None of Us Is as Good as All of Us: How Mcdonald's Prospers by Embracing Inclusion and Diversity

McDonald's founder Ray Kroc's words “none of us is as good as all of us” serve as an appropriate title for a book that highlights the importance of collaboration and the significance of every member of an organization, particularly the minorities. This book makes a light read and recalls the relentless effort and commitment within the McDonald's organization toward embracing diversity and introducing inclusive management practices.

Recent books on the topic of equality, diversity, and inclusion have taken a scholarly text-book approach describing in detail applicable theories and domain knowledge (e.g. Danowitz et al., 2012; Harvey and Allard, 2011; Bell, 2011). These books adopt a prescriptive academic tone and are dense in terms of theoretical perspectives – e.g. interweaving of social identity theory, capabilities theory, legislations, and in-depth chapters on each of the bases of diversity in a workforce. In contrast, the McDonald's book is more pragmatic and friendly to practitioners. It reads as a personal narrative. Given that McDonald's, one of the most successful businesses in the world (listed as one of the Fortune 500 companies with revenues in excess of 27,000 USD million in 2012 and listed as the most valuable brand in the fast-food industry in 2012) with one of the largest work forces in the world (employee strength of around 420,000 in 2012) – and a truly diverse workforce at that – 62 percent women, 35 percent Hispanics, 20 percent African Americans, 5 percent Asians, and 2 percent native Americans (as given in the book) – the company serves as a role model and a guide to all other organizations on their individual journeys toward becoming more inclusive entities.

The author, Harris (a woman and a black African American), currently serving as the Global Chief Diversity Officer at McDonald's, has ensured that this book documents the contributions of numerous persons on McDonald's rolls from its very inception to the present. This book serves as her tribute to the leaders and minorities who endeavored to make McDonald's successful. A 52 years long timeline is presented recording the key milestones for the organization in its journey in embracing diversity and inclusion.

Chapters 1-2 set the foundation in terms of how the company operated, the core convictions and belief systems that guided its leadership, and why the company needed to consider the pursuit of inclusive management practices. Chapter 3 presents a snapshot of the next three chapters and details reasons that necessitated the company becoming diverse and inclusive. Chapters 4-6 specify the pleasant and (numerous) unpleasant experiences of McDonald's in evolving into a wonderful place for minorities to work. Chapter 7 draws each reader to the present times where McDonald's is reaping fruit from its persistent investment in diversity and inclusion. Finally, Chapter 8 provides limited examples of localization (namely in Europe and Latin America) of globally relevant principles of diversity management. These principles are expounded using only the American context in the earlier chapters.

In the book, diversity is presented both in terms of interpersonal differences such as age, gender, nationality, education, etc. (Kreitz, 2008) as well as inter-group differences such as men vs women, white-skin vs colored-skin, heterosexuals vs homosexuals, etc. (Ely and Thomas, 2001). Inclusion, which is a state of employees feeling valued and respected, is discussed as an outcome, a desired destination (rather than as a process) and is primarily pursued at a group level (Shore et al., 2011; Bilimoria et al., 2008). The company's efforts were channelized toward creating inclusive management practices to address inter-group diversities. For example, the book describes initiatives to include blacks, women, Hispanics, Asians, and transgenders. While the minorities were empowered to express how included/excluded they felt, concrete steps were taken on the basis of their feedback to educate and train the employees, particularly the majority.

Given its three-legged (franchisees, suppliers, and employees) management approach where each leg is required to be equally strong to support the business, McDonald's pursued inclusion not only within the company, but also the franchisees and suppliers. The latter two entities have been recognized in the book as initiators and contributors to the success of the inclusive practices.

For instance, McDonald's earliest policies mandated employment of white men at their outlets. It is inferred that McDonald's initially subscribed to the diversity perspective of “reinforcing homogeneity” within the organization (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). Harris explains how this was necessitated by the culture of the USA those days and not on account of top management prejudice against women and non-whites. Nevertheless, such exclusivity encountered roadblocks as the society progressed. During the Vietnam War (many young white men drafted to the American defence forces) and the Civil Rights Movement in USA (black community fought for equal rights), the company was compelled to reconsider how best to manage the business. The franchisees took the first step in recruiting a diverse workforce (women and blacks) thereby “forcing” the company to rethink its earlier exclusive practices. It is at this stage that McDonald's is found to drop its earlier diversity perspective and embrace newer perspectives of “color-blindness,” “fairness,” and “access” (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). These are also classified in the academic literature as “access-legitimacy” and “discrimination-fairness” perspectives (Ely and Thomas, 2001).

McDonald's emphasis has always been on performance of each employee; favoritism/reservation was not advocated. Therefore, while “access” was one of their diversity perspectives – it did not translate to non-performance-related reservation for minorities. While initial steps were taken to recruit talented minority workers, growth was made possible to those who performed well. This decision further highlights McDonald's another diversity perspective of “integration and learning” (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013; Ely and Thomas, 2001). In this context, the author underlines that while having a diverse and inclusive team is the “right” thing to do, that alone as a motive is weak. McDonald's experience has revealed that creating and fostering “performance-based” diverse and inclusive teams within the organization results in long-term business success. While McDonald's has dealt with situations and people based on outcomes (i.e. performance) and reactively aligned its operations based on practical (and not theoretical) considerations, such a pragmatic orientation is not to be viewed as the ideal/model approach for all companies to adopt. A solid understanding of the theoretical implications of diversity and inclusion initiatives needs to be acquired.

The author offers three guiding principles for any organization looking to build diversity and inclusion into their management practices. Falling short of labeling these the three “golden” principles (of the company with the golden arches), the author tightly weaves them into all narratives on diversity inclusion at McDonald's.

