Essay: Essay on McDonalds strengths and weaknesses

1. LEADERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT
Leadership can resembled as an art of marching an organization in the path of success or progress. It is confined to the skill and competence of a leader who may be an individual or a group. Leadership is the skill of being at the center of everything that an organization faces in extremely competitive business environment. It is also an evolving phenomenon. It has now become a skill of driving an organization from its ancient task of driving a group of followers. It has developed its horizon from being a boss to being overall developer and initiator of an organization. The development of leadership and development of an organization are coherent to each other. Leadership develops with the development of the concerned organization and a well developed leadership contributes remarkably to the organizational development.
The concept of leadership and development exists in all types of organization whether big or small. It has become even more key for gaining competitive advantage in this era of globalization. That’s why, this assignment intends to evaluate the vitality of it in organizational perspective. Another focus of this assignment is to observe the role of learning and development for leadership and development. Leadership develops with the growth and development of the related organization and various aspects learnt during this course. To observe the good fit between learning and development in respect to leadership and development is the essence of this assignment. However, this essence should be dealt with the reference of an specific organization.
2. Organisational Context
There are many national and multinational business organizations structured and operating around London. Many of them could have been referred for the purpose of this assignment work. But the organization chosen is a reknowned global chain of food McDonald’s. The McDonald’s was the dream of Ray Kroc in an innovative entrepreneurship concept in early 1950’s.This can be cited as an example of learning and development since its establishment in 1955 in the name of The McDonald’s Corporation in USA. It was just a restaurant concept providing burgers, buns, fries and beverages in its early days. Its unique feature was its service regarding quality, value, preparation methods and customer taste assessing ability under the leadership of Ray Kroc. He learned from the appearing situations and developed innovative ideas of preparing interesting menu items like the Big Mac, Filet-O-Fish and the Egg McMuffin by involving various franchisees.
Organisational structure of McDonald’s
URLhttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:McDonald’s_Restaurant_Organizational_Structure_Diagram.png
Ray Kroc’s belief of ‘In business for yourself, but not by yourself’ has been the key for the flourish of McDonald’s throughout the world. His leadership was ever learning and self involving. This made him more creative and innovative. His creative ideas after assessing the customer and competitor has made this small US restaurant, a worldwide most tasted and trusted chain of restaurant. The learning and development on its integrated and efficient supply system, quality standard and sanitation has made it the most loved brand of food globally. It has very good practice of learning and development theories and approaches. Similarly, it has the most well structured training and development system contributing to its expanding chain and increasing customer loyalty.
3. The Structure and Operation of the Learning and Development Function
The learning and development is the key function of any organization. It is the key contributor towards the growth and expansion of the organization. It determines the success and sustainability of any business. What is key is the approach and extent to which this function is structured and practiced in an organization. The need for learning and development is getting more emphasis due to changing organizational perspective. More structured learning and development function is needed for smooth operation of any organization. To be competitive, organisations have had to become more flexible, innovative, Quality conscious, customer orientated, constantly improving their performance. All these can be possible only as result of properly structured and operating learning and development function.
During the past 20 years or so they have undertaken what amount to massive experiments with various ways of achieving these ends. This comprises learning of both internal as well as external factors related to any organization. This can be for the leader of the organization or the management team or working manpower of the organization. The learning and development includes:
‘ Assessing the internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization.
‘ Evaluating the external opportunities and threats for the operation of the organization.
‘ Observation of human behavior and its need for development through training and development programmes.
‘ Developing the ability to cope with the competitive toughness through various motivational schemes at all levels.
‘ Learning lessons from the failure of implemented strategies, policies, programmes, procedures and methods.
‘ Sensing future challenges in advance and of setting the clear and concise vision and mission.
‘ Being sensitive towards success and achievement of goal.
This part of learning and development function involves learning of the persons especially at the middle or lower level of an organization. This is the art of empowering man for powerful organization. It is a subsystem of an organization. It ensures that randomness is reduced and learning or behavioral change takes place in structured format. There are two approaches for training and development: Traditional Approach and Modern Approach. The process of training is conducted through different methods like discussion, computer based training (CBT), demonstration, simulation etc. Likewise, the development process which is more of sustainable nature can be conducted through on the job training, off the job training, job rotation, job enlargement, job enrichment etc. It is to be understood that the training and development is the key component of learning and development which determines the capabilities of the operating team and the leader of an organization. The developed skill and competence of the group and the leader will develop the organizational position in gaining competitive advantage.
4. Learning and Development Hierarchies in McDonald’s
The learning and development is hierarchical process of inheriting higher level of skill and competence. This is possible only by overcoming different learning barriers like perception, cultural issues, attitudes and social behavior. The outcomes of any learning process are skill and competence. The available different hierarchies have mostly common but slightly different focus on different aspects. Some important hierarchies can be mentioned as below:-
a. Single and double-loop learning
Single-loop learning refers to the detection and correction of deviances in performance from established organizational norms, whereas double-loop learning refers to the questioning of those norms that define effective performance (Argyris and Schon, 1978). The concepts of single- and double- loop learning do not actually constitute a hierarchy or stages of learning. Rather, they are two different approaches, and individuals do not necessarily progress from single- to double-loop learning, nor is the former an essential prerequisite for the latter. They are, however, important elements in learning, and it is convenient to present them here.
b. Bloom et al.’s taxonomy of cognitive skills
Bloom et al. (1956) identify the various levels of thinking skills at which learning can take place:
i) Knowledge means simple knowledge of facts, of terms of theories, etc.
ii) Comprehension is an understanding of the meaning of this knowledge.
iii) Application means the ability to apply this knowledge and comprehension in new concrete situations.
iv Analysis is the ability to break the material down into its constituent parts and to see the relationship between them.
v) Synthesis is the ability to re-assemble these parts into a new and meaningful relationship, thus forming a new whole.
vi) Evaluation is the ability to judge the value of material using explicit and coherent criteria, either of one’s own devising or derived from the work of others.
c. Manager’s levels of learning
A similar hierarchy has been proposed specifically for the learning of managers. Burgoyne and Hodgson (1983) suggest that managers have a gradual build-up of experience created out of specific learning incidents, internalize this experience, and use it, both consciously and unconsciously, to guide their future action and decision-making.
