McCain Foods Case Study: Leadership Development Tied to the Culture

Topics: 2011 GLC, Cultural Outcomes

Contents

McCain Foods is a leading food manufacturer with 53 plants on six continents. Although there were dozens of regional leadership curriculums and performance management systems used globally, there was only limited commonality among the programs and none had direct links to McCain's business strategy. As a result, there was no universal leadership language and also no tie-in to the behavioral expectations of leaders across the organization. The McCain Learning Centre (MLC) was asked to develop a curriculum to change that. The effort had three specific goals:

• Increased awareness and understanding of the company's strategic plan and leadership expectations 
• Increased promotion from within the organization 
• An improved succession-planning ratio to achieve a goal of two leaders identified from within the organization for every role two levels below the president and CEO.

The MLC engages a performance methodology and systematic approach to program development that encourages both continuous improvement and learning reinforcement through an end-to-end process. It used that process to develop its leadership curriculum incorporating MLC's Four-Step Formula for Learning Success:

1. A globally applicable, regionally adaptable mindset. 
2. A "Leaders as Teachers" approach. 
3. Step Up, Prep Up & Follow Up program model that helps ensure an equal focus is placed on what happens before, during and following the training event.
4. The implementation of Communities of Practice to capture the insight of McCain's regional Learning & Development leaders and outside thought experts. 

MLC succeeded in its stated goals, with more than 320 senior leaders participating in Leading Growth sessions with the president & CEO and Chief Human Resources Officer and more than 2,000 employees participating in Leadership Essentials since its global rollout year-end 2009. To date more than 250 McCain leaders have been certified to teach Leadership Essentials. Promotions from within are up, and the company has met its goal of having two leaders identified from within for every role two levels below the president and CEO.

Members of CorpU can watch the presentation and read more detail about these award-winning efforts.