Reading Reflection No.1

The book that I read for this assignment was Ray Kroc's Grinding it out: The Making of McDonald's. I had a lot of fun reading this book because I have always been interested in McDonald's and how it became such a large chain. McDonald's has had a tight hold on the American conscience since before I was even born. It is one of those entities that is recognizable in so many different places across the globe. I have always been interested as well in McDonald's because they were able to become positive in the media after everything that happened with Super Size Me and an ever-growing belief that fast food is unhealthy. There is something to be said about a business that is not only so successful but also able to bounce back after media backlash. After a long time, many corporations end up going under but McDonald's has been able to stick around and I think that is what drew me to my choice of reading this specific novel.

What surprised me the most about Ray Kroc's story is that he got into the game rather late. He was already in his fifties when he started working on McDonald's and had made plenty of mistakes in business before he found success helping the McDonald brothers.

What I admired most about Ray Kroc was that even though he was late to the game and suffered from a lot of physical problems, he still decided to pursue his vision. I also admired that he worked extremely hard in his paper cup days; from early in the morning until he had to work at night for a radio station.

What I admired the least about Ray Kroc is that he seemed very hard-headed, and wanted things exactly his way. Some examples are the Hulaburger, wanting stock prices to be higher off the bat, and not wanting hot dogs to be added to the menu. Funny enough, the McHotDog is an item available at certain McDonald's internationally. Ray Kroc seems to think he has more wisdom than everyone else; like when he discusses the MiniMac. He is very wise but I think sometimes that ego can get in the way of good ideas that other people have come up with.

The entrepreneur encountered a lot of adversity and failure especially in his early years attempting to sell paper cups. Not a lot of people believed that they needed paper cups because normal glasses were cheaper. Even though he wanted to argue and tell people that paper cups are more hygienic and would save money in the long-run, people did not want to listen to him. However, he was able to overcome his failures in business in the beginning by being persistent and believing in his long-term plans. Paper cups may not have been successful but he had a dream for the McDonald's brothers and was able to pull it off.

The competencies that I noticed the entrepreneur exhibited was that he saw an opportunity and knew that he had to take advantage of it. He also could tell when he did not have an opportunity. This is an important skill to have because it meant he wasn't trying to sell people something they didn't want, and because of this he saved a lot of time and effort.

One part of the reading that was confusing to me was that changes to the menu caused a lot of trouble for the company. They were very concerned with the media and the larger they got the more problems they had. There were a lot of small things that became more and more difficult the larger they got. I didn't know that there would be so many moving parts in business this large and that every step along the way they would have to consider it, especially that the government would be so involved with paperwork.

If I was able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur my first question would be whether or not he is satisfied with how McDonald's is now. My second question would be if there was anything that he would do different, or if he would have played everything the same.

I think Ray Kroc's opinion of hard work was that it is entirely necessary to be happy in life. I think that this entrepreneur actually enjoyed hard work and that it was an important aspect of his life. I think without hard work, Kroc would not be satisfied as his hard work brought him a lot of happiness and satisfaction. I agree with this position and I think that if I did not have a goal or a dream to work towards I would not be satisfied, and I definitely wouldn't be satisfied if I could say that I didn't give it my all.