National Post (National Edition)
CEO honourees: Canada's `culturepreneurs'.
PART OF MY ROLE IS TO SET THE CULTURAL TONE FOR THE ORGANIZATION — BUT THE CULTURE OF AN ORGANIZATION IS NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ANY ONE PERSON. ULTIMATELY, IT'S EACH AND EVERY EMPLOYEE. AS A LEADER, IT'S IMPORTANT FOR US TO EMPOWER OTHERS AND SUPPORT THEM AND NURTURE THEM TO HELP THEM SHINE BRIGHT. — MICHAEL LAVIS, CREATIVE OPTIONS REGINA
As the world navigated another year of pandemic-related uncertainty and the Great Resignation took hold, Canada's Most Admired CEOs fully embraced their roles as “culturepreneurs.” This is to say they adapted — crafting and adjusting culture to meet market realities not just today but into the future.
“This can only happen if you put culture at the centre of organizational strategy,” says Marty Parker, president and CEO of Waterstone Human Capital and chair of Canada's Most Admired CEO Awards program. “This year's honourees have done that. As a result, they are winning the people and leadership game and their organizations are thriving – even during a global pandemic.”
Here are Canada's Most Admired CEOs of 2021.
JOHN FERGUSON, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PUROLATOR: ENTERPRISE CATEGORY WINNER
How does culture impact performance at Purolator?
Community is baked into our culture. Promises delivered. That's our purpose. We look at what the package being delivered means to a small business, to a household, to a hospital, to a longterm care facility.
Another key aspect of our culture is the pride in what we do in our communities, such as our Purolator Tackle Hunger program where our frontline volunteers have generated and delivered almost 20 million pounds of food to food banks across Canada since 2003. This sense of purpose and pride shows up in performance. Over the past two years we set records across almost every metric: health and safety, customer satisfaction, our e-commerce business grew almost 70 per cent, we hired almost 3,700 new people.
As a leader, what's your role in crafting, building and promoting corporate culture?
Purolator is a 60-yearold company. When I joined, there was already a good culture in place. I wanted to harness that and enhance it. I brought in the concept of “One Team”. It means you are thinking of the whole process, the whole ecosystem, versus just your own functional area. We defined and aligned around our values and focused on continuous improvement, health and safety, wellness. That was possible because I emphasized leadership and culture as our competitive advantage. We put systems and training in place to ensure we were recruiting and developing and motivating the right type of leaders.
What's inspiring you?
I listened to a podcast recently on Bobby Clarke, who was prominent in the Stanley Cup-winning Philadelphia Flyers of the `70s. On reflecting back on what was really unique about the Flyers at that time, he spoke of an unbreakable commitment: no single individual was bigger than the team. Decisions and actions were based on what was best for the team. In a challenging business, particularly during COVID, and what has gotten us through is our shared sense of purpose as a team.
WAYNE CHIU, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE TRICO GROUP: MID-MARKET CATEGORY WINNER What role does