The Blueprint by Douglas R. Conant

Author:Douglas R. Conant
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119560098
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2019-01-30T12:00:00+00:00

“Honoring People” Sometimes Means Having Zero Tolerance

Keeping people at the forefront – especially when it concerns their safety – isn’t always easy. In many cases you will have to persevere even when it is difficult. For David, this meant upholding a stringent zero-tolerance policy for safety.

In the mid-2000s, our most unsafe plant in the world was a chocolate plant in Brussels, Belgium. When David visited the plant, he was met with excuses about the culture in Belgium and the local unions perpetuating the unsafe conditions. But something wasn’t adding up. Campbell had another plant 20 miles away, a soup plant that had one of the best safety records in the world. Two plants, same city, vastly different safety results. The difference had to be the leadership. David had to remove that plant manager, explaining, “You just can’t put up with excuses.” That decision, while hard-lined, made people safer.

“Some things, you have to have zero tolerance,” says David. “It’s so important” because without tough standards, “you’ll kill people.” To address that fact in a tough-minded way, he used a progressive discipline system where repercussions for each infraction increased in severity, up to and including termination. “It’s all about setting the standards” says David. His aspirational belief was “until we have zero injuries ever, our work’s not done yet.” He could easily connect that standard back to caring about people, because, in his words, “This is real-world, real-life stuff. It’s people’s lives.”

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