589: Lessons from 30+ years at McDonald’s – with Mike Yontz, McDonald’s Corp

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DELIGHTING CUSTOMERS TURNED THIS MCDONALD’S FRY GUY INTO AN OWNER/OPERATOR OF 11 FRANCHISES WATCH ON YOUTUBE TLDR In this episode of Product Mastery Now, I’m interviewing Mike Yontz, owner/operator of 11 McDonald’s restaurants, about scaling customer experience, leadership philosophies, and innovation within the McDonald’s ecosystem. Mike shares his journey from “fry guy” to owner, the importance of empathy and leadership development, insights into McDonald’s collaborative innovation, and advice for maintaining customer focus as organizations scale. INTRODUCTION Can you answer this riddle? I’m sitting at a cafe early one morning, working on my laptop. I observe three customers in a row going to the front counter and being greeted by name. As the fourth customer approaches, the person behind the counter says, “Good morning Tim. Here’s your newspaper. Do you want your usual?” Where am I? If you answered a local coffee shop, that would make sense. A Starbucks maybe? Not one I have been too. No, this occurred at a McDonald’s store. I was shocked. I was also curious who the person behind the counter was that welcomed customers by name. So, I went to find out and then we talked for an hour about what it takes to create a delightful customer experience like that. The person behind the counter was Mike Yontz, owner/operator of the McDonald’s store. Turns out Mike has “ketchup in his veins.” He started as a young “fry guy,” and has since worked his way up to currently owning 11 stores. He is a second-generation operator who has lived through the evolution of the world’s most iconic brand—the Golden Arches. Scaling a culture of excellence is one of the hardest challenges in leadership. In this discussion, Mike shares the philosophies and practices he uses to maintain that level of customer delight across 11 stores and 500 employees. SUMMARY OF CONCEPTS DISCUSSED FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS From Fry Guy to Owner/Operator: On his journey from a 14-year-old fry cook to leading 11 McDonald’s stores, Mike developed operational knowledge along with an understanding of how to lead people. His goal is to make life easier for his employees and be empathetic to their needs has served him well throughout his career. When I met Mike in 2014 in Arizona, he owned and operated just one McDonald’s franchise. He described his time in Tucson as the biggest moment of his life. He was on a mission to honor the legacy of his late father, whom he describes as a “strong McDonald’s man.” After success in Tucson, Mike transitioned to flipping underperforming restaurants and now owns 11 stores with hopes to grow further. He now supervisors store managers and focuses on scaling the company. Although he isn’t serving customers behind the counter, he still approaches his job with empathy, aiming to improve the livelihood of the employees who have supported him. Scaling Culture and Customer Experience: The key to maintaining high-quality customer service across multiple stores is building a core team that shares Mike’s empathetic, customer-focused vision. Mike ensures that every employee, down to the fry guys, know they are welcome to share ideas. He talks about the responsibility of creating meaningful opportunities and the practical benefits of promoting from within, such as increased retention and stronger team buy-in. Innovation and Collaboration at McDonald’s: Mike describes his involvement recent innovation initiatives, such as serving as a beverage “champion” connecting headquarters and franchisees. It’s difficult to roll out new items to tens of thousands of restaurants across the globe, and McDonald’s uses test kitchens to test new products and processes to ensure those roll outs go smoothly. Staying Connected to Customers: Mike discusses the challenges of maintaining a direct connection to customers as businesses grow. Mike shares practical tools like visiting his own stores and competitors. He leverages both direct experience and customer empathy to spot friction points and improvement opportunities. USEFUL LINKS * Read my article about Mike from 2014, What McDonald’s Should Learn From Mike: How Customer Service Brings Success to Small Businesses [https://productmasterynow.com/blog/what-mcdonalds-should-learn-from-mike-how-customer-service-brings-success-to-small-businesses/] * Check out Mike’s website [https://yontzmcd.com/] * Learn more about McDonald’s innovation incubator, Speedee Labs [https://corporate.mcdonalds.com/corpmcd/our-stories/article/speedee-labs-where-mcdonalds-innovation-comes-to-life.html] INNOVATION QUOTE “If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.” – Warren Buffett “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” – African proverb APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. How can you maintain empathy for your customers as your responsibilities and teams scale? 2. What systems and rituals can help set cultural expectations for customer experience in your organization? 3. How might you structure career development and leadership opportunities for your frontline employees to promote retention and growth? 4. In what ways can you balance innovation and customization with the need for consistency across products or locations? 5. What are practical methods for “drinking your own champagne” in your product context, and how can this habit uncover useful customer insights? BIO Product Manager Interview - Mike Yontz [https://productmasterynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Mike-Yontz_400.jpg] As a second-generation McDonald’s franchise owner/operator, Mike Yontz’s story is rooted in family tradition, building on his father Bill’s legacy with the brand that began in the late 60s. In 1995, at the age of 14, Mike followed in his father’s footsteps and began working as a “fry guy” and drive-thru order taker. “I joined the team and worked on and off for several years, like many do, until ultimately I made a decision to choose McDonald’s at about the age of 20,” says Mike. Today Yontz Enterprises owns and operates eleven McDonald’s locations in the Orlando area, employing over 500 team members united under the Golden Arches. THANKS! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source [https://productmasterynow.com/blog/589-lessons-from-30-years-at-mcdonalds-with-mike-yontz-mcdonalds-corp/]

