Behind the Arches
Essay title: Behind the Arches
Behind the Arches
Class Act
Subscribe | Print | E-Mail | Newsletter | RSS
Current Issue
Current Issue Building the 21st Century Leader
Heading up a successful company today is a lot different than it was 50 years ago. What skills do you need to lead your business to success in 2007 and beyond?
Read this issue »
Magazine Resources
Entrepreneur magazine archive
Subscribe
Buy back issues
Manage your subscription
Renew your subscription
Article reprints
Marketplace
An all-in-one solution for your business
An all-in-one solution for your business
The “Wow” starts now
Ship with us. Rest easy
FREE online and in-person sessions!
It was just a few years ago that this all-American franchise received something of a drubbing in the media for its lackluster sales, diminishing reputation of quality and supersizing of the nations collective waistline. But arguably, it remained a beloved restaurant with the public, and in the past two years, meals at McDonalds have been happier. A renaissance in management and training seems to have taken place, and sales are up, in part because of an expansion of the menu, including healthier fare like the $2.99 fruit-and-walnut salad.
Point being: McDonalds stores are more popular franchises to own than ever, and because of that, getting a franchise–and getting into Hamburger University–is something akin to being accepted to Harvard, Princeton or Yale. Like at an Ivy League college, the tuition is steep (buying a McDonalds franchise generally requires having a minimum of $200,000 nonborrowed money at your disposal), but the reputation for having studied under the masters generally means high returns on the investment. The average McDonalds brings in $1.9 million in revenue a year, and while most entrepreneurs only have one or two restaurants, its possible to have several.
“We receive a massive number of applications,” says Diana Thomas, Hamburger Universitys dean, referring to the people wanting and waiting to own a McDonalds franchise. Only about 1 percent are accepted, and since approximately one unit opens somewhere in the world every day, one could make a rough estimate that, annually, about 36,000 applicants worldwide vie to own their own McDonalds.
Thomas has worked for McDonalds in one capacity or another since she was a teenager, and she has seen plenty of changes at Hamburger University–many of which have come in the past few years, since she started her tenure as dean. “We used to have a lot of classrooms that looked like any classroom youd see at a university,” recalls Thomas, who took classes at Hamburger University as a manager and executive, and still participates in classes there. “Wed put a lot of people in a room and teach in a lecture format. But weve changed a lot to meet the needs of our users and to make it more interactive. Its more experiential. We divide the room into small, cubicle-like work areas with the material on flip charts, and [we] do role-playing so everyone can actually demonstrate the roles that theyre learning.”
Indeed, earlier in the day, I was allowed to observe two classrooms from the translation booths, which are typically used by international visitors in the classroom. If needed, McDonalds has interpreters who can translate into 28 different languages, including Korean, Malay, Portuguese and Swedish.
In a class on business leadership, I set my sights on one of three tables in the room, where four men and one woman, in their 30s to early 50s, were having a heated discussion:
“This is another objective to support the goal.”
“Were going to have two months? To complete all this?”
“I think hes saying that the amount of objects we have may not be achievable in three months. Im just saying what his point is, and I think hes saying that were biting off more than we can chew.”