RE: McDonald & LO, an anecdote:
The other day I drove through my new neighborhood McDonalds's. Its been
around for about 8-9 months. Very clean, friendly, etc. I was dressed for
yard work on a Friday, not in a business suit. The place was being run by
all these men in white shirts and ties. And the parking lot was full of
Ford Taurus', and so I figured, the district supervisors were running the
shop.
My impression of service: Very efficient, yet impersonal. Was it my
T-shirt and jeans, or the fact they didn't know me? Because this was not
their personal place of work, they had less interest in creating an
environment of neighborliness than the people who normally serve me there.
They had a task for the day, and were pursuing it. Interesting visit.
It reminds me of a distinction Peter Drucker made many years ago between
efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency was doing this right,
effectiveness, doing right things. And that comes down to perceptions and
context.
Thanks for continuing this thread.
Ed Brenegar
brenegar@bulldog.unca.edu
--Edwin Brenegar III <brenegar@bulldog.unca.edu>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>