGOs, you name it, that's been one thing that I've had to sort of get comfortable with, because honestly, I the part of the job I loved was the day to day being in the restaurants, waking up every morning and seeing what the comp sales report was. And it's just it's a different cadence, a different set of activities. So that's been one big change. I think the second thing for me is in some of the jobs below the CEO, you kind of take culture for granted. And the culture is just there. It's sort of around you. And so your job is operating within the culture. When you become CEO, the CEO, sets the culture, if the CEO is not setting the culture, nobody else is going to set the culture. And so I've had to spend a lot more time just thinking about what do I want the culture of McDonald's to be? What parts of the culture that we've historically had? Do we want to celebrate and raise up? And maybe what parts of the culture do we need to change? And that's been just another fun thing to think about is culture and values and how we make that something special and unique to McDonald's.

David Novak 13:31

What are you trying to bring to the company that's new on the cultural front?

Chris Kempczinski 13:35

I'd say there's a few things for us. One is certainly around risk appetite. And McDonald's is an organization where we would love to test things and part of the strength of the company has been, we will test and test and test and refine and refine and refine until we get it perfectly right. And you see that operationally in our restaurants where we just love to get into the details. But that approach that culture doesn't work in this much more digital like I was describing earlier, rapid innovation environment. And when you are rapidly innovating, there is more risk attached to that. So how do I get the organization more comfortable with risk? That's been one area that I've spent some time and it's a process it's going to take several years, but that's something I think the second thing for me is one of the benefits of McDonald's is we have 40,000 restaurants and close to 120 some odd countries. We have a lot of reinventing the wheel that happens all across the globe, where even though our business is very similar, we're selling burgers and french fries, pretty much in every market where we operate, we had a tendency to always want if you are running a country, I've got to come up with my own solution. And we celebrated the innovators who were coming up with their own local solution. What we didn't celebrate were the people who were able to shamelessly steal from others. So how Do I get this organization to actually see it as a good thing to see it as a strength of I don't need to come up with a solution, most likely the solution already exists somewhere in McDonald's around the world. My job as a leader is first to go see who else has already encountered this? And have they come up with the answer, and bring that back and be celebrated for that versus feeling like I have to come up with a unique answer that only I can see. And nobody else is doing. Those are been two areas that I'm trying to get the culture to just adapt or evolve a little bit.

David Novak 15:32

That makes sense, it's really tough to get people to wipe out not admit it here and take somebody else's ideas. But if you celebrate that, you know, more and more people do it, because that's the way you drive behavior change.

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Your you started in your your role, unexpectedly with your predecessor being let go for, you know, conduct reasons. And you were named CEO almost immediately after and what was the biggest challenge coming in to a job in such a surprising fashion. I mean, you're, you're I'm sure you were loving your job as CEO of the US business. And here you are. Now, that's pretty joined to have that change. Oh, it

Chris Kempczinski 16:55

was huge. And I never expected to be CEO of McDonald's. And when I came to McDonald's, I came here, I was recruited by Steve, my predecessor, and Steve was only a year older than me. So I came here, never expecting to be CEO, but excited about being part of this great company and excited about the industry. And what I thought was possible here and being perfectly happy to do that for the rest of my career, but not as the CEO, but as somebody who's on the supporting cast. And then as you said, you know, I got a call on the weekend, telling me about to change and asking me to be the CEO. And it was quite a shock, I needed to remind the company about the importance of values and actually highlight that the reason I was here in this job is because of how seriously we take our values at our company. So no matter whether you're the fry cook, or whether the or the CEO, we're all held to the same standard. And that people through this change could actually take some comfort from the fact that there aren't different types of standards, we're all held to the same set of standards about McDonald's. And I tried to turn it into a celebration of our values. Ray Kroc, when he founded this company, Ray and had a partner, Fred Turner, they had a very, very clear sense of what they wanted McDonald's to stand for. They wanted it to stand for our people and our customers, they wanted it to be an inclusive company, they wanted it to be one that was very much focused on the community about working together to get better. Those are great values for us to build on. And there was also a strong sense of ethics with Ray. And so I just, I took the circumstances of me coming into the role, as let's celebrate the values and see this as why we're such a great company, as opposed to, hey, this is something we should be embarrassed about, or that somehow suggests that there's a problem at the company. No, actually, the company is working just fine.