600: Winning at new products – with Bob Cooper, PhD

LESSONS FROM THE DISCOVERER OF STAGE-GATE FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS INTRODUCTION Product Manager Interview - Bob Cooper [https://productmasterynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Bob-Cooper_400.jpg] For our 600th episode, we are re-running an episode with a legend in product management, Dr. Robert Cooper, who has made many foundational contributions to product management and innovation. He is the keynote speaker at the next PDMA annual conference, Oct 8-9 in Atlanta, GA – details at www.pdmasummit.com [https://www.pdmasummit.com/]. Dr. Robert Cooper discovered the now famous Stage-Gate process and was named the “World’s Top Innovation Management Scholar” by the prestigious Journal of Product Innovation Management. Besides his best-selling books Winning at New Products and Portfolio Management for New Products, he has published more than 130 articles on R&D and innovation management. He is frequently helping organizations succeed while also holding the role of Professor Emeritus at McMaster University and Distinguished Research Fellow at Penn State University. SUMMARY OF CONCEPTS DISCUSSED FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS [3:05] WHAT KEY CHALLENGES ARE MEDIUM AND LARGE ORGANIZATIONS ENCOUNTERING TODAY WHEN TRYING TO GET NEW PRODUCTS INTO THE MARKETPLACE? We’re facing new uncertainty and risks. Companies have to think about what to do short-term to keep the lights on and what to do long-term for bolder innovations. Some companies will retreat and cut their spending by cutting bolder long-term innovations, and we saw in the recession around 2010 that was a bad strategy. In some mature industries, it is increasingly difficult to find opportunities for new products. In the 1920s and 1930s, there was no absence of problems in telecommunications. They couldn’t even send a long-distance call because there were no amplifiers, no vacuum tubes, and no transistors. They had to invent all those things. When you have no absence of customer or user problems, if you’re reasonably intelligent, you can usually come up with the inventions and the necessary breakthrough new products. Today it’s harder in the telecommunications business because there are problems but not as evident as formerly. Other industries like IT are still going strong with many opportunities and problems to solve, but it’s becoming increasingly tougher to find fantastic voids in the marketplace. Another challenge is fortitude of the general manager to keep spending at the same level when it is tougher and tougher to get the return on investment you need. On the other hand, there are all kinds of new technologies like AI, biosciences, and new opportunities in the medical field. These technological possibilities should generate all kinds of new product opportunities. [7:38] WHAT ADVICE DO YOU GIVE LEADERS ABOUT MAKING STRATEGIC DECISIONS? There are many risks and uncertainties like the supply chain, market size, and expected profitability. The numbers we put in our business cases are notoriously wrong often by a factor of two. Many business cases are fantasy because there are so many unknowns, which people usually don’t factor in. Take a hard look at how you do your business case in light of increasing uncertainties and build that in somehow. I have a new article coming out on expected commercial value, which builds likelihoods into the business case. How do you estimate likelihoods? We didn’t know how to do it in the past, but now we have estimates from companies like Dow Chemical and 3M. They have put together probability tables that give the likelihood of success under certain circumstances, because they’ve studied enough projects to know. Do the net present value calculations with correction factors for likelihood of success. The other piece of advice is getting the product right. Sometimes people do voice-of-customer analysis and think they understand the customer’s needs, then spend a year designing a prototype, then do field trials and everything goes wrong. The customer’s needs have changed or the customers didn’t understand their own needs. Instead, we recommend iterative innovation. Build something really fast and demo it to the customer to get instant feedback. Get the product out in their face fast, early, often, and cheap. The first version doesn’t have to be the real product. You can create a computer simulation or animation. Show the customer something in the first three weeks of development and repeat every four weeks. Demo to management too because you need their buy-in and support. [13:07] WHAT’S AN EXAMPLE OF USING ITERATIVE INNOVATION? Steve Jobs said, “Customers don’t know what they want until they see it.” LEGO has a B2B business called LEGO Education, which sells learning products to schools and teachers. It’s a combination