Michael McCain Background Michael H. McCain born on November 13, 1958 in New Brunswick, Canada is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of Maple Leaf Foods, since January 1999. Michael is listed on Canadian Business Magazine’s 100 richest Canadians. In 1979 he joined McCain Foods sales department and worked up into management. By 1986, he was President of McCain Citrus Incorporated and appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of McCain Foods USA Incorporated in 1990. In the 1990s a prolonged legal dispute between McCain co-founders and brothers Wallace and Harrison McCain over succession to the company leadership ended with the departure of Michael from McCain Foods. McCain joined Maple Leaf Foods as President and Chief Operating Officer in April 1995, and is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of the firm. McCain is also the director of Maple Leaf Foods, McCain Capital Corporation and McCain Foods Group Inc., as well as Chairman and a director of Canada Bread Company, Limited. McCain is also a member of the board of the Royal Bank of Canada, the American Meat Institute, and also serves on the board of trustees of the Hospital for Sick Children. He was also director of the American Frozen Food Institute and Bombardier Inc. As CEO of Maple Leaf Foods, McCain's handling of the 2008 listeria outbreak with frank and open communications made him a role model for crisis management. The 2008 Listeria Outbreak In 2008, Maple Leaf, Canada's largest meat company, was facing the most serious crisis of its 100-year-plus history. It had been confirmed: Packaged meat from its Toronto plant was killing people. 22 people died and there were 57 total confirmed cases. The outbreak originated from the Maple Leaf Foods Bartor Road facility in North York, Ontario, a neighbourhood of Toronto. There were about 220 possibly contaminated products, each stamped with the code "97B" near the "Best before" date. Since the bacteria travelled through deli meats, which are cooked, the contamination likely occurred during packaging. Response from McCain and Maple Leaf Foods It was the nightmare scenario for any consumer-products company. Maple Leaf's crisis plan was duly put into play. A camera crew was dispatched to the office lobby, where president and CEO Michael McCain, tall, lean and attired in an open-neck blue shirt with a white undershirt, taped a televised statement. After announcing that he had closed down the plant and ordered a recall of its products, a grim-looking McCain apologized and expressed his sympathy for the victims of the nationwide listeriosis outbreak. He followed up with a press conference the next day. "Going through the crisis, there are two advisers I've paid no attention to," he told reporters. "The first are the lawyers, and the second are the accountants. It's not about money or legal liability-this is about our being accountable for providing consumers with safe food." McCain's appearances and statements seemed perfectly natural to the public. To crisis management experts, they appeared to be expertly crafted. The contrite message resonated so strongly in public opinion that even as the number of deaths caused by listeriosis mounted and the entire Canadian food safety system came under attack, McCain seemed insulated by his statement that "the buck stops here." His sad, sober visage became standard fare on the evening news, on YouTube and in newspaper photos. He emerged as the human face of a company that cared about its customers. Maple Leaf Foods had instated a voluntary recall before the outbreak was linked to their plant; upon confirming the link, they expanded the recall to all products from the Bartor Road facility. In a press conference, President and CEO of Maple Leaf Foods Michael McCain stated, "Tragically, our products have been linked to illness and loss of life. To those people who are ill, and to the families who have lost loved ones, I offer my deepest and sincerest sympathies. Words cannot begin to express our sadness for their pain." About 80 workers were involved in the cleanup, with additional outside experts and microbiologists supervising the operation. About 320 employees were to attend a four-hour training session on Listeria and on cleanliness, and about 250 employees were laid off while the plant was being cleaned. The recall reportedly cost the company $20 million, about ten times the original estimate. McCain’s Reflection of his actions It was simply doing what was right; and doing what was right came directly from the company's ingrained values. "This is not about some contrived strategy," McCain said. "It's just about a tragic situation and an organization's desire to make it right." He insisted he could not even remember who had written the compelling words in the public statements- although Maple Leaf insiders say that the CEO's hand was in every deed and every word. "The core principle here was to first do what's in the interest of public health, and second to be open and transparent in taking accountability," McCain said. "For the team, this was almost not a decision-it was obvious. It's just what we are." McCain says the first step in brand rehabilitation was the company's response in the first few hours of Aug. 23 after it learned its meat was causing sickness. Maple Leaf immediately accepted accountability, apologized for the outcome, was transparent with its findings and was clear on an action plan. "What we believe is that all of those things bought us the right to be heard in the future. They didn't guarantee us anything beyond that." Michael McCain’s Values-Based Leadership Ethics in leadership and shared core values helped Maple Leaf Foods handle a major listeriosis outbreak in 2008 – its largest operational and communications crisis in history. Maple Leaf Foods returned to profitability just a year after spending much of 2008 dealing with the perfect storm: rising commodity prices, an economic downturn and the fallout from the listeria crisis. Despite all of this, at the end of October 2009, they reported a net income of $22.5-million compared to a net loss of $12.9-million a year ago. This happened primarily due to two reasons: First: Michael McCain's exceptional leadership skills. McCain’s approach to the listeria scare was both honest and personal. Regardless, as the leader, McCain put himself at the centre of the crisis and took complete ownership over what was happening. McCain acted in a way that's consistent with his own values, as well as with the stated values of the organization (the first of which is "do what's right"). Secondly, the reason Maple Leaf Foods turned the corner so successfully was because of the alignment of their corporate culture. The entire organization is built on 21 core values, written by McCain himself. Called the "Leadership Edge" (and in addition to "do what's right") the values fall under headings that include: "be performance driven," "have a bias for action," and, "dare to be transparent." In their annual performance review, which is directly related to compensation, all employees are measured on their adherence to these stated values. Despite the kind of year Maple Leaf Foods had in 2008 - the most difficult in its history - the organization still scored in the 96th percentile in employee engagement. Maple Leaf is a family business and one could argue that family values were reflected in McCain's strategy and overall conduct as a leader. Family businesses like Maple Leaf are usually the beneficiary of strong values-based leadership. Takeaway: great leaders build great organizational culture, and the behaviour that supports that culture drives performance. McCains Leadership Michael McCain handled the Maple Leaf Foods crisis through honest, convincing, and highly empathetic communication. Whether he was aware of it or not, McCain was illustrating the paradox of leadership in the modern corporation. More than most CEOs, he had always fostered teamwork and collaboration, particularly during the long and painful process of creating a new corporate strategy for Maple Leaf in the face of a high dollar and rising farm commodity costs. Tapping the intelligence of his people was not just good PR-he had actually lived it. But during the Listerine crisis, the stakes were about more than strategy. This was a crisis of public confidence, and McCain could no longer use the team approach, no matter how collaborative his decision-making had been. When a company's very existence is on the line, the CEO has to step up as the face of the organization. "That's the CEO's role in something of this nature," he conceded. "I take personal accountability but, in doing so, I can easily represent the interests of 23,000 people, and that is what I have tried to do." Still, the 50-year-old McCain was dismissive of the idea that he had done something heroic by confronting the TV cameras with such openness and empathy on that August day: "We won't allow ourselves the luxury of any heroes or medals in the middle of a tragedy. We just don't feel it is appropriate. There is no room for patting ourselves on the back, for handling a real tragic situation well." Hero or team player, McCain could hardly ignore that he had, in the space of a few weeks, become the most closely watched executive in Canada. Yet there is a thin line between heroism and hubris-and this reluctant hero could yet become the scapegoat if the company loses its battle with a barrage of horrors.