After a morning coaching several McDonald’s presenters for a company-wide conference, I left the rehearsal room to grab some lunch. On my way back, an admin staffer informed me that Paul Schrage, then McDonald’s senior executive vice president and chief marketing officer, had slipped into the rehearsal room to run through his speech. “He’ll only be in there a few minutes and won’t need coaching” she assured me, “but you’re welcome to go in if you need to prepare for the afternoon rehearsals.”

This was good news. I was eager to meet Schrage, who’d become as legendary at McDonald’s as its founder, Ray Kroc. It was Kroc who’d asked him to start the marketing department for his then burgeoning burger business 30 years earlier. I entered the room where Schrage was reading aloud his remarks at the lectern and took a seat in the back. Though it was just a run-through, a chance for him to sync the speech with his slides, his content and delivery hit all the right notes. As expected, a total pro. 

When he concluded his remarks a few minutes later, I assumed that after I introduced myself, he’d grab his briefcase and go. But instead, the marketing titan who’d given more talks than I had hairs on my 27-year-old head looked at me and asked,

“Do you have any feedback for me?” 

I felt as if Tiger Woods had just asked me for tips to improve his swing! But praise is feedback too, and that’s what I gave him. 

If Paul Schrage’s question was just a gesture, to my young self it seemed a grand one – proof that there are leaders, including very successful ones, unafraid to ask. And when they do, the people they ask feel their own voices matter.

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The story above is excerpted from a longer discussion on the importance of asking for workplace feedback in Paul Quinn’s nearly completed book, The Big Ask.

Banner photo from Blue Diamond Gallery