of IT software and LEGO blocks. There was a new product coming out that LEGO had been working on for about four years and couldn’t get right. It was a creative writing curriculum to teach younger children how to be more creative writers. LEGO had several panels of teachers, and they asked them, “What are you looking for in this product?” And the teachers weren’t sure. One of the teachers finally said, “Why don’t you build something and show it to us? And then we’ll tell you if it’s right.” The team got into iterative development or Agile Stage Gate, and it worked very well. [17:46] WHAT DO ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO RETHINK ABOUT PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT? One of the major challenges is having too many projects in the pipeline for available resources. Nobody has the fortitude to say no, so the default option is to do them all. By doing them all, we guarantee they’re all late. When you do a portfolio review and re-rank all the projects, you find out that a few of them that look shiny and bright at the beginning are not quite so shiny and bright over time. Maybe it is time for a tough re-review of the entire set of projects to kill some of them to benefit the whole portfolio. You can rank the projects from 1 to 15, lop off the bottom 5, and reallocate the resources to the top 10, but who has the guts to do that? You’re going to be annoying or discouraging somebody. But let’s face it, some projects are the bottom third and maybe their resources are better spend on the the top two thirds. You have to have buckets and rank each bucket separately because you can’t compare minor modifications and bold innovations. Someone has to have the method and the guts to do this re-ranking and get top management on board. Those meetings are pretty tough, especially the first one, but it has got to be done. Otherwise your projects are going to be late or under-resourced, and success rates will go down. Use a good method for ranking projects. Have a tough portfolio manager. Have a good data system. Often, when projects go through gates or portfolio review, the only criteria for go are “Is it on schedule?” and “Is it on budget?” Those are the the wrong questions. They’re backward-looking questions. Instead, ask forward-looking questions like, “Does this project still offer great value to the company?” and “What’s the financial value going forward?” Net present value and productivity index are good metrics for that. [22:55] WHAT BUCKET APPROACH DO YOU USE? The first key step is knowing where your money and resources are going now. Make a pie chart of the breakdown across the buckets by numbers of projects, a second pie chart of where the resources are going, and a third pie chart of first-year sales for new projects. Often, you might find that where the sales are coming from is not where the resources are going. You might be putting most of your seed on the worst fields. [28:03] WHAT DO PEOPLE MISUNDERSTAND ABOUT STAGE-GATE THAT YOU WOULD LIKE THEM TO KNOW? The Stage-Gate process came from stories of successful entrepreneurs and teams. These projects had bold and assertive project leaders and teams that did everything right and had huge successes. Today companies have lost that entrepreneurial risk-taking approach. They’ve burdened their Stage-Gate process with too much paperwork and check-the-box exercises. Get rid of non-value-added work. Apply Lean principles. Map out your process beginning-to-end on a big roll of paper or post-it-notes. Get rid of all the unnecessary stuff. It only takes about a day to do that exercise and then a little longer to improve the process. Before you get into Agile, get your process working right. ACTION GUIDE: PUT THE INFORMATION BOB SHARED INTO ACTION NOW. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ACTION GUIDE [https://productmasterynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/446-Bob-Cooper-Action-Guide.pdf]. USEFUL LINKS: * Visit Bob’s website [http://www.bobcooper.ca/] * Check out the PDMA Handbook 4th edition [https://www.amazon.com/PDMA-Handbook-Innovation-Product-Development/dp/1119890217] INNOVATION QUOTE “There are two ways to win at new products. The first way is ‘doing projects right’—and that’s what Stage-Gate is all about—a stage-by-stage process to drive new products to market effectively. The second way is ‘doing the right projects’—and that’s about project selection, making the right investment decisions, and portfolio management. The problem here is that management’s batting average is worse than the toss of a coin—only 25% percent of projects approved for development become commercial successes! Let’s see how to do both ways to win better.” – Bob Cooper THANKS! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source [https://productmasterynow.com/blog/600-winning-at-new-products-with-bob-cooper-phd/]

