Product Description

Q: What happens when a distinguished management professor works undercover at fast food restaurants? A: He learns more than ever about the secrets of great management and leadership. "My Secret Life on the McJob", a groundbreaking new management tell-all, is at once a humorous take on the world of the rank-and-file as well as a practical guide on management that you can use in your business, no matter what kind of business it is. Jerry Newman shares the approaches that worked ...and the ones that were a serious miss. His experience behind the counter at McDonalds, Arby's, and Burger King, among others, delivers the answers to potent management questions such as: How can a manager succeed when resources are scarce? When he's too bombarded with details to think? When employee turnover is 200 percent? Newman learned everything the hard way.Each chapter includes "Supersized Management Principles" - behaviors and values that identify effective management behavior. It features first-hand accounts of good and bad leadership in adverse conditions, as well as battle-tested motivational, training, and team-building techniques. It delivers solutions for today's most pressing management issues.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #789869 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 203 pages

Review

“Jerry Newman offers entertaining anecdotes and wonderful descriptions of the personalities working at every station of responsibility….Unusual for a business book offering management advice, My Secret Life on the McJob is written from the perspective of a crew member on the receiving end of the boss’s expectations rather than from that of a manager who faces the challenges of building a team, running a business and earning a return on investment….It offers many lessons that would be helpful to managers in almost every segment of business—or even government.”

—Andrew H. Card Jr., President Bush’s chief of staff from January 2001 to April 2006; The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2007 (The Wall Street Journal )

From the Back Cover

What happens when a distinguished management professor works undercover in fast food?

He learns powerful truths about what makes businesses great…

From minimum-wage floor sweepers to corner office kings, anyone with a job can learn something from Jerry Newman's experience behind the counter at major fast food restaurants. My Secret Life on the McJob reveals brilliantly simple “Supersized Management Principles” that many Fortune 500 bosses still haven't grasped.

About the Author
Jerry M. Newman, Ph.D., is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor for the State Universoty of New York at Buffalo. He is the co-author of Compensation, which has been the bestselling book in the category for 21 years. He is also a Fortune 500 consultant with firms including At&T, Hewlett-Packard, Burger King, McDonald's, and Nabisco.

Customer Reviews

Insight and Wisdom with a Side of Fries...
This book offers an inside look at management practices in the fast food industry in a way we can all relate to. Dr. Newman draws us into his world by sharing from his own personal perspective as he learns to cope with working for minimum wage in a variety of fast food establishments under a wide range of conditions. His honesty concerning his own limitations and challenges is refreshing and makes it easy to relate to his experience. The writing style employed, rather than being a chronological narrative, explores key management principles drawing upon various personal experiences and observations to illustrate the author's opinion of whether or not a particular approach is effective. Although Dr. Newman avoids the "expose" approach, he does give us plenty of stories concerning particular individuals and situations that are both entertaining and enlightening, and they help us to identify with both workers and managers as they interact with one another. The value of this book lies in the author's objectivity and fairness in assessing each manager's strengths and weaknesses, and his ability to compare and contrast different management styles. Anyone involved in leading or managing people, especially those working in the capacity of management in the fast food industry, should consider this book required reading. It will help anyone to better understand how to motivate and inspire people at any level in any industry.

Mini McJob review
I read a review of this book in a newspaper and decided immediately that I had to have it. The author writes in an easy, conversational tone - in point of fact, I finished it in one weekend. Through his various part-time job descriptions at fast food restaurants you become acquainted with far-ranging management philosophies (especially the "toxic" managers), training programs (or lack thereof), and a greater appreciation for life behind the counter. Both my wife and I are much more tolerant of the mistakes made by people who hold these McJobs. And, yes, I would love to take a business management course from Dr. Newman!

Refreshing and Smart..."I'm Lovin' It!"
Dr. Newman could have just written about management by using his many years of experience in business. Instead, he decides to go undercover and study management styles in one of the lowest paying, well known industries: fast food. More importantly, he doesn't learn about fast-food management by becoming an assistant manager; instead, he applies for jobs that are at the bottom of the "food chain." Among many tasks, he uses the fryer, mops the floors, cooks burgers--all with his PhD in his back pocket and while listening to his various managers make both good and bad decisions. The way in which he gathers information is as refreshing as his writing. The book is both insightful and relatable, making it easy for the reader to understand how to improve their management skills.