They identify three levels of this learning process:
Level 1 learning, which occurs when managers simply take in some factual information or data that is immediately relevant but does not change their views of the world.
Level 2 learning, this occurs at an unconscious or tacit level. Managers gradually build up a body of personal ‘case law’ that enables them to deal with future events.
Level 3 learning, when managers consciously reflect on their conception of the
World, how it is formed, and how they might change it.
5. Advantages of used structure and hierarchy
Speaking of McDonald’s, the structure and operation of learning and development function can be looked in following advantageous perspectives:
a. It has a well designed learning and development process which seem to be structured around the elements of both internal and external influencing factors
b. Different learning hierarchies discussed above are existing in this organization after it has overcome all the learning barriers such as perception, prejudice, low motivation, negative learning attitude, cultural and religious values, workforce diversity etc.
c. The learning and development through training and development is key in the context of McDonald’s growth and success
d. Different methods for training and development is being widely used for all level employees whose skill development is being rated as the path for development and organizational leadership
e. All the learning and development efforts deal mainly with the essence of the organization which is quality of food, betterment of service provided and overcoming the challenges for competitors.
f. The process of skill transfer is being done by sending the experts Employees are being rotated from one restaurant to other so that they get to know the diversifted range of customers and their taste preferences.
g. Further job enlargement and job enrichment are being done so that employees retention and empowerment takes place with ease.
The structure and operation of learning and development in McDonald’s has changed over the time. The initial Ray Kroc centered business is now looked after a competent team of experts. A US restaurant has become a global chain of restaurants. All these have become possible due to effective learning and development structure. It should be marked that its operation wouldn’t have been in as smooth manner as it is now, had learning and development not gone through a well structured way. Above all, this has made the development of leadership among top management. In precise, the use of learning and development tools and techniques in proper structured manner has generated higher level of leadership and development directed towards the success of the organization.
6. The Contribution of Learning and Development to the Success of the Organization
The success of any organization depends on the practice of learning and development function in the organization. The path of success starts at the time of initiation of any idea implementation for an organization. The evaluation of idea can only be done by a well learned operating team and employees of an organization. Learning calls for understanding what is and what it should have been. It helps in acting pro actively in expectation of certain situation. The know-how of the internal and external environment of any organization is possible only through the proper learning and development process. The learning and development in whatever way comes, contributes towards the skill and proficiency enhancement of the organizational manpower. Manpower upgrading and enhancement helps to generate, evaluate, select and implement innovative ideas. Innovation is the key for success of any organization whether operating nationally or globally.
Learning and development is the base for organizational achievements and goal accomplishment. Any approach of training or skill development or knowledge building coming under learning and development curve contributes towards the success of the organization. They provide skill and expertise to handle any worse or best business situations. The organizational growth and expansion in terms of size, sales, serviceability and reliability can be regarded as tool for judging the success of the organization. Such judgment can only be done through proper learning of the identified tools. The contribution of learning and development towards the success of organization can be accessed through:
a) Increased numbers of creative and innovative idea generation and screening
b) More analytical evaluation of ideas and choosing the best one for the business
c) Risen skill and competencies among the working members of the organization
d) Improved sense of uncertainity and competition assessment of the management
e) Structured planning and its proper implementation
f) Synergistic effect of resource utilization and mobilization
g) Effective communication and co-ordination
h) Less dispute and grievance in the organization
i) Growth of profit, sales, customers and assets of the organization
j) Remarkable degree of sustainability and reliability
k) High competitive advantage
l) Low exposure to business and other risks
All the above mentioned points are the indicators of the success of any organization emerging as a result of contribution from effective learning and development. Apart from these, its contribution towards success can be measured through developed mechanism for prompt response to any challenges faced by the business. In context of McDonald’s, the learning and development has tremendous role to play in its success. The organization is ever learning both scientific and non scientific methods to better its quality and standardization of its service. This has increased the product and product delivery quality. The organisation never lies back in investing on human capital. This made working for the people easy. It helped in increasing the motivation and morale towards the work. Learning through the competitor’s analysis has opened new doors for extending the market for it. The contribution of learning and development towards success of McDonald’s can be viewed through growing chain of restaurants, rising units sales of its foods, increased customer inflow, addition of new food stuffs in its menu and ever bettering financial health of the business. Conclusively, it can be said that without learning and development within and outside the organization, the till date success of McDonald’s wouldn’t have been possible, and it couldn’t have become one of the pioneer multinational brand in the world.
7. Recommendation
It is true that McDonald’s is getting globalized through its chain expansion. Its customers are increasing everyday and its reliability is increasing. Its training system for employees is effective. Yet the system has to cover little loophole of lacking. The training should be more inclusive for all the employees, whether new or old, or from any cultural or ethical group. The frequency of timely upgrading programs should be raised for more effective performance. Otherwise, McDonald hardly needs any recommendation regarding its operating system. More importantly, the quality assurance of its food and hospitality should be maintained and modified just to sustain its organizational status.