The One Shared Attribute of Success

Nobody becomes successful by being a great human being, or a jerk. You can get there either way, and many have.

I was reading a blog post justifying the unethical and inauthentic life of Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s. The writer said two things that caught my eye about his character – “but it was just business” and “Kroc basically invented fast food as we know it” (read, if you’re a genius, being a jerk is excusable.)

…"but it was just business" - epitomizes everything that is wrong with the view that in business, (unlike in the rest of life?) unethical behavior is somehow ok.

There have been great businesses built by both polarities - those who believe they need to destroy others in order to win (Ray Kroc), and those who believe that making other people successful will lead to their own success (Truett Cathy, Chick-Fil-A). Those that espouse the "it's just business" supposedly amoral approach, improperly justify lack of character and, in most cases, lack of creativity and ingenuity on the part of the asshole being lifted up as a business hero. Similarly, those that love Cathy love to attribute his success to being a great human being. Neither position holds water. But one of these two behavioral paths, is for me, the only one to choose.

Ray Kroc was not successful because of his genius or ruthless lack of character, or the combination of both, which I hear too often as the key to being successful. And he was not by any means an entrepreneurial person. Or even a good business person.

Ray Kroc did not invent franchising like many think. Not even close. The McDonald's brothers had eight locations, including one in Arizona and were already franchising twenty more, when Kroc met them. The entire concept, including the red and yellow colors, the Speedy Service System and the famous arches, was already in place and running when Ray met them. Kroc called the McDonalds he built in Chicago, “Store #1”, ignoring the other eight already in service for many years before he stumbled across franchising.

And he did not make McDonalds the franchise that it was. He was, by my research, not visionary, ingenious, creative, or a good leader. He was very short-sighted and “heads-down” throughout his career. It was others who regularly saved him from his own lack of ability to be a successful entrepreneur. For fifteen years he sold paper cups, for a few years he unsuccessfully sold ironing boards, and for a decade more he very successfully sold milk shake mixers out of the trunk of his car. No entrepreneurial genius and ingenue goes through thirty-plus years selling paper cups, ironing boards and milk shake mixers one at a time from their car.

The only reason he found the McDonald brothers is because they were buying too many milk shake mixers per store. When he saw why, he didn't lay on his bed that night, looking up at the ceiling and see a thousand McDonald's across America, as he claimed in his biography. He only offered to help the McDonald brothers continue (not begin) to franchise, solely and exclusively because he saw great opportunities to sell more milk shake mixers. It was his first wife, after he had helped the brothers get close to a hundred stores, who explained to him that they actually had something that others wanted. The myopic milk shake mixer salesperson hadn't figured it out yet. His wife did. That's when he decided to steal the whole thing (and he also dumped her).

And at 108 stores,, he still couldn't make a living from McDonalds and was about to go out of business. Most entrepreneurs figure out how to make a profit by their second or third location, if not their first. This isn't a genius or an empire builder. A customer in a bank overheard him getting rejected for ANOTHER loan and taught him that he needed to buy the land under each store in order to ever be successful. He would have died on the vine that day without that man, who he used for decades, who later never had a good word to say about Kroc. And because of his lack of business skill, he would have failed many times if it was not for the entrepreneurial ingenuity of many others he stole from.

He didn't invent fast food for lunch or dinner, franchising, the fast food breakfast, the Egg McMuffin, the Big Mac, the McDonald's uniquely plastic milk shake through the 80s, Ronald McDonald, the Quarter Pounder, or any other innovation McDonald's was known for. Those were all created by franchise owners who were largely resisted, then uncompensated for their ideas, including the franchise owner he stole his third wife from (he had three at his convenience).

Ray Kroc was not moral, ethical, entrepreneurial, ingenious, creative, or a good leader. Ray Kroc (and Truett Cathy) had one attribute that every successful entrepreneur exhibits; he was relentless - didn't know how to quit, or the meaning of the word. As myopic and ineffective as he was, and as many brick walls as he ran headlong into in life, he just kept pushing forward. And because he was always pushing forward, and in most cases failing forward, he continued to run into people who saved him from himself.?

Ray Kroc and Truett Cathy are remembered as morally and ethically on opposite ends of the human values spectrum. Both of them were successful, and frankly, probably not so much because of their morality, or lack of it. They were both successful because they were both relentless and didn't understand the meaning of the word quit.

So you can get “there” either way, but what kind of successful person would you want to be remembered as? The asshole who went through life destroying other people and their businesses in order to get what he wanted, or the man known for being a servant of others, taking joy in making them successful, and being generous throughout his life? While some ignore how Kroc got successful, the world’s descriptions of his life and character, and the lasting impact he had on those around him, are not kind. The world remembers Truett Cathy much more generously.?

If you are relentless, you can become successful being an asshole. If you are relentless, you can become successful being moral and ethical. There are two behavioral paths to success, and which path you choose for your journey, matters deeply. Why? Because...

We find our destiny on whichever path we choose.

You get to choose. And that choice will be your legacy, much more so than any business success you have in life.

We get what we intend, not what we hope for. Let’s intend to leave behind a legacy worth repeating.

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