David Novak 18:52

Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And there are a lot of listeners, I'm sure that have just been given a leadership opportunity. And, and I'd love to have you walk through your process for how you put together your initial strategy, how you arrived at the key tenants, how long it took you to create it, those kinds of things. I mean, just so you know, I'm sure there was a strategy in place, but you're the new sheriff in town, you know, how did you begin to put your stamp on where you wanted to take the company?

Chris Kempczinski 19:21

I do think that first thing a lot of times when you put new leaders into jobs, they almost feel like well, I'm required to come up with a new strategy. And I think that can be a mistake in a lot of cases, because the strategy should change because the business situation requires a change. It shouldn't be a new change in strategy just because you got a new person sitting in the seat. And when I came in, I very much actually said the strategy is completely unchanged. So when I first came in, I said there is no change in the strategy. We are continuing to execute against the strategy that we had. And then we had this little thing called COVID that happened that upended our world completely. And it was Only through that, that I then said, Okay, I think the changes that have happened as a result of COVID. And some other things with the business, those are fundamental enough that the strategy that we had probably doesn't make sense for what the future holds for us. And so I then tried to make sure that our strategy is always grounded in the consumer. And we did a lot of consumer research to understand how they were thinking about what the role of McDonald's would be in a world where maybe they were not going in and sitting in a restaurant as much, or in a world where there was more uncertainty. And through a lot of research, and as you know, David, there's statistical tools, and you get insights teams and everybody else that can give you all sorts of information. But I brought together a group of our leaders and we started to look at all this information. And it got us to the strategy that we have now, which we call accelerating the arches. And the strategy has three primary tenets or pillars. The first is that we thought we have one of the world's great brands in McDonald's, but that we have not sufficiently fed and nurtured that brand, and that there was a lot of upside if we could tap into the cultural relevance of our brand. And so we made brand, one of the features there, and I would tell you that it was relevant in the context of COVID, because part of what we were seeing in the data is when there's uncertainty, people start to want to gravitate to what's known. And so having a brand like McDonald's that's trusted, served us very well in COVID. And in times of uncertainty leaning into a brand like that is powerful. So that was one. The second is I touched on this earlier, but core menu, we thought we had a great core menu with our Big Macs or quarter pounders or french fries, or mufflers or chicken nuggets, we didn't need to be doing all of these peripheral products. On top of that, what we did, and a lot of the research showed this is that we were able to meet most of our core customers needs just with our core product, the only reason to add product is if there are needs out there that you're currently not meeting we didn't have those knees that were weren't meeting. So we the second part of the strategy was core menu word see of our strategy. And then the last thing is what we described as the three Ds and the 3ds. For us, we're Digital Drive thru and delivery. And what we were observing was that consumer interest in those channels was significantly elevated, again, COVID as a big part of it. But we also expected that consumer interest in those channels was going to stay elevated for the foreseeable future, we thought this business has now sort of fundamentally changed, there will always be a dine in component to it. But being great at drive through digital and delivery, if we can be great at those things, that offers a lot of opportunity. So that sort of was the basis for our strategy. And part of being able to come up with a strategy is you also have to be able to explain it to the organization. Everybody on the in the organization needs to know what the strategy is if the CEO and the senior team are the only people that know what the strategy is kind of as useless. So we came up with this moniker of MCD marketing core menu three days, which by the way, is the McDonald stock ticker MCD. And we said that our strategy guys accelerating the arches about marketing core menu three days, that's what we need to be doing day in and day out. And fortunately for us, it's been working. And it's also been something that whether you go into the C suite, or whether you go down and talk to the local franchisee, everybody can play back that strategy, which is a big part of leadership, getting everybody on board with which direction are trying to go,

David Novak 23:37

yeah, if you can get everybody understanding what you want to do and why you're more than halfway there. So congratulations on that. That's fantastic. You know, I also love Chris, how you celebrate the past of McDonald's as you're taking the company forward. Understand, one of the guiding principles of McDonald's came from your founder who you mentioned Ray Kroc, he said, if you're not green and growing, your red and rotten, tell me a story of how you might have put this principle into action in the company.

