Milling & Baking News - May 14, 2013 - 19

Industry Activities



Former Campbell Soup
executive tackles
leadershipThe biggest leadership challenge
issues
AVENTURA, FLA. —
companies face today involves building high-performance
teams in a high-demand world. To succeed in such an environment and create a world-class operation, business
leaders need to “get the right people on the bus” by being tough-minded on standards and tender-hearted with
people, Douglas Conant, former chief executive officer of
Campbell Soup Co. and founder and c.e.o. of Conant Leadership, told the American Bakers Association during its annual convention, April 21-24.
When he took over the helm at Campbell Soup in 2001,
the then-troubled Camden, N.J.-based company had lost
its focus, he said. To rebuild the business over a decade,
Mr. Conant said the company shed noncore businesses, replaced 300 of 350 top managers and built the “Campbell
success
model”
for winning in the
workplace, the marketplace, the community and with
integrity.
Mr. Conant noted
the
information
age has become the
“interruption age,”
and business leaders must transform
daily interruptions
into opportunities
by interacting and
engaging employees through what
he called “touch
Conant
points,” which is
the focus of a book he recently co-authored.
During his tenure at Campbell, Mr. Conant became renowned for sending notes to employees acknowledging
their accomplishments. He would set aside about one hour
each day to write 10 to 20 handwritten notes, or a total of
30,000 of them by the time he retired from the company
in 2011. The goal, he said, was to create powerful leadership connections by taking advantage of the smallest of
moments.
Reflecting on the issue of “touch points,” Mr. Conant
noted that Margaret Rudkin, founder of Campbell Soup’s
Pepperidge Farm business, constantly challenged her staff
to think about “what’s next” to build the company. During her 26 years in charge of the cookie, cracker and snack
operation, Pepperidge Farm’s sales grew 53% on an annual
basis. Since purchasing Pepperidge Farm in 1961, the business has grown more than 40-fold, Mr. Conant said.
Almost as a postscript, Mr. Conant ended his presentation with a photograph of a crumpled vehicle. He had been
riding as a passenger in the S.U.V. when it was involved in
a serious accident on the New Jersey Turnpike in 2009. The
crash left him in the hospital for an extended period and
resulted in something he said he never imagined during the
period he was leading Campbell Soup — he was the recipient of hundreds and hundreds of personally written notes
from well wishers at the company. MBN
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Milling & Baking News May 14, 2013 / 19

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Milling & Baking News - May 14, 2013

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