McDonald's Shuts Down in Iceland

McDonald’s will close its doors in Iceland at the end of October. There are no plans to return. This was an article in the back pages of newspapers here in the UK yesterday. It didn’t get much headlines and people went about their business, ordering skinny lattes and munching on any one of three dozen fast food options that are available at any city, town or village here. I read the article and moved on to more interesting news like Agassi admitting use of crystal meth. But as the thought of 300,000 Icelandic people sitting down to eat their last Big Mac this week in Reykjavik lingers in my mind, it hit me that the implications of McDonald’s woes are lost to us.


Now personally, I haven’t touched any fast food since 2003, a decision I made when my weight was out of control and the need for a lifestyle change was overdue. And when I say I haven’t touched any fast food since 2003, I mean exactly that – no McDonald’s, no Burger King, no Taco Bell, no fast food whatsoever. So I don’t really care if McDonald’s shut down all their stores around the world. But the reality is that most people depend on fast food chains for a good part of their meals each week and the primary reason for that is the low cost of these meals. Lets put aside the nutritional argument as to whether this is the right thing to do, and lets focus on the economical aspect.

In the US you can get 99c menus that many struggling parents feed to their children several times a week. Young people can get by with as little as $10 a week to cover several meals thanks to cheap fast food. And there is diversity and choice - you can pick from a multitude of burger joints (Micki Ds, Burger King, Jack in the Box etc.), Fried Chicken (KFC, Popeye’s), Mexican (Taco Bell, Del Taco), Chinese, Italian and sandwich joints like Arby’s. The average meal costs less than $3.5 at these places and you get quantity and a host of chemicals that are proven to have you returning for more. From my personal experience I would argue it is as difficult to kick fast food ‘addiction’ as it is smoking and drinking.

Before you have a coronary on this last remark, hear me out. In 2003 I use to eat 3 or 4 fast food meals a week, usually McDonald’s or a competitor of theirs in Belgium, called Quick. I had my last meal at McDonald’s in spring of 2003, a last supper if you like. I ordered a Big Mac (a favorite since 1977 when my parent’s gave me my first Big Mac in Paris at the tender age of 5), a McBacon, a large fries and a large diet coke. I enjoyed every bite of that meal. But here is the point – today, more than 6 years later, I can still taste every bite of that meal in my mouth. I can do the same for other fast food meals like KFC, Taco Bell and Quick that ate years ago. They all have distinctive tastes that stay in your system forever. You can't say the same thing for that gourmet meal you had at that Michelin star joint in Leith, or London, or San Diego. The folks at these companies have figured this out. You can say the same for Doritos and Ruffles chips (crisps for you Brits). Candy bars all have the same taste everywhere in the world, regardless of where you buy them. A mars bar is a mars bar no matter where you buy it, and they taste exactly the same in Las Vegas as they do in Frankfurt. Which brings us back to the Icelandic people’s woes as they lose their little piece of globalization forever.

McDonald’s is shutting down due to the rising cost of doing business. They have 3 stores in Iceland and are busier than ever – which makes sense since the country’s economy crashed in the last year as the first and most extreme victim of financial legislation. People are struggling financially in that country and so they flock to McDonald’s where a meal is cheap. However, as economies contract and currency’s lose value, the cost of importing supplies following the crash of the krona in addition to high tariffs have doubled the cost of meat, cheese, vegetables and other products, making it impossible to be profitable. The ingredients for hamburgers must be imported according to McDonald's regulations and this means importing everything from the buns to the packaging, mostly from Germany. According to the McDonald’s importer, the cost of a bag of McDonald’s approved onions is now higher than a bottle of high-end alcohol. They can’t make any money even if their stores can’t keep up with demand.

And this is the reminder I feel so many in Washington, London and the general public need. Businesses exist to make profit. If they can’t make profit then they shut their doors and go do something else that is profitable. Individuals don’t work for free. Neither do businesses. If your boss said come work for me for free, what would you do? 99.9% of you would leave and do something else. A business is no different, however, the losers are different. The losers are the people. No more McDonald’s fries for people in Iceland.