Chris Kempczinski 24:07

Well, Ray's got a whole sort of book of fantastic quotes. And anytime I'm looking for inspiration, we have an archivist here at McDonald's, who has every speech every interview of Senator Ray ever did. And there's some real nuggets in there some real jewels. So it's a great source of inspiration when you're looking for a way to tap back into the genius of Ray Kroc. But that's a great one that you highlighted there. And where I use it a lot of times is about this need for us to be a more risk taking organization. And one of the challenges that you have when you become a brand or a company like McDonald's and you're in a leadership position, is it can create a false sense of complacency or a false sense of comfort that we're the leader now we're preordained to be the leader forever. And as you well know, in fact, it's a constant It's a moving bar. And if you're not green and growing, you are red and rotten. And so I've used that time and again, where the organization will ask about things. For example, we did a big remodel program in the US several years ago. And there were questions about, well, why do we need to remodel right now. And by the way, a big part of what we were doing is we were getting ready for a digital future. So we were putting in chaos. In all of our restaurants, we were putting in digital menu boards, into all of our drive throughs, we were putting perimeters or geo fencing around all of our restaurants so that if someone came across the geofence, with an app, that we would actually know that someone now was on property. So we had to do all of those investments. And those all the work, by the way, all happened before COVID. But there was pushback, as you would imagine, because those things cost a lot of money. And they cause a lot of disruption and sort of why do we need to do this? And it's because of what we saw where the consumer was going. And lo and behold, thank God we did, because those things ended up being game changers for us when we went through COVID. So it's a lot around innovation, that I dust off those Ray Kroc quotes, and they still carry resonance today.

David Novak 26:09

That's great. I love you have an archive. As you know, Chris, you're known for being one of the best marketing minds in the business and you are a true consumer behaviorists? Do you really understand the customer? What tips can you give people on on how to make sure you you can really understand your customers? Well,

Chris Kempczinski 26:27

one thing that I try to make sure is you'll certainly hear anecdotes on stuff. And there's sometimes a tendency to dismiss the anecdote and to dismiss the one off story. But I oftentimes will say, and remind our teams, the plural of anecdotes is data, meaning that you add enough of those anecdotes to gather. And lo and behold, you start to have data that's suggesting a particular way to go. And so when I'm out there in the market, it's trying to make sure that I'm finding time to connect with the customer to actually hear what's on their mind. So that then when I start to get the data, because in these jobs, you're inundated with data, you're getting new reports, new studies, new whatever, all the time. But you got to be able to have your own internal antenna to sort of compare what you're getting on a piece of paper to does that resonate with what I'm actually hearing from the customer? Does that make sense? And a lot of times it does, but there are some times that it doesn't. So how do you refine that your own internal antenna, that would be one thing I would encourage every marketer to do and that only comes through talking to customers and being out in the market, you're not going to be able to develop that antenna by sitting in your office. So that would be one thing to do. The second thing that I like to do is I'm just a voracious learner, and someone who studies what other people are doing out there. And I love to whether it's going on to websites like Ad Age, or there's a magazine called contagious, see what are other campaigns or other ideas that people are doing. But also just comparing notes and talking to leaders at other companies to just hear their insights, see what they're coming up with. I find a lot of times I get great ideas just by listening to what other people are seeing and some of the things that I might then bring back to the team and say, Hey, I was talking to so and so. And they said this, have we thought about that. And sometimes those ideas don't make sense for us. But a lot of times they do. And then I think the last thing for me is you do have to be willing to take a position on things and what I talk a lot of times about with our ad agencies, but also with our internal marketing teams, for advertising or for marketing to be impactful to break through there has to be a tension. You have to be pushing up against something where it creates interest for people if you're just doing call it slice of life advertising, which is people that are happy sitting in a McDonald's Oh, isn't this food? Great? Well, where's the tension in that? So inherently, when you start to take positions on things, and one of the things that we did several years ago, was we said, as opposed to trying to go after the consumers that don't like McDonald's will tell you all the reasons why they don't think McDonald's is a good place to go eat, we're going to actually lean into the brand lovers. And that was a lot of what was the genesis behind our famous orders campaign, where we found celebrities who loved McDonald's. And we're actually proud to talk about what their favorite order is. And that was leaning into this tension, which is in a time where maybe people are saying, hey, this isn't a place to go eat, that you have people out there who are actually saying, Hey, I love McDonald's. And let me tell you why I love them. So it's finding all those sorts of things and also just being surrounded by great people because I've never written one ad. I've never done a marketing campaign. I just approve stuff or reject stuff. And so you got to have a great team around you as well to bring it to life. You're right about that.

