3 Lessons I Learned From My First Job

When you think of renowned brands, no doubt McDonald’s comes to mind. The brand is iconic in terms of both fast food along with engaging and advancing their people.

According to company estimates, one in every eight American workers has been employed by McDonald’s.

I am one of those eight. When I was 16, I learned first hand that fry grease wasn’t going to be a best-selling cologne. And it likely wasn’t going to help me land a date.

My first job was at a privately-owned McDonald’s in Grand Island, NY. (Hence the insight that I should keep cologne in my car to mask any lingering smells of grease clinging to my clothes). It’s amazing how the smell of grease holds on and attaches itself to you like a magnet.

I learned three simple lessons from the position I held there. This is where I lived and learned about success through people when you offer them ownership and opportunity in their roles.

The franchise owner and shift manager trained me on what I was supposed to do and how it was to be done. Most often, I was responsible for the fries and shakes. The fries had to be fresh, the shakes had to be spun (this was pre McFlurry days), and the customers had to be happy.

Within the first few weeks, I realized that if I wanted to get out of work on time, I would need a system beyond the standard training I’d received. I’d need to determine my own way of running my stations. I wasn’t looking to do the minimum — I was looking to be efficient, so that I could leave when my shift was over. Heck, I was 16 with a life to live. I constantly found myself setting goals and creating objectives in my head. Pushing myself and seeking improvement was as important to me then as it is now. Status quo is boring after all.

Today, I recognize and am grateful for the approach and the impact of the franchise owner in my early business development. I can’t even remember his name. What I do remember however, is that he noticed my efforts and regularly offered real time feedback to help me improve.

Here are the simple lessons he taught me.

Simple Lesson #1
Ownership begins with a mindset. Put simply, it means being accountable for everything that you are responsible for. Leadership requires getting a diverse team of people to execute with a mindset of ownership in order to achieve goals. When an ownership mindset is present, it is recognizable through people who are accountable, thinking, decision-making and performance-oriented.

Simple Lesson #2
High-performance people rarely, if ever, need to be micro-managed. From the start, they have ownership in what they do and how they do it. They possess the drive and purpose to get their job done, and make it about more than simply completing the task. No matter how big or how small, they don’t want or need every part of their job controlled by someone else. They don’t just want to know what needs to be done, they want to understand why. Asking questions should never be confused with micro-management. More often than not, it’s associated with leadership that is developing rather than micro-managing.

Simple Lesson #3
Real-time feedback matters. Communication was both constant and consistent. If something went right I knew about it quickly and if something went wrong I knew about it quickly. There was a clear picture of what success and winning looked like and what my contribution was to that picture. He allowed me to learn valuable lessons through success and failure and then always offered input of affirmation or correction.

Even though I didn’t own the franchise, I was expected to own my stations. I was allowed to run them without being micro-managed every step of the way. Communication and feedback were both consistent and constant. These are the simple business lessons I learned from the time when my cologne was not Tommy Hilfiger, but the “cologne of the golden arches.” They’ve stuck with me since.

Want to start a conversation with your teams about performance? Share the following thought starters with your people this week.

#Thoughtstarters

• What was your first job?
• How did it shape your thoughts and perspectives about opportunity, people and performance?
• We’re you given the opportunity to think, decide and be accountable?
• Have you ever been relentlessly micromanaged? What was the impact?
• Have you ever relentlessly micromanaged someone? Beyond completing the tasks have you measured the impact?
• How are you developing yourself or those that you lead to be thinking, decision-making, performance-oriented people?
• How can you best influence people to achieve optimal outcomes and results?
• How can you begin more conversations with questions (rather than statements) that give you insight about how someone is thinking?

Thoughts? Share your comments.