Roland Jones - Standing Up & Standing Out

Excerpts From "Standing Up & Standing Out"

A CRISIS AND UNEXPECTED OPPORTUNITIES

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated on April 4, 1968, setting off a wave of violence in D.C. The anger unleashed in those chaotic few days brought a major problem to a head for McDonald's corporate management. Most of their high-volume restaurants in the riot areas of Washington were then managed by whites, and it suddenly became truly dangerous for white men to enter black neighborhoods. A national tragedy had created a crisis for McDonald's in D.C.

The first corporate opening came in the fall of 1968. McDonald's decided to hire an African American as a regional field consultant in Chicago, a position somewhat similar to a supervisor's but with a constituency of store owners rather than managers. Outside of Washington, there were no black supervisors in the system and never had been. But the winds of change were picking up strength. In the inner sanctums at McDonald's corporate headquarters on LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago and in the regional headquarters in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook, white executives were making decisions that were, in the context of most of corporate America at the time, radical. If McDonald's was to move forward with its expansion into urban centers, the company needed the expertise of people who understood urban markets—racially and ethnically complex populations that were entirely unlike the homogeneous white suburbs where the company had flourished since Ray Kroc founded McDonald's System Inc. in 1955. It wasn't altruism that integrated the company. It was a hard-nosed business decision.

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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