Roland Jones - Standing Up & Standing Out

Excerpts From "Standing Up & Standing Out"

INTRODUCTION

This book is my story, but it is also the story of how one of America's largest and most successful corporations changed itself from the inside and for the better. I was a witness to and a participant in the change. From that dreadful day in April, 1968, my future was wedded to the McDonald's Corporation and its growth.

I didn't really think of myself as a pioneer. But like the handful of African-American men who preceded me in the company and mentored me as my job became a career, I was heading straight into uncharted territory.

The civil rights movement, personified by Dr. King, had challenged the nation's long history of moral blindness to its black citizens. A lot of progress was being made in attaining legal equality, but changing hearts and minds was another matter. The business sector lagged far behind the lawmakers—often from blatant racist (and sexist) motives but also because the traditional all-white, all-male power structure of American business wasn't convinced that it needed to do anything different. For the most part, private businesses, including the country's largest and most profitable corporations, considered themselves immune to integration, especially at the management level, where negative stereotyping of people of color and women abounded.

There were exceptions. Some far-sighted executives—including Ray Kroc, founder of the McDonald's Corporation—sensed the way the country was moving and knew that the time had come for a new kind of thinking. To continue to ignore the newly united and therefore economically significant African American market, which comprised one-tenth of the national population back then, would sooner or later be bad for business.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements		i
Foreword by R. Lee Dunham		vi
Introduction		ix
Chapter 1	Almost Everything You Need to Know	1
Chapter 2	The Business of Learning	23
Chapter 3	Mapping Out a New Course	39
Chapter 4	The Bottom Line Is Service	56
Chapter 5	Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire	80
Chapter 6	Moving Up the Ladder	105
Chapter 7	Turning New Corners	154
Chapter 8	Keeping Good Company	181
Chapter 9	Step Up, Step Back, Step Aside?	219
Chapter 10	Taking It Nationwide	249
Chapter 11	Bringing the Lessons Home	287
Chapter 12	Expansion on the Front Burner	334
Chapter 13	Still Making Waves	355
Epilogue		380

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