Reading Reflection, No. 1

1.     From reading Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s, the one thing that truly surprised me the most was how late into his life Ray Kroc exploited the opportunity of fast food chains. At fifty-two, he established his own small business when most executives at his age were reaching retirement.

As for his most admirable achievement, Kroc revolutionized the game of family dining with his Multimixer invention and business acumen. And subsequently so, he surpassed one billion dollars in total revenue in his twenty-second year of leading the McDonald’s empire. At the time, big-name companies such as IBM reached its one-billion-dollar sales mark in its forty-sixth year, and Xerox took approximately sixty-three years before they hit their mark. For the time, this achievement was widely impressive. Kroc was a self-made man, who climbed up the ladder and used his hard-work and determination to turn his lowly life of a cup salesman to one of the most successful entrepreneurs.

I think the least admirable aspect of Ray Kroc is probably one of his most admirable trademarks. The fact that he was willing to venture into a risky business and sacrifice everything for an industry he was not familiar with seems a bit naïve. But at the same time, it takes a lot of courage and grit to pursue such a mindset and he was undoubtedly successful for it.

I think the trials and tribulations Kroc faced in the beginning of his life were a bit difficult for him to conquer. He was involved in selling illegal liquor and bad real estate. Many of his career moves were unstable and he was not scholastically inclined either. He ended up overcoming these adversities by going into selling where he worked his way up and exploited on a milkshake machine invention. And from there on out, the rest was history.

2.     Kroc’s competencies behind his success  revolve around hard work, persistence, and decision-making ventures. Throughout all of Kroc’s ventures, he followed these key principles whether he was out playing piano at different bars or selling Lily Cups to restauranteurs. He continued to follow those competencies even after his growing success with the Multimixer and his McDonald’s restaurant expansion efforts.

3.     There was no specific part of the reading that was confusing. The only thing that may have been a bit confusing were some of Kroc’s life decisions or how some of his career plans panned out. He seemed very invested in the music industry, with his piano jobs and radio features. I was just curious to know why he would completely abandon those passions after he became extremely successful.

4.     The two questions that I would most likely ask Ray Kroc are the following:

a.     When times would get rough and you feel like there’s no way up, what kept you going? What made you think that everything was going to work out in the end?

b.     With your work ethic, how do you not get burnt out?

I would ask these particular questions because they seemed to be a common theme throughout his book. He talks about all the work and his journey up the ladder, but he never really dives deep into his life outside of his career. It would’ve been interesting to see how he maintained the work/life balance so many of us aspire to have in our future careers.

5.     Throughout this assignment, a recurring topic surrounding Ray Kroc is his work ethic. He was a man of true grit and determination, and nothing could stop him. He mentions the saying “all work and no play makes jack a dull boy”, where he goes about refuting this belief because he himself found work and play analogous. So evidently, he exhibited a true mark of an entrepreneur because working and following his career path was his play and he didn’t feel the need to take a break from it. I, on the other hand, am a bit different. I wholeheartedly believe in maintaining a balance between work and life, but I admire people who follow Kroc’s mantra and grow successful from it.