Golden principle no. 1 – top management commitment: this principle is listed as non-negotiable and foundational for inclusive management practices. McDonald's discovered that minority employees, who experienced unconditional support from their leaders against real/perceived prejudices or glass-ceilings, demonstrated intense loyalties toward the business and zealously performed, even more than the non-minorities. In several instances where a franchisee/supplier/company manager was found prejudiced against any minority employee(s), prompt disciplinary action was taken against him/her. Regular sessions were organized by the top management to enable minorities to voice their concerns and address biases. Theory explains this through the “discrimination-fairness” and “access-legitimacy” diversity perspectives.

Golden principle no. 2 – training and education: this principle is built on the steady support of the leadership. McDonald's famous Hamburger University (where members are trained on running a restaurant “the McDonald's way”) has evolved to offer courses to employees, franchisees, and suppliers on developing corporate social skills. Training programs are aimed at increasing the sensitivity of the majority employees toward minorities and providing career development paths for minorities. The McDonald's diversity and inclusion curriculum is comprehensive and world-renowned with courses such as Winning with Inclusion and Diversity, GenderSpeak, Sexual Orientation in the Workplace, etc. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Ford, and Procter & Gamble have built their training curricula around McDonald's best practices. The training and education approach highlights the “integration and learning” diversity perspective within McDonald's.

Golden principle no. 3 – networking: to nurture a diverse workforce, McDonald's advocates the creation of networks for all employees. Such networks for minorities are designed to foster inter-relationships, strengthen bonds, and provide guidance on career growth within the organization. The network meetings provide opportunities for formation of mentor-mentee relationships and in-house development of future corporate leaders. While each network is formed to leverage its own interests, the organization involvement is mandated to ensure that interests of the business are also upheld. This highlights the company's emphasis on “access-legitimacy” diversity perspective.

The theoretical diversity perspectives highlighted above are inferred from the McDonald's narrative. Research has found that a company's diversity strategies are either defensive – resisting diversity, reactive – legally doing the bare minimum, or proactive – self-initiating actions to foster a diverse work culture (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013). McDonald's started out defensive in its approach to diversity. But the changing external environment forced the company to react and take small steps toward diversity inclusion to ensure that the business did not suffer. Today, McDonald's has learnt the value of managing a diverse work group and proactively undertakes initiatives to include all employees within the organization.

While the author has provided sufficient guidelines for institutionalizing diversity and inclusion, there are three areas that are conspicuously unaddressed in the book. First, socio-psychological theories such as the social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982), self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987; Huddy, 2004), social dominance theory (Sidanius et al., 2004), realistic group conflict theory (Tajfel, 1982), and inter-group contact hypothesis (Allport, 1954) which deal with issues in prejudice (Huddy, 2004), exclusion (Kurzban and Leary, 2001), inter-group conflict (Messick and Mackie, 1989), etc. have not been presented. If such theories had been discussed emphasizing negative consequences of inter-group dynamics (e.g. out-group hostility, labor unrest, low self-esteem, etc.), the importance of inclusion in business management would have been made paramount.

Second, the author does not explain how companies should measure the impact of diversity and inclusion efforts. Harris suggests that when a company receives awards/recognition from external entities (and McDonald's has won several awards as the best place for minorities to work), it is an indicator that their efforts have been noticed and appreciated. However, for an organization that is just beginning the process of institutionalizing diversity and inclusion, there is insufficient guidance from the book. Additionally, there is no discussion on how often McDonald's conducts employee research to measure their attitudes and behavior change in the focal areas of diversity and inclusion. For practitioners seeking guidance on such metrics, they would need to look for assistance outside the book. Giovannini (2004), a consultant by profession, has a five-level measurement guideline for organizations pursuing a culture of equality, diversity, and inclusion. In that paper, she recommends that employees’ behavioral changes (on account of the organization's diversity and inclusion initiatives) be regularly measured to demonstrate positive impact of such initiatives on business performance. Similarly, academic scholars (e.g. Podsiadlowski et al., 2013) have also worked toward providing measurement scales (e.g. the Diversity Perspectives Questionnaire) to enable researchers and corporate-houses to link their diversity initiatives with their most wanted outcomes.

Third, the author does not discuss the possible negative impacts of the inclusion initiatives on the majority employees. The author encourages companies to have an affirmative-actions agenda for diverse minorities in their work group and suggests ways to do so. While this is a stride in the positive direction, such a move should be cautiously taken without under-estimating the possible negative impacts for the majority employees. Research recommends that diversity and inclusion practices should be targeted at all employees, not just the minorities (Stevens et al., 2008). Over-focus on affirmative action for minorities can cause the majority to perceive top management favoritism toward the minorities. This could further exacerbate inter-group conflicts. Therefore, the author should have emphasized that companies carefully tread this path to foster a culture of equality, diversity, and inclusion for all their employees.

Despite the above three missing discussion points, this book still charts its way up as a mandatory read for any top executive and human resource team-member of an organization willing to get educated, stay inspired, and keep learning in the long arduous journey of embracing inclusive work practices for a growing diverse workforce. Certainly, there are big rewards at the end of the journey, if one does not quit.

Dr Preeti Krishnan Lyndem is a Visiting Faculty Member in Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India. Her research interests include brand management, consumer behavior, and discrete emotions. Lyndem's previous publications have appeared in the European Journal of Marketing, Association for Consumer Research (ACR) Annual North-American Conference Proceedings, the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada (ASAC) Proceedings, and trade publications such as Marketing Mastermind and Voice & Data. She has presented papers at international conferences conducted by ACR, ASAC, AIMS International, and American Roentgen Ray Society. Dr Preeti Krishnan Lyndem can be contacted at: preeti.k.lyndem@iimb.ernet.in