David Novak 29:56

And you talk about meeting consumers where they are are, what do you mean by that?

Chris Kempczinski 30:02

Sometimes we will try to run our restaurants for what works for us, as opposed to what works for the customer. And I talked about with our teams and franchisees, for many years, we ran our restaurants from the back of the house to the front of the house, meaning what works for kitchen operations, what works for our staffing model, and then lo and behold, customer, here you go. And this is how you need it interface with us, as opposed to what I would describe as working from the front of the house, to the back of the house, where we start with how does the customer want to interface with us. And then we've got to figure out on the back end, how we do all of that. So as an example, one of the areas that is a challenge for us is all the customization that happens around food and beverage items. And every time that you are doing customization, it adds complexity to the back of the house. And so a traditional approach would be to say, I'm going to try to limit all the ways that a customer could do customization because it doesn't work for us. And the reality is in this day and age, today's consumer Gen Z consumer, they want to customize everything. And so in our app in our kiosk, we provide them with an ease to be able to customize their product, whether it's I want an extra pickles, I want triple whole milk, I want caramel, whatever, we need to make it easy for the customer to be able to adjust their product to be what they want it to be as opposed to what we'd want it to be. And that for us has been a mindset shift. Because again, it is more complicated and challenging for us to do. But that's the customer expectations. That'd be just an example of meeting the customer where they are, versus starting with what we want.

David Novak 31:45

That's a good one. And you know, I read that every day McDonald's feeds 1% of the world's population. When you hear a statistic like that, Chris, what comes to mind,

Chris Kempczinski 31:56

love to get it to 2%?

David Novak 31:59

Well, along those lines, the company's mission is to feed and foster communities. And talk to me about the larger why of the organization. And why it's the way it is that people show up to serve your customers each and every day.

Chris Kempczinski 32:13

It goes back to a little bit of this changing relationship between a company and the people that work in the company. Back when I started my career 30 some odd years ago, there wasn't a whole lot of discussion about sort of purpose. And I started my career at Procter and Gamble, there wasn't a lot of discussion about what's the purpose of Procter and Gamble, it was about, frankly, just selling more product. And I think a good thing that has happened over time, is a greater appreciation for the fact that companies big companies like McDonald's, or a Procter and Gamble, or Yum, brands, etc, that we do have a lot of influence in society we have influenced not just through the people that we hire, but through the platform that our company is able to occupy through our relationships with policymakers, etc. And so how do we want to use that influence? What are we trying to do beyond just selling more product? And by the way, it's what our employees are asking for us. They can pick and choose where they're going to go work, the best ones can pick and choose, and you're seeing, particularly with this generation, much more concern and interest with, how am I going to be impacting the world by working at McDonald's versus if I go and work somewhere else? Because I have that choice today. And we've had to get much sharper about being able to articulate so why McDonald's? Why should you make this place a career? Why should you be excited about coming into work every day, and sometimes spending weekends and sacrificing family time and all the other things that you have to occasionally do to support this business and it goes back to what was the Ray Kroc kind of founding vision. And that's what we were talking earlier, Ray is the is the constant fountain of inspiration on these things. The whole idea that Ray had when he started this company was about being a brand that's of the community. And the whole reason that Ray wanted these restaurants to be in the hands of franchisees is because he had the view, which is for this company to be successful. It's not going to happen by having this business managed out of headquarters in Chicago, it's going to be about having a franchisee, who's in that restaurant every day, who's also part of the community who's serving their neighbors day in and day out at customers. That's going to be where the brand gets its residents and gets its cultural value. And so that whole business was built up around that notion of being in the community and we talk about our restaurants as not just being 40,000 restaurant, but they're 40,000 community centers, which is where people bring little league teams, which is where people get married, which is where people go on dates. And so that's the value that McDonald's that's our purpose of feeding and fostering community. It's everybody has this drawn connection at the community level. And it McDonald's can be a part of that. It's a tremendous power from all of that. So that is sort of been the history for us. And it felt very natural. That's the other thing when you're doing these purpose and values. If you have to explain it to somebody, you probably have it wrong. And as soon as we started talking to people about our purpose being the feed and foster community, we didn't even have to explain it because it was like, Well, of course, that's what we do every day. But we now had a language to be able to attach to it. And then everybody just went about kind of what they've already been doing with a better understanding of how it all connects together.

