What’s Going On?

Before accepting the offer at McDonald’s, I interviewed the top management. Among others, I spoke with members of the senior leadership team, including Matt Paull, Mats Lederhausen, Mike Roberts, Claire Brabowski, and Jim Skinner. There was amazing consistency in these conversations: The McDonald’s business model is built on increased distribution. It was the “field of dreams” approach to growth—in other words, “build it and they will come.”

They all agreed that the McDonald’s brand was in trouble. They recognized that recent growth was attributable only to the opening of new restaurants, not increased visits to restaurants. They recognized that the brand image was suffering. Everyone seemed to agree that the business model was not working anymore, but no one had outlined what specifically was wrong and what had to be done.¹⁹