Steve Easterbrook. Has he fixed the fallen arches?

I wouldn't underestimate McDonald's. ~ Steve Easterbrook, CEO McDonald's

You won't find Steve Easterbrook walking down a red carpet in a hoodie, posing for GQ, or appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. He's not a celebrity CEO from Silicon Valley. Steve Easterbrook is a modern progressive hamburger CEO originally from Watford UK, and in the nine months since taking the helm at McDonald's in April 2015, he has achieved what few thought was possible: he has fixed the fallen arches.

At least he has fixed the stock price, and the stock price is how shareholders get their fix.

Should this chart be Steve Easterbrook's report card, as it is for so many CEOs? Stock price can be manipulated, and McDonald's has juiced its stock price by giving shareholders visions of sugarplums--dividends and stock buybacks. It has promised $30 billion in shareholder gifts by the end of 2016 to be paid for with $10 billion in additional debt, resulting in a Standard & Poors downgrade of McDonald's debt from A to BBB+. (Am I the only person who thinks that these debt ratings sound like bra sizes?)

Why aren't franchisees screaming from the tops of their golden arches about this transfer of wealth? In an article entitled, McDonald's Has to Do More than Manipulate Its Stock Price, that blow horn for communist propaganda, The Harvard Business Review says that...

Buybacks are a major cause of income inequality, contributing to both the concentration of income among the richest households and the disappearance of  middle class jobs.

Rather than dwell on the evils of stock repurchase and how McDonald's might better invest its borrowed money in strategies to increase sales, let's get back to Steve Easterbrook. One cannot be CEO of McDonald's without addressing the elephant in the room. The stereotypical McDonald's customer. Steve Easterbrook is not a typical McDonald's customer. He played cricket with England's former captain, Nasser Hussein, and completed a triathlon. Steve Easterbrook is the Fortune 500 CEO least likely to eat at McDonald's, yet he insists that he does.

A few times a month he'll eat a quarter pounder with cheese and medium fries. He says he can comfortably fit McDonald's' meals into a balanced diet, but Easterbrook models the behaviour of the "average" McDonald's customer, not the Pareto customers of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation--the 20% of customers who eat 80% of McDonald's food and can no longer comfortably fit into their jeans.

I exercise. I fit it in with my lifestyle. ~ Steve Easterbrook explains why he doesn't look like he eats at McDonald's

McDonalds is unfairly blamed for society's ills, says Steve Easterbrook, yet in spite of efforts to reduce the salt and fat content of its food, the blimp of childhood obesity hovers over the company and refuses to budge. Easterbrook asserts that McHappy Meals offer carrots or fresh fruit as substitutes for fries, as if offering a healthy choice could appeal to a child's underdeveloped executive function. As an adult I would have a hard time substituting fruit or veggies for McDonald's fries. As a child, there was no way I'd pass on those salty strands of scrumptious spud. 

Even when he's on the BBC arguing with Fast Food Nation's Eric Schlosser about McDonald's role in promoting childhood obesity, Steve Easterbrook appears amiable. Those who know Steve describe him as "an all-round good guy" who is passionate about customers and the crew that serves them, and knows every inch of how a restaurant works.  

Surprisingly, given his background as a well-seasoned hamburger man, his first crack at making a good impression did not go well. Easterbrook's coming out presentation was a 23-minute video in which he appeared, not as the dashing, terribly British cricketer that could charm the bun off an Egg McMuffin, but as Prince Charles declaring mutton season open in North Shropshire. McDonald's stock price dropped 1% overnight. (You can find a review of Bridge of Fries here.)

Then there was that hipster Hamburglar who looked like he was more likely to steal a wife than a hamburger. 

The tide finally seemed to shift for Easterbrook and McDonald's when the All-Day Breakfast returned on October 6th to much fanfare, and Q3 earnings revealed the first stirrings of a turnaround. Same store sales were up 0.9% in the US, the first quarterly sales increase in two years. 

McDonald's' future certainly looks a bit brighter than it did a year ago, and Steve Easterbrook can take much of the credit. He is trying to make McDonald's more responsive to customers, especially Millennials, with custom hamburgers and upgraded surroundings. Easterbrook has made a significant commitment to technology so that in the future there will be as many as five different ways to have a McDonald's experience via kiosk, web, mobile and perhaps even delivery.

Would you like drones with that? Fast food of the future

And more good news for McDonald's is coming from a surprising source. Chipotle. Chipotle is moving closer to the McDonald's model with some centralized food preparation because Chipolte's locally-sourced product has a tendency to move too quickly through its customers.

Chipotle learned from McDonald's. Here are a few quick lessons we can learn from Steve Easterbrook.

1. All we are trying to do is become a better McDonald's. Much of McDonald's success so far has been attributed to running better restaurants and replacing the margarine on the Egg McMuffin with butter. As the new year approaches it's worth asking ourselves if there are ways we can run our lives better and if we have any hydrogenated habits that we could replace with something that tastes a bit better. 

2. In people and in companies, turnaraounds are about momentum. Winning builds confidence and confidence creates a cycle of success. Just don't goose your stock price to create the illusion of momentum.

3. Simplify Simplify Simplify. McDonald's has permanently removed seven items from their menu, items such as the bacon clubhouse wrap. We all have bacon clubhouse wraps in our lives that we can remove.

Many leaders fall into the trap of trying to sound too intelligent. I don't suffer from intelligence, therefore I try to keep stuff simple. ~ Steve Easterbrook

Steve Easterbrook is extremely intelligent and will simply get the biggest payday of his life thanks to the surge in McDonald's stock since he took over. Alas he will likely not win CEO of the Year because nobody knows who he is, although he should win CEO I'd Most Like to Watch a Cricket Match at the Pub With (as long as he pays).

What do you think? Do you think McDonald's is on the right track? Share your opinion in the comment section and cast your vote for Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Marissa Mayer or Mark Zuckerberg (the final CEO in the series, December 22.)

About the Author: Lynne Everatt is grateful to Steve Easterbrook because if it weren't for the introduction of the all-day breakfast, she would never have tried an Egg McMuffin.