David Novak 35:42

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Chris in just a moment, as you've just heard us talk about, Chris is very good at making sure his strategy is clear and repeatable, so others can understand it, and then go to work implementing it. It reminds me of the big strategic shift that Larry mirlo made at CVS when he was CEO, and how he used a simple, compelling vision to do it. We were

Larry Merlo 36:06

in Long Island, and walked into the store with the region manager. And I had observed one of our colleagues that was helping an elderly customer taking bags off to her car, our employee comes back and I introduced myself and I said, I observed what you were doing, and thank them and, and the employee said to me, Well, it's my way of helping people on their path to better health. This was someone who wasn't working in the pharmacy, they were working in what we call the front of store, and they were able to internalize what those words meant as to the job that they were doing every day. And there are countless examples out there like that, where people have internalized that in in very meaningful ways.

David Novak 36:51

Go back and listen to my entire conversation with Larry, Episode 18 here on how leaders lead.

You know, McDonald's is famous for its Hamburger University and training his people in the basics of the business. But you also have what I understand the speedy Labs, which is the name of your innovation center. And you spent a couple of years in the innovation part of your business before you became CEO. What does a winning innovation strategy looked like from your perspective?

Chris Kempczinski 37:26

Well, speedy labs takes its genesis from the McDonald's brothers and the McDonald's brothers production system in their first restaurant in California was called the speedy production system. And so when Ray Kroc visited their restaurant, he was so impressed by the production system that these guys had devised to be able to serve the number of burgers that they did in the time that they did with speed of service. That that was why Ray ultimately bought the business from them. And then the rest is history. But we've taken speedy, which is we'd like to describe it as the first innovation, that McDonald's really what made McDonald's what it is. And we've got a whole group now that works in there. And it's all about solving problems, either customer problems, or solving crew problems. And so we get all sorts of different opportunities or issues for the speedy labs team to go work on. And they will then pick and choose and we've got a whole prioritization process, as you would imagine, which is what what are the problems that are affecting the most people and then if we could fix them would have the biggest impact. And those are the ones that we get our speedy teams focused on?

David Novak 38:34

You know, I've heard you say, whatever is happening in society, good or bad, you can be sure it's happening at McDonald's. Yeah. When you're in a crisis mode, when the things go, you know, when it hits the fan, and it's not what you really want to have happen at McDonald's. What are the things that you try to keep top of mind as a leader?

Chris Kempczinski 38:54

Well, I think one thing is when things go wrong, I think people need to hear from the leader. So to me, it's much more important that a leader steps forward when things are going wrong, then when things are going right when things are going right. You want the other people on your team to be the ones that are stepping forward and celebrating them which when things are going wrong, that I think that that's when people need to hear first from the leader, and then you might bring other people in. And so for me when there are things that happen in our restaurants that either we're not proud of mistakes can get made. Sometimes things don't happen as we want. It depends obviously on the magnitude, but certainly if it's of sufficient magnitude, people need to hear from me on those topics. And because what happens in the world happens in McDonald's. What I also remind our teams about all the time is, you're probably not the first one who's gone through whatever that situation is. Most likely there's somebody else in the world who has already encountered exactly what you're experiencing in your restaurant. It's probably already happened somewhere else. So how do I help connect you with whoever's had that experience so that you can learn from them, and then kind of move on from that. So that's the other thing for me is, how do we get into connecting people to the right resources? Because the more that we can support each other, and learn from what's already happened, the better off we're going to be.

David Novak 40:17

You know, shifting gears for a minute, I want to take you back, you know, what's a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today?

