[brianwillis]

I spent five years working for McDonald's, and I'll say that I've never worked for a company before or since that was so easily distracted and unfocused. The general philosophy from head office seemed to be "everything is always a priority all the time". There was never any sense of what truly mattered, and there wasn't a clear vision for the future of the company.

I'd speculate the reason for this is that when you're insulated by the sheer volume of money that McDonald's was back in the 80's and early 90's, you're effectively living in a world without scarcity. As a company, they've never really been forced to make difficult choices, and haven't developed the ability to do so. Instead, they just choose everything, and hope that if they throw enough mud maybe some of it will stick.