The first McDonald's restaurant opened in 1993 in Iceland's capital city Reykjavik. The first person who took a bite out of a Big Mac on the island was then-Prime Minister David Oddsson. The importer will replace McDonald’s with Icelandic burgers made from local Icelandic ingredients. The people of Iceland will get their cheap fast food and it will probably be a bit healthier than McDonald’s, but it won’t taste the same. Choice has lost out to the crash in Iceland. Is it possible we could see the same thing happen closer to home? How would you cope if your favorite fast food joint shut down? 

A British Prime Minister, NFL and a Nomad

Sunday morning and I’m at Edinburgh Airport waiting for a flight to London Heathrow. I have business meetings early Monday morning so decided to spend my Sunday doing a bit of shopping and catching up with some old friends. The BMI flight is over an hour late from London so we are delayed. My Star Alliance Gold status gets me access to their lounge and I am enjoying Scottish short bread with Starbucks quality coffee for breakfast. Finally they call boarding and as I make my way to the gate I am met by a flood of Scottish NFL fans wearing jerseys from all around the League. Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, New York Giants, New Orleans Saints, Arizona Cardinals, and of course Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots.

You see, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the rest of the New England Patriots are in London this weekend to play the Tampa Bay Bucs in week 6 of the NFL regular season. The annual NFL game at Wembley Stadium is the highlight of the British American Football calendar, with Wembley selling out to a capacity crowd of 85,000. London has made a bid to host a Super Bowl in the next 10 years and the NFL are taking a serious look at the proposal. Most Americans may cringe at the thought of their national event going to London, but it makes a lot of sense from a marketing and revenue perspective. In fact, there is even a proposal to expand the league with a full team in London. No doubt the logistics of having one or even two teams in different time zones is a nightmare. Think about the physical toll it would take on teams having to travel to the UK to play, and what about the London team itself having to travel to places like San Francisco, Seattle or San Diego to play a regular season or playoff game? Still, expanding its market to include the UK population would be greeted with approval (and cash) from the likes of Pepsi, Reebok and Gatorade.

And so as I watch these die hard American Football fans standing in line at a remote airport in the North of the UK, with their jerseys and baseball caps, spending their hard earned money to fly down to London and no doubt take Monday off work (productivity hit?), I think I have seen it all…until I board the plane. As I made my way through the first class cabin I come face to face with Prime Minister Gordon Brown as he takes his seat in the first row. Dressed in suit and tie, Gordon looks very tired as he settles into his seat and immediately goes head down to read through a 3-inch stack of paper. He looks like a management consultant, over worked, ruffled hair, and aging by the minute. I was a bit taken aback to be honest, by his shriveled look. He was also unshaven which was very unusual for a Prime Minister, but then it is Sunday morning and Gordon was no doubt up in Edinburgh for an engagement with family and friends the night before given the British Prime Minister is in fact Scottish. We can forgive him his appearance this fine fall morning, he is after all human like the rest of us, and deserves a weekend ‘off’ with his family who likely don’t get to have a Saturday night with him all that often.

After my surprise of bumping into ‘the man’ (at least in these parts), my business mind took over and I quickly started to assess the Prime Minister’s entourage. He sat in seat 1A and his security man sat next to him in seat 1C, wearing a suit and tie, looking fresh and rested, with an ear piece and armed no doubt although you couldn’t see anything. Behind him were two more men in suit and tie, but their facial expression and body language suggested they are aides to the Prime Minister, not security. As I waited for the NFL fans to stow away their bags and take their seats (this lot don’t travel much I deduct), I turned my attention back to Gordon and there he was, head down, scribbling ferociously on his stack of papers like a teacher correcting term papers. And then it hit me! I looked up in the overhead compartment and saw two briefcases staring back at me. Could it be? Was I looking at the British Prime Minister’s equivalent to what we Americans call ‘The Nuclear Football’? Way cool…