Chris Kempczinski 40:24

Well, my dad growing up, was a surgeon, and my dad was a real stickler for detail. And I will give you an example, which is I had to mow the yard every weekend growing up, but it wasn't just mow the yard, my dad had a particular way that he liked the yard mowed, because he liked to see a certain pattern, a checkerboard pattern in the yard. And if I didn't do the mowing of the yard and the particular right way, then I would have to go out and redo the yard. So I grew up kind of in that environment, where my father always had this expression, if you're going to do a job do it right. I've heard that before. Chris. Yeah, we all have. But I think what it has driven me as a leader to do is to be able to make sure that we continue to set the bar high. And it doesn't mean that we're always going to hit the bar. In many cases, maybe we're not going to hit the bar. And if we're hitting it all the time, the bar is probably not high enough. But to set the bar high to set the expectations high. Because another expression that I use all the time is you are what you settle for. If you settle for being mediocre, if you settle for good enough, then that's what you're gonna end up being but if you set the bar for I want to be great. And I want this company to be great. And that's what you're having everybody's expectations, then chances are you're you've got a much better chance of being great. So that's been one leadership lesson for me. I didn't appreciate it at the time when I was out there mowing the yard. But sometimes dad is right about things. And that one ended up being one that was right.

David Novak 41:56

I learned in my research that your dad was wheelchair bound. How has that influenced the decisions you're making today as CEO,

Chris Kempczinski 42:03

my dad actually growing up, he didn't get injured until he was 54. So actually, at the age, I am right now and my father happened to be swimming in Hawaii. And a wave took him and flipped him. And he broke his neck on the bottom of the ocean in Maui. And it rendered him quadriplegic. And he was quadriplegic for 23 years, he passed away in 2017. But it was pretty remarkable to see my father, who had lived this incredible life up to age 54. And by the way, part of the patient population that he treated as a doctor were people who were quadriplegic. And then all of a sudden, my father is now himself quadriplegic, and you learn so much about one how luck is such a big component of life. And I think in just telling my story, that's an example of bad luck. But I've also had a lot of good luck in my life as well. And to just appreciate the role that luck can play in life, both good and bad luck. That's been one thing. I think another thing for me is to just see how, at the end of the day, my father was very focused on his career growing up, and he had a lot of success in his career. But once you stripped away the career part of his life, and it was about people, and you very quickly, he very quickly saw in his own life, who were people that were in his life because of who he was as a person, and who were people that were in his life because of maybe what he could do for them. I think that was also something that stuck with me, which is we're all in these jobs, for brief periods of time. But there are going to be people that are going to be with it with us in the long haul. And to make sure that no matter what the job is that you're making time for those people, because they're the ones that ultimately give you happiness, these jobs can be very time consuming, and you can become all consumed with whatever you're doing. To do that at the detriment of those relationships is a big mistake. And then my father's experience showed me that and so I'm a mindful of that when I sometimes can get caught up in my own hype on stuff here at McDonald's. This is a CEO that this is a moment in time and ultimately I need to make sure that I've got those relationships because ultimately that's going to be what matters. There's a lot

David Novak 44:24

of wisdom in what you what you just shared. And thanks for sharing it. You know, as a global CEO, I know you're doing a lot of travel, I did a lot of travel by myself, you know, what's a story about one of your recent trips that really excited you and the big learning you got from it.

Chris Kempczinski 44:42

You do do a lot of travel in these jobs. And I was in Scandinavia. So we went to Denmark and Sweden and visited a bunch of markets there. And something that I saw from our franchisees, which I just I left they're so excited about is they have come up with a completely different way for us to think about the construction process of how we build new restaurants. And you would think after building 40,000 restaurants, that we would kind of have the construction part of building a restaurant down to a science and in many places that we do. But these guys had figured out a way to take about 30% of the cost out of construction without having any impact on the customer experience any impact on quality, visual, etc. And to just think about the opportunities that we still have in this business. Here we are 65 years later, 40,000 some odd restaurants later, and someone comes along. And by looking at a process in a completely different way, figure out how to build that same box for 30%, less than what we've been doing for years and years, you just walk away from that scratching your head saying there's so much more we can do here,

David Novak 45:56

there always is that unfinished business that gets us really turned on? There's no question about that. How do you take an idea like that, and then transfer it around the world,

Chris Kempczinski 46:05

it starts with celebrating the success. And that goes a little bit back to what we were talking about earlier. But I like to describe it sometimes as positive shaming. So as opposed to pointing out the things that aren't working so well, you take the things that are working great. And you make those people heroes, and what happens in the room when you're bringing up John or Sally or pick whatever the name is, and you're talking about all the great stuff that they did. Everybody in the audience there is listening, and they're excited for John or Sally or Sue. But they're also kind of in the back of their mind thinking, I kind of would like to be up there. And they're not talking about me that way. And, and it starts to get the wheels spinning a little bit of I kind of would like to get some of that recognition. And so then they go back and they start to say, Well, hey, you know, we need to go do something like this. So there's power in celebrating success, both because of the receiver of the praise. They love to be praised. But also the all the other people that are hearing it are kind of also thinking, well, I want some of that. So I'm going to go back and use this and I'll show you I'll come up with my own whatever that success is, which is great. I'm happy to praise everybody.