13. Juli 202639 min

599: Replace your limiting beliefs with liberating beliefs – with Nir Eyal

CHOOSE USEFUL BELIEFS TO BECOME A BETTER PRODUCT MANAGER WATCH ON YOUTUBE TLDR In this episode of Product Mastery Now, three-time returning guest Nir Eyal discusses his latest book, Beyond Belief. The conversation dives into how our underlying beliefs shape our actions, careers, and the products we build, with science-backed strategies for challenging limiting beliefs, reframing workplace motivation, and building liberating beliefs that help teams thrive. INTRODUCTION There are guests you have on once. And there are guests you keep coming back to because as the field keeps moving so do they. Nir Eyal keeps moving, learning, and informing us on how to make better products and how to be better ourselves. Twelve years ago he joined me on episode 30 to talk about Hooked — how great products are built on human behavior, not just features. He came back on episode 259 for Indistractable — how we take our attention back in a device-filled world. Now he’s gone deeper. His new book is Beyond Belief — a science-backed look at the hidden assumptions that decide what we think is possible and how our psychology impacts what we can accomplish. And for product managers and leaders, the beliefs we carry about our work, our teams, and ourselves shape everything we accomplish, including the products we ship. SUMMARY OF CONCEPTS DISCUSSED FOR PRODUCT MANAGERS Nir New Book, Beyond Belief Nir’s newest book, Beyond Belief, was inspired by conversations with people who had read his previous book, Indistractable, and complained that it didn’t work for them, despite not having actually tried any of the practices the book recommended. Nir wondered why, in an age when we know so much, we often fail to put information into action. What Are Beliefs? Nir distinguishes between facts, faith, and beliefs. He defines facts as objective truths, faith as convictions that do not require evidence, and beliefs as convictions that are open to revision based on evidence. Beliefs are malleable. Nir explains that many problems come from not realizing that many of the things we think are facts are actually beliefs. In order to change our behavior, we should ask ourselves, “Is this belief serving me or hurting me?” Beliefs change what we see. If you don’t believe something is possible, you won’t stay motivated to do it. Long-term motivation requires a behavior, a benefit, and belief. You must believe that you are capable of performing the behavior and that by doing so you will receive the benefit. The Three Powers of Belief Nir introduces three powers of belief. * Attention: Our beliefs change what we see. * Anticipation: Our beliefs change what we feel. * Agency: Our beliefs change what we do. Together, these powers of belief determine who we become. Preparing for the Pain Nir critiques “manifesting,” which focuses on outcomes. Research shows that envisioning outcomes makes people less likely to achieve those outcomes. A more effective practice is focusing on the process needed to achieve those outcomes. This is how athletes prepare for an event — they visualize what they are going to do and how they are going to react when something goes wrong. Nir recommends that in a business context, leaders should help their teams “prepare for the pain” rather than fixating on the ends. When we believe the pain can serve a purpose, it does not become suffering. Top performers feel the same pain as everyone else, but they believe it serves a purpose, and can therefore sustain motivation over the long term instead of quitting. Reframing Negative Beliefs Nir recommends a technique called the turnaround to help product leaders turn limiting beliefs into liberating beliefs. When you’re experience pain, such as being stuck in your career, instead of focusing on your suffering, ask yourself, “What is the benefit here?” Maybe you have more time to spend with family or extra time to look for another job during a time of rapid change. These reframed beliefs increase motivation and decrease suffering. Nir recommends collecting a portfolio of perspectives to ask