As I took my seat (9D, exit row in economy, best seats in the house), I couldn’t help to marvel at British society. The Prime Minister is on a commercial flight and everyone around me is so relaxed that I realize the only guy who is excited is me. I talk to my neighbor in 9F and turns out he is a St. Louis Ram’s fan (really??) who masquerades as a banker during the week. My new friend tells me the Prime Minister is often on this flight to and from London and always travels commercial. What? He never takes his own plane? Turns out he doesn’t have one. The Royal Air Force only give him a plane for big international flights when he has a huge entourage, otherwise he takes whatever commercial flight is available. “Tax payers won’t pay for private jets,” my neighbor tells me. “They are in government to work for us, not the other way round,” before turning the conversation back to more important things, such as will the Rams fire QB Marc Bulger any time soon?

Now can you imagine politicians and leaders in the United States flying commercial? Would the President take a commercial flight from his hometown of Chicago back to DC? Better yet, can you see the Speaker of the House fly commercial from San Francisco each week? What about Senator John McCain? And if they did, how would people react? Would they be as civil as the British are by politely leaving them alone? My flight was full but not a single person interrupted Gordon as they boarded the plane. That would never happen in the US.

You see, politicians in America have become celebrities. Somewhere along the line the tables have turned on we, the people. It used to be it was an honor to serve us by running for office. You went to Washington to get things done for your constituents. And you had to be qualified to represent the people who were sending you, so that meant you actually had to have accomplished something in your life in order for people to have confidence in your ability to serve. The British are fighting hard to keep that tradition. Career politicians are being targeted by the Press to prevent them from winning elections, or in cases where they snuck into office, from being re-elected. If you have paid any attention to the British news the past several weeks, auditors have been reviewing politician’s expense reports and making them payback illegitimate expenses. Gordon had to payback over £12,000 ($19,500). People are just not putting up with politicians who don’t know their place. They don’t care who you are.

And so as we prepare to land at London’s Heathrow Airport and I sign off, it is the nomad in me that is satisfied today. For without venturing out in the world you can’t be at places like this…places where Prime Ministers, foreign NFL fans and a nomad come together for a short plane ride.

Detroit: When are you going to Fix Yourself?

I was reading Evan Newmark’s column in the Wall Street Journal called Mean Street today. The title is What Will Become of Detroit? Don’t Ask Steve Rattner. If you don’t know him you should check him out, I have been following his column for a while and if you read through the entertaining writing style you will appreciate some of the points he makes on contemporary issues. To summarize Newmark’s point in today’s article, he questions whether there was any merit to sinking $100 Billion of US taxpayer money into GM and Chrysler, and wonders if we will ever get out money back. Now the topic of bailing out the Auto Industry is subjective for many people, even emotional for some, and there can never be a consensus on whether the Bush and Obama administrations did the right thing, but Newmark makes a great point about the need for introspection, in this case by Steve Rattner, the ex-Auto Czar.

In my view it is unimportant what Steve Rattner would find on introspection, he is passé and history will judge him accordingly. However, I’m more interested in when Detroit will do a little introspection? Lets make this real to you and me. American cars are generally inferior at every level to foreign vehicles. Fact. Quality is horrendous, design is mediocre at best, performance lacks on every level, fuel efficiency is a ‘buzz word’ and safety is questionable. Broumand’s opinion. Add to this point of view that consumer confidence is basically gone due to the financial state of these companies, and the credit crunch has hurt the dealers’ ability to leverage leases and auto loans, and you are left with big corporate shells that will require big government intervention for years to come – the cash for clunkers exercise is a great example, although arguably its Toyota, Honda and Hyundai that won big. When will the people inside Detroit do a little introspection and begin the process of saving themselves?

As we grow old waiting for Detroit, we should ask ourselves about the relationship and/or experiences we have with Detroit’s auto industry – and I stress Detroit’s auto industry, not the rest of the healthy US auto industry outside of Michigan.

