[kingu]

The district manager of our local McDonalds was incredible; absolutely thought outside the box, would do extensive ‘craft’ grade projects to promote new items, always was entertaining going to one of her restaurants as there’d always be a little surprise somewhere on property that tied in with the current promotion.

Restaurants she managed would be clean, employees eager to serve (because if they're not helping customers, they were cleaning), and extremely fast. Rather than reward such a creative and productive force with a larger management position, the chain just left her in the position for years. When a local Chipotle opened, their district manager went to the McDonalds across the street, saw the homegrown promotional displays, asked about it, and then immediately offered her a job with Chipotle.

She's now a valued troubleshooter for the company, taking over under-performing districts and turning them around, saving thousands of jobs from restaurants which otherwise would close.

McDonalds has tons of talent within their ranks who have proven leadership skills that they should be cultivating and recruiting for corporate.

[SkyPilot]

Interesting, and strange. My observation is that franchises, to a rule, don't embrace “ out of the box” anything at individual locations. Period. They are usually completely about standardization and following orders. If an idea, promotion, artwork, advertising, menu item, uniform variation, or anything else didn't come form headquarters, they don't want to see it.