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McDonalds probably has better research on their own business than you do. They wouldn't do this unless they believed it would be worthwhile.

nickpsecurity 9y ago
"McDonalds probably has better research on their own business than you do." This is never something you should believe in a major, for-profit company heavy on management. Those companies have people investing in all kinds of BS all the time everywhere from top to store level. That includes McDonalds which is easy to verify by just listening to the employees talk about management and company politics. Now, it may be a good idea that might have come from someone thinking well. A big company investing in it across the stores isn't proof of that in any way, though. One needs more details.
- dsacco 9y ago
  > "McDonalds probably has better research on their own business than you do." This is never something you should believe in a major, for-profit company heavy on management. It takes an astonishing amount of hubris for any single individual to believe they can really have market research superior to a company's when it comes to the company's core competency. Even where it's true, I expect such an individual to have a far more reasoned claim than, "for-profit companies with lots of managers suck!" Just because companies try things and fail all the time doesn't mean they're not well-thought out and often even well-executed. Do you honestly believe "management heavy" companies are full of people who don't know what they're doing? How do you know what their research teams do or don't do, and know or don't know? On what basis can you even begin to assert an absolute statement like the one you just claimed? You didn't provide a substantive argument, all you said was companies try things that fail all the time, and implicitly repeated the meme that managers are just vapid drones in the aggregate.
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    "It takes an astonishing amount of hubris" It really doesn't. All it takes is a person to listen to people that work at these Fortune 500 companies talk about how big decisions get made. I did that most of my day for years. I also read what many say on online forums. I believe there's plenty of smart people in them including excellent marketers at McDonalds. There's even plenty of well-informed decisions and sensible projects. However, years of empirical data says what makes most of these companies run amounts to political skill of managers and the Peter Principle. Again, that's not my guess so much as what people in the middle and on the ground tell me. The low-level employees of big, food chains also gripe about corporate visitors saying they're worthless by adding nothing to what's going on or things they say are hugely disconnected from how the place runs day-to-day. As if they're managing a different, better-run company with more staff. Those people come and go with high turnover but a fraction of them move up into the positions making bigger decisions despite adding about nothing to the effectiveness of their restaurants. Gotta be politics and authoritarianism instead of performance given the data.
    - rainbowmverse 9y ago
      Anecdotes and asserting that empirical data exists without providing it isn't very convincing.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - nickpsecurity 9y ago
        Attempted some quick Googling for you. As expected, it's mostly noise about what managers think of their workers instead of other way around. However, I did find this Gallup piece studying a huge number of workers and companies that supports my hypothesis about management competency in average case. http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/167975/why-great-managers-rare.aspx http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/167975/why-great-manag...
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
flukus 9y ago
Do they? They've had some epic disasters over the years. Their whole approach to product creation seems to be "throw mud at the wall and see what sticks".
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  It's 10% throwing the mud, 90% knowing where to throw it.

nickpsecurity 9y ago

"McDonalds probably has better research on their own business than you do." This is never something you should believe in a major, for-profit company heavy on management. Those companies have people investing in all kinds of BS all the time everywhere from top to store level. That includes McDonalds which is easy to verify by just listening to the employees talk about management and company politics. Now, it may be a good idea that might have come from someone thinking well. A big company investing in it across the stores isn't proof of that in any way, though. One needs more details.

dsacco 9y ago
> "McDonalds probably has better research on their own business than you do." This is never something you should believe in a major, for-profit company heavy on management. It takes an astonishing amount of hubris for any single individual to believe they can really have market research superior to a company's when it comes to the company's core competency. Even where it's true, I expect such an individual to have a far more reasoned claim than, "for-profit companies with lots of managers suck!" Just because companies try things and fail all the time doesn't mean they're not well-thought out and often even well-executed. Do you honestly believe "management heavy" companies are full of people who don't know what they're doing? How do you know what their research teams do or don't do, and know or don't know? On what basis can you even begin to assert an absolute statement like the one you just claimed? You didn't provide a substantive argument, all you said was companies try things that fail all the time, and implicitly repeated the meme that managers are just vapid drones in the aggregate.
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  "It takes an astonishing amount of hubris" It really doesn't. All it takes is a person to listen to people that work at these Fortune 500 companies talk about how big decisions get made. I did that most of my day for years. I also read what many say on online forums. I believe there's plenty of smart people in them including excellent marketers at McDonalds. There's even plenty of well-informed decisions and sensible projects. However, years of empirical data says what makes most of these companies run amounts to political skill of managers and the Peter Principle. Again, that's not my guess so much as what people in the middle and on the ground tell me. The low-level employees of big, food chains also gripe about corporate visitors saying they're worthless by adding nothing to what's going on or things they say are hugely disconnected from how the place runs day-to-day. As if they're managing a different, better-run company with more staff. Those people come and go with high turnover but a fraction of them move up into the positions making bigger decisions despite adding about nothing to the effectiveness of their restaurants. Gotta be politics and authoritarianism instead of performance given the data.
  - rainbowmverse 9y ago
    Anecdotes and asserting that empirical data exists without providing it isn't very convincing.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - nickpsecurity 9y ago
      Attempted some quick Googling for you. As expected, it's mostly noise about what managers think of their workers instead of other way around. However, I did find this Gallup piece studying a huge number of workers and companies that supports my hypothesis about management competency in average case. http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/167975/why-great-managers-rare.aspx http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/167975/why-great-manag...
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]

flukus 9y ago

Do they? They've had some epic disasters over the years. Their whole approach to product creation seems to be "throw mud at the wall and see what sticks".

rainbowmverse 9y ago
It's 10% throwing the mud, 90% knowing where to throw it.