Reading Reflection No. 3

For this assignment, I read Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc.

1) What surprised you the most? What about the entrepreneur did you most admire? What about the entrepreneur did you least admire? Did the entrepreneur encounter adversity and failure? If so, what did they do about it?

   The thing that surprised me most about Ray Kroc is his ego. He has a fairly large ego, from what I can tell, and it was around even before McDonald's made it big. There are a few times though out the autobiography where he refers to himself as the best at something. When the paper cup company he worked for said everyone had to take a pay cut, he was outraged that they could "treat the best salesman they had in this arbitrary fashion." 

   I admired Kroc's work ethic, he was always hustling, trying to sell something to someone, whether that be milkshake machines or paper cups or McDonald's franchises. I least admire his personal attitude. He is always looking out for himself and will let everyone else suffer if it meant he could get ahead. 

   One of Kroc's first failures right before he became involved with McDonald's was the Fold-A-Nook. The product didn't look like it was going to be too much of a success anyway, but it really feel through when Kroc found out that two of his employees were conspiring to seal the design for the Fold-A-Nook. He fired them both and later the product idea ended up leaving them bankrupt. Once McDonald's was up and running, one of the men called Ray for a job, but Ray refused, knowing not to make the same mistake twice.

2) What competencies did you notice that the entrepreneur exhibited? 

   Ray Kroc was fairly competent in his ability to persuade people, like he persuaded the McDonald's brother to let him franchise out the company. Also, he can see opportunities in places where other people don't, which allows him to get in on the ground floor of operations.

3) Identify at least one part of the reading that was confusing to you. 

  I was slightly confused by the immediate trust that the McDonald's brothers extended to Ray Kroc, allowing a perfect stranger to run part of your business seems like a daunting thing to do.

4) If you were able to ask two questions to the entrepreneur, what would you ask? Why?

   First, I would ask him if he would do anything differently. McDonald's is obviously wildly successful, but I wonder if Kroc has any regrets. Perhaps, knowing the size that the company would become, would he want it to leave a different image in people's minds.

   Secondly, I would ask him what he considered to be the hardest struggle in building up McDonald's. There were quite a few low points and times of hardship, but I'm interested to see which challenge Kroc considered to be the hardest.

5)  For fun: what do you think the entrepreneur's opinion was of hard work? Do you share that opinion?

Kroc's opinion of hard work basically means never stop working. The man was always on the hardest grind and he was constantly pushing himself and those who worked for him to the limit. I would agree with that definition of hard work. I think that in order to create a successful corporation, you must always be thinking of ways to make the company better and to grow. However, I don't know if I agree with the idea of stepping on other people's toes to just to make sure you're successful.