When two rival motorcycle gangs started fighting in a McDonald’s parking lot in Long Island one summer evening, then 19-year-old nighttime manager Paul Facella knew he had to do something. He told his employees to call the police right away if things got out of hand and went outside to speak to the gang leaders. Facella suggested they move to an empty lot across the street, and much to his surprise, they did. Where did he get the courage to face them? From his training and education as a McDonald’s employee, he said. Courage is one of the seven leadership principles Facella includes in his new book: “Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald’s.”
Facella, who started out at 16 and worked his way up to vice president of the New York region, retired in 2000 after 34 years with McDonald’s. He started his own management consulting business, Inside Management.
What inspired you to write the book?
When I started my business, I initially shied away from my McDonald’s experience. You grow up in fast food and figure that’s looked down on. But it was just the opposite in reality. People know McDonald’s is successful, and they want to know how they do it. It dawned on me: I have to put something together I could give our clients that could help them. That started the seed for the book.
Did you write any of these ideas down while you were working at McDonald’s?
I kept some notes over my career. But I also wanted the principles to be validated by people I interviewed in the company now, and the suppliers and vendors.
Didn’t you see some of these principles in other businesses in other industries when you started consulting?
I was extremely surprised that some of the basic principles of managing people and organizations were not there. I chatted with a chairman of a $1 billion company about how important it is for him to personally get out and talk to people and see what is going on. He dismissed it. Eventually that company was sold because it was going down the tubes.
When the president of McDonald’s came [to visit my region] we did not just go to the office, we went and visited stores. That was very natural to me.