David Novak 47:13

That's great. Yeah, Chris, this has been so much fun. And now I'd like to have a little bit more with my lightning round of questions. Are you ready for this? Okay, what's one word others would use to describe you?

Chris Kempczinski 47:25

I'd like to think approachable. What's the

David Novak 47:28

one word that you think best describes you?

Chris Kempczinski 47:31

Driven?

David Novak 47:33

If you could be someone beside yourself for a day, who would it be and why?

Chris Kempczinski 47:38

I'd like to be Bano. Both because I love you too. And I think that they've got just incredible set of songs, but also just the life he's led the people he's met the things that he's been able to do. It'd be pretty cool to be bought out for a day. What's your biggest pet peeve? Excuses, and not taking ownership for stuff?

David Novak 48:01

Have you ever dressed up as Ronald McDonald's? And is that a rite of passage? No.

Chris Kempczinski 48:08

I have not dressed up as Ronald McDonald. Although I feel like by admitting that I'm now setting myself up to be dressed up like McDonald's. But no, I have not yet done that. Nor do I have that as a career aspiration, even though it probably is going to happen. Now.

David Novak 48:22

As a Duke graduate. What's the first word or phrase that comes to mind? When I say Tar Heels

Unknown Speaker 48:28

go to hell.

David Novak 48:31

Your favorite McDonald's product?

Chris Kempczinski 48:33

Quarter Pounder,

David Novak 48:35

if you turned on the radio in your car, what would we hear? You would hear

Chris Kempczinski 48:39

college rock music which is not age appropriate.

David Novak 48:45

That's the end of the lightning round. Very well done. You know, I just have a few more questions. And we'll wrap this up. You know, you run an incredible franchise business, your franchisees are key to your success. What advice can you give to people who work with franchisees or in a franchise business so that you maximize the opportunity, you

Chris Kempczinski 49:07

got to be a good listener. And it's that old adage of you got two ears and one mouth. And so you you've got to go into those relationships in a learning mode, because most likely the franchisee knows a whole lot more about what's going on on a day to day basis in their restaurant than you do. And so go in with a listing mentality. That is one, I think second is you've got to find areas of mutual alignment. And there are a whole variety of things that you can always prioritize, I try to say let's focus on the things that we agree on versus spending all of our time on the things that we disagree on. And so getting alignment with your franchisees about the things that you could actually do together and making that the centerpiece of the relationship as opposed to the relationship being predicated on just the things that you don't agree on. I think that's the second thing and then the last Is the franchisee needs to believe that you are there to make them be successful and that your success is not going to come at their expense. And so the more that you can build up that trust where the franchisee ultimately the relationship only works if there is trust.

David Novak 50:17

You know, you've worked at such great companies you mentioned Procter and Gamble as one your Boston Consulting Group, PepsiCo, Kraft, and now McDonald's. What's the single most important thing you think somebody should think about before they change jobs?

Chris Kempczinski 50:33

For me, it's always been about the people of who I was working with each one of those jobs with the exception of BCG, which I did right out of business school. But each one of those jobs I went to because there was someone there that I already knew. And there was someone there that I actually trusted, respected. And I wanted to be a part of that organization. And so, for me, it goes to how important relationships are, and relationships in my life in my career have been how I've gotten almost every single opportunity. And those relationships also take time. And I got a great piece of advice very early in my career. It was actually my first boss at p&g, who asked me he said, What's the most important brand you're going to manage here? And it being p&g I said, I don't know, crest or tide or something like that. He goes, No. He said, It's the Chris Kachinsky. Brad, that's going to be the most important brand that you're going to manage here at Procter and Gamble and in your career. So you better figure out what you stand for is the Chris Kaczynski brand. Because depending on how you position your own brand, that's going to be what determines your career success. Super, super advice, because it's what created those opportunities later, where someone said, Hey, I've got this need, you know what, maybe you should give Chris a call. And that's opened up for me so many different things in my career. So it's about relationships, and just nurturing those and making sure that you're thinking about what do you want, when people are talking about you? What do you want them to be saying about you