yourself, “Could the opposite of what’s causing your suffering also be true?” Beliefs can be useful even if untrue. For example, Amazon uses the belief, “It’s always day one.” This isn’t true, but it is useful. Liberating beliefs don’t have to be true but they can be aspirational and are open to change based on the evidence. Useful Beliefs for Product Teams Nir describes how product leaders can help their teams adopt useful beliefs. Leaders should have beliefs that they are willing to sacrifice for, that the team will stake their reputation on no matter what. This beliefs should be specific and fitting to the organization. USEFUL LINKS * Check out Nir’s book, Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results [https://geni.us/beyondbelief] * Get a free five-minute belief change guide [https://www.nirandfar.com/beyond-belief-live] * Get bonus content and the 30-Day Belief Transformation Journal [https://www.nirandfar.com/beyond-belief] * Visit Nir’s website [https://www.nirandfar.com/] * Connect with Nir on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/] INNOVATION QUOTE “Beliefs are tools, not truths.” – Nir Eyal APPLICATION QUESTIONS 1. What are some beliefs you hold about your role or your product that might be limiting your possibilities or team outcomes? 2. How does your team approach setbacks or failures—do your shared beliefs encourage learning, or do they focus on blame and avoidance? 3. In what ways could you introduce liberating beliefs within your organization, and how would you measure their impact on motivation and results? 4. How can you distinguish between facts, faith, and beliefs in your day-to-day product decisions? Where might you be treating beliefs as facts? 5. What team or company-wide beliefs (spoken or unspoken) have you noticed, and how do they help or hinder your team’s success and innovation? BIO Product Manager Interview - Nir Eyal [https://productmasterynow.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Nir-Eyal_400.jpeg] Nir Eyal is a globally recognized authority on behavior change and human potential. His frameworks have empowered millions to build better habits, enhance focus, and unlock greater agency in their lives and work. A former lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, Nir has collaborated with leaders and organizations worldwide to boost performance through behavior design. He is the New York Times bestselling author of the international bestsellers Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products  [https://geni.us/hooked-naf]and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life [https://geni.us/indistractable-naf], which have sold over one million copies in more than 30 languages. Hooked was a finalist for the 2014 Goodreads Choice Awards. Indistractable won the 2019 Outstanding Works of Literature (OWL) Award and was named one of the Best Business & Leadership Books of the Year by Amazon, Audible, and The Globe and Mail. His third book, Beyond Belief: The Science-Backed Way to Stop Limiting Yourself and Achieve Breakthrough Results [https://geni.us/beyondbelief], became an instant New York Times best-seller and reveals how to identify and replace the hidden beliefs that define our limits. As a seasoned entrepreneur and angel investor, Nir has backed multi-billion-dollar companies, including Canva, Kahoot!, and others. In addition to blogging at NirAndFar.com, his writing has been featured in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, and Psychology Today. For over 25 years, he has worked alongside his wife and business partner, Julie Li. THANKS! Thank you for taking the journey to product mastery and learning with me from the successes and failures of product innovators, managers, and developers. If you enjoyed the discussion, help out a fellow product manager by sharing it using the social media buttons you see below. Source [https://productmasterynow.com/blog/599-replace-your-limiting-beliefs-with-liberating-beliefs-with-nir-eyal/]

6. Juli 202618 min

589: Lessons from 30+ years at McDonald’s – with Mike Yontz, McDonald’s Corp

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