Grinding It Out

believe that less is more in the case of corporate management; for its size, McDonald’s today is the most unstructured corporation I know, and I don’t think you could find a happier, more secure, harder working group of executives anywhere. (View Highlight)

The Kroc Foundation supports research into diabetes, arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. All three of these diseases strike young adults and rob them of vitality in their best years. I selected them for that reason, and also because each has touched my own life destructively. I have diabetes myself. My first wife, who is now dead, suffered from it, too, and my daughter, Marilyn, died from it in 1973. Arthritis had rusted out my hip joints to the point where I couldn’t get around without a cane. (View Highlight)

“Press On: Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” (View Highlight)

The impetus for all these programs and for McDonald’s supremacy in franchising can be traced directly to Ray Kroc. As Fred Turner said in his eulogy at a memorial service for the McDonald’s founder on January 20, 1984: “Ray touched us. He had a rare capacity to bring out the best in us.