David Novak 52:04

speak in relationships, you know, you've met your wife at Duke, and she's your partner, how do you to interact on the business front,

Chris Kempczinski 52:12

my wife has zero interest in my business, to be honest, so when I'm at home, she's he's really not that interested in hearing about what went on at work, which is actually a refreshing thing, because I know I have to leave it at work, because he's not going to be interested in doing that. That said, incredibly supportive to me, and my wife was a pediatrician. But she ultimately had to give up her career to support me, because of just the jobs and the rotations and moving around her career ended up not being compatible with my own career and, and she's out of dedication in support of me was willing to make that trade off there. So I'm, I'm hugely appreciative of my wife, I wouldn't be where I am, without all the support that she's given me throughout my career. But when it comes to work, she doesn't want to hear about it. She wants me to go walk the dog, or go run errands or whatever, when I get home. One thing I

David Novak 53:06

love about you is you tell it like it is you're very honest. And I find that extremely refreshing it you know, sometimes you don't want to hear it. But by gosh, you know, you speak which is on your mind. Let's wrap this up with this this last question here. What's one piece of advice you'd give to aspiring leaders,

Chris Kempczinski 53:24

find somebody who's going to tell you the truth. Because as you go up in your jobs, and you get into bigger and bigger jobs, there are fewer and fewer people that are willing to tell you the truth. And if there's people that are not going to tell you the truth, you're going to miss off and you're not going to be as successful. So I think finding ways that you're going to surround yourself with people and you're going to create the conditions for people to tell you the truth that's going to make you a better leader.

David Novak 53:51

That's great advice, Chris and I and I have to I'm gonna give you a little bit of truth telling here. You know, we talked about McDonald's french fries a little bit earlier, when I was CEO of yum brands, I would probably sneak out once a quarter and just go to McDonald's just to get those fries. They are so good. So I'm sure you you've had a lot more than me. But I have to tell you, I don't know if you've enjoyed it more than I have.

Chris Kempczinski 54:17

Thank you for sharing that it is good to know that some of our competitors out there do appreciate our product. And listen, I will not share that with any of your GM people, though. I guess since we just did it on a podcast. You've shared it with everybody.

David Novak 54:30

Well, you also should know that when I was CEO, we had McDonald's immersion day. We admired your company so much that we spent a day all around the world I had our general managers and their teams go into McDonald's for a day and then we codified all the things we thought you were doing, that we could learn from so we share that learning mentality.

Chris Kempczinski 54:51

Well, I can tell you that yes, I've spent a fair bit of time when I do my market visits and KFC is particularly given your global footprint around the world. So there There's a lot we can learn from each other.

David Novak 55:02

Well, Chris, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast. I've learned a lot just listening to you and, and I can tell you McDonald's is very blessed to have you at the helm. You're really doing some fantastic things.

Chris Kempczinski 55:15

Oh, thank you so much. It's been fun

David Novak 55:26

well, great, I guess I'm gonna have to sneak out and go and have some of those McDonald fries again. But hey, it's worth it for the chance to sit down with the leader like Chris, who's so real and connected and positive in the way he leads. You know, I love his phrase, it's not real if it's not in the restaurant, boy is that the truth, leaders can get so caught up in crafting the perfect strategy. But even the best strategy is pretty useless if your team members can't remember it and actually execute it. Chris knows that if you want to implement a strategy, you got to make it memorable. And McDonald's Big strategy is summed up with an acronym, M CD, M for marketing, C for core menu, and D for digital drive thru and delivery. MCD is also fun because it's their stock ticker abbreviation. It's so simple, and it's something every local franchisee, and team member in the restaurant can grasp and act on. And look, if you can get people understanding what you want to do and why. Well, you're halfway to actually getting it done. I want you to think of a big strategy you've got in the works. Now ask yourself, How can you simplify it? So it's easy to communicate? How can you make it even more memorable, devote some thinking to it this week, and I guarantee you'll see your strategies take root in your business. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders make their key strategies memorable. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Carol tome a CEO of UPS.

Carol Tomé 57:06

If you've got a culture where you put people first, you're serving them right leaders second people first, it makes a huge big difference on the customer experience and the financial results.

David Novak 57:18

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be

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