For me, I have two experiences that have formed my opinion of Detroit. The first was in February of 2007, when I rented a Pontiac in San Jose, California, for a two day business trip. Driving to my client on interstate 280 at 7:45am, my brand new Pontiac with less than 3,000 miles, lost control at 40 miles an hour, spinning twice from the fourth lane to the first lane, where the car stopped facing oncoming traffic, and was subsequently hit by a BMW X5 and its Chinese female driver who’s facial expression I will never forget. My car did two flips and fell to the side of the freeway. Lucky for me, my seat belt was on and my instinct was to let my body go limb, so I came out of it without a scratch. But the car was totaled, and it took Avis three weeks to let my company know that the car was faulty and hence why I lost control at 40 miles an hour.

My second experience was more recent. In July, I took a trip to San Diego to visit my family and check in on my house in Las Vegas. I had booked a compact car at Hertz through the internet for a total of $110, including all taxes, for the week. When I arrived at the Hertz facility I was impressed to see a fleet of bright yellow Corvettes. As I checked in at the counter I asked whats up with the Vettes? The attendant chuckled and said “GM went bankrupt the other week and begged us to take these babies off their hands at fire sale prices. They are fully loaded with GPS and sports package, brand new.” I asked how much they rent for and he did a quick calculation on his computer and said I could have it for an extra $10 a day, all in. So for $180 I rented a convertible Corvette ZR 1 with less than 1500 miles and set off for my 5-hour drive to Las Vegas.

Now let me tell you, the car gets looks everywhere you go, and it is fast, opening up once you reach 60 miles an hour speeds. The car is nervous, like a sports car should be, and handles fairly well. But with a price tag of $106,000 you have to ask is the car worth it? My $50,000 BMW Z4 3.0si handles much better than the Corvette. For $106,000 you can compare the Corvette ZR 1 with a Maseratti Spyder, Audi R7, or Jaguar XK, and only less than $15,000 than the Aston Martin V8 Vantage. The Corvette just does not stand up to any of these cars from a quality, design and performance standpoint. Its not value for money at over $100,000, and it lacks the class you get with German, Italian or British cars. So if this is the best Detroit has to offer then no thank you.

Which begs the question should GM stop making the majority of its mundane brands and concentrate on building profitable businesses around its core brands like the Corvette and the Cadillac? With a century of history and brand building, Corvette and Cadillac are renowned worldwide, but the quality and class just isn't there anymore. Should GM change its name to The Cadillac Corporation and make money instead of being a “general” jack of all trades, but master of none? 

A little introspection is long overdue in Detroit, I’d say 20 years overdue, and as a taxpayer I don’t want to bankroll their denial anymore. If I did I would choose to buy their shares.

If a Homeless Man has a Dog, is the Dog Homeless?

Walking the streets of Edinburgh over the weekend, I came across a number of homeless dogs. Or at least that is how I perceived them as I strolled down George Street on a chilly Saturday afternoon, and saw a variety of breeds lying under blankets with their homeless owners asking me for my spare change. Having owned three labradors some years ago, I am one of many dog lovers who has experienced the joys (and frustrations) of raising puppies and watching them become grown best friends. My labs were incredible friends, loyal, caring and each of them having their own unique personality and character. As I recalled my three four-legged friends from days gone by, I got to thinking whether a dog would agree with my view that in fact he is homeless. What would the dog think?

per⋅spec⋅tive

–noun

the state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: You have to live here a few years to see local conditions in perspective.

Do you remember the first time you truly grasped the concept of perspective? It was like the fog clearing for me. I was in business school (that late believe it or not) and my Professor was unfortunately not very good, a fact that is supported by the sad truth that I can't remember her name. While she was not very good compared to some of her more impressive peers, for one lesson she did fascinate us with the importance of using perspective as a powerful tool in our day-to-day business dealings. She taught us the importance of understanding others' perspective in order to get across our own. She took the time to ensure we grasped the notion that understanding does not mean agreeing, but by understanding we have a better shot of connecting.

Some of you may be wondering why it took me until business school to grasp this simple concept, but think about it. When are we ever taught about perspective? They don't teach it at school, in religion or in sports and extra curricular activities. If anything, we are taught belief systems that are meant to define who we are, who we hang with, how we roll...dig deeper into society and you will see my point: gangs don't teach their members to understand the perspective of rival gangs; businesses don't teach their employees to learn from the opposing communication and positioning of competitors; political parties focus more on ridiculing the opposition during campaigning than understanding in the hope of connecting with opposing party members and, more importantly, voters; communities focus on, well, the community, and leverage things like local sports teams, the arts and festivals to bring people together. And so on. No, everywhere I look its clear the world tries to bring people together by focusing on what we have in common as opposed to share what is unique about each and every one of us.

With that perspective, I would argue I was lucky to learn about perspective so early in my life. Most people only grasp the notion when they are older, way older.

Perspective. Okay, so what?

Let us look at why it is so important to understand the power of perspective and then apply it in our world. Let me share an interesting example.

Some years ago I was involved with a client who had authored an incredible business book on managing diverse cultures. This client is a renowned consultant who earns his living by helping companies better understand other cultures in order to better manage their international business and teams. He has trained thousands of employees of Fortune 2000 companies all over the world in the art of managing cultural differences. My client told me a story about the challenges he encountered when one of his clients, a very large South Korean conglomerate, loved his training and his book so much that they translated it into Korean and distributed 30,000 copies in their organization without his permission. In short, they ripped off his book and distributed it to their staff (this is one perspective).

What happened next is truly remarkable. My client at first was enraged and got on the phone to his attorneys who, smelling deep pockets, wanted to sue international copyright infringement. The aggressive call to arms of the attorneys quickly reminded my client of his area of expertise - cultural differences. Instead of looking at this infringement of his intellectual property from his perspective, he decided to look at it from their perspective. He quickly realized that the South Koreans were in fact honoring him by paying to translate his work and then handing it out to 30,000 staff – they were so taken by his work that they went to all this effort and expense. After all, his book was not available in the South Korean language, or any Asian language for that matter. Reflecting on this further, my client came up with a proposal. He contacted his client and asked for a meeting. He flew to Seoul and sat with the clients to discuss his book. The conversation went something like this:

"Dear Korean client, you have bestowed the highest honor on me by investing your resources in translating my book and gifting it to so many of your hard working employees. I am very humbled and honored to help them and you with your business. Because my book is copyrighted internationally and I don't have a publisher in South Korea yet, would you be interested in helping me publish my book in your country?"

The South Korean conglomerate happened to own several publishing houses and jumped on the opportunity to buy the rights to his book, not only in South Korea but also China, Mongolia, Nepal and Japan. My client sold several million copies of his book over the next few years in the region and profited from his relationship with the big conglomerate. This does not make the fact that the company had infringed on his copyright and illegally translated and distributed copies without his permission okay, but by taking the time to understand their perspective and where they were coming from, he was able to think through a better outcome. Had he chosen to sue the company he would have been well within his rights, but I'm not sure anyone would have truly won from that scenario. A little understanding went a very long way in this instance.

Back to the Dag…"You like Dags?"

The opportunity to see from another perspective and then form an understanding is all around us every day. The world has changed in an irreversible way at least 3 times in the last 10 years by my count:

2001 – 9/11

2008 – Global Financial melt down

2009 – Barack Obama elected US President

Now everyone will have a perspective on whether these 3 events are irreversible changes, whether there are more than just these 3 events that truly have changed the world, whether they are positive or negative, who is to blame, who is right and who is wrong, whether they have impacted us at all etc. Regardless of how you view it, we are in need of greater understanding and connection today than ever before. Whether it is with our bankers, our public servants, our customers, our friends or other countries and faiths, we lack the perspective that is needed to ensure greater understanding and connection in our world today.

As for the homeless mutts…well, the truth is those dogs are happy animals. They get to spend all their time with their master, the person they want to be with the most. And they help these homeless people in ways no charity or pocket change can, by being loyal friends who love and respect them no matter what. It’s a heck of a relationship and I’m not sure they would give it up for anything in the world. But then that’s just my new perspective.

Maui, TJ & Asia - Aug 2005

Lets Get Started...

Welcome!

Like many bloggers it took me some time to decide whether to do this or not. What pushed me over the edge was simple - blogs can influence, blogs can inspire, blogs are alive. It hit me when I started to read a friend's blog about his 6 month study in Australia - not only am I able to keep up with his adventures, but through my pal I'm learning about life in Adelaide, the culture, the challenges he faces as a visitor and some of the random things that have happened to him that are lessons to us all. It comes down to this, my life is a little richer thanks to this blog.

Another old friend of mine uses her blog to teach creativity and marketing, what she does for a living. Now I don't always agree with my friend's point of view, but the fact that she gets it across and I can read and react to it makes for an interesting dynamic in our relationship. In reading her blog, I have come to appreciate my friend more than I used to when we worked together in one of the world's largest media companies almost 15 years ago. Back then she was a creative director and I was an account executive, and needless to say, we didn't see eye to eye on everything. E-mail was fairly new back then, and the internet, at least in Brussels where we were based, was pretty much non-existent in the work place. Would we have benefited from blogs, social networks and public profiles to bridge the gaps in understanding? I think the answer is without a doubt, yes.

So I decided to move forward with this blog. What will I blog about? Bear with me, the answer is not that simple. There are too many things to talk about in the world today, but I believe a blog is either subject specific or character specific. Since I don't want to talk politics, religion or philosophy, I have opted for the latter. This blog is an extension of the author, my experiences, my views and my interests, and this is a vehicle to share it. I look at life as a privilege, a gift that each of us receives at birth and its up to us to do what we will with it. I don't believe in the notion of 'inequality at birth'. I am a firm believer in the individual, and the power of each of us to make a difference at some level in our own lives first, and then in others'. So at the core of my blog I will focus on the individual and individuals experiences, individual accomplishments, individual failures, individual lessons, individual questions and individual beliefs. In short, this blog is going to be about lots of different things.

NO BOUNDARIES

Growing up in London and Brussels, I was often faced with lots of rules. I discovered early in my life that while necessary, I did not like boundaries because they were often imposed by others and failed to recognize my individual circumstance. Surely you know what I mean? For example, why were we never allowed to sit where we wanted in class back in elementary school? Every day for an entire year, we were expected to sit in the same seat all day long. One day, in fifth grade, I came into class and decided to sit in a different seat. What happened next was fascinating. First, the boy who usually sat in the chair I was occupying stood over me and scowled, not knowing what to say or how to react to this unexpected and unwelcome act of defiance. Before he had a chance to decide what to say or do, the girl sitting in front of him was screaming at me that I was in the wrong seat and needed to move, pleased with herself for pointing out my 'mistake'. As more of my classmates turned around in their seats to see what all the commotion was about, the teacher walked over and asked me to 'take my seat'. Having challenged the boundary of assigned seats, I gave up and moved back to my usual place, feeling both violated and misunderstood. Shouldn't I be free to sit where I want? Surely life is more interesting if we could change our seats once in a while? After all, the class room looks a little different from the first row than from the fifth row, does it not?

So I became someone who believes in pushing the boundaries but with some strict principles:

Principle 1 - never break the law when pushing the boundaries;

Principle 2 - never push the boundaries at the expense of another person;

Principle 3 - its not a game, its about challenging the status quo. Its the difference between settling for 'you can't' and asking 'why can't we?'.

So with this bit of background, you will understand why I wanted to limit the boundaries on this blog. If anything, we are going to broaden the perspective by touching on all the areas that make an individual exactly that, an individual.

So to help me launch this blog, I'd like to ask you to take a moment and ask yourself what makes you great? What do you bring to those in your life that only you can bring? Why are you so appreciated by others? And in case you have forgotten, you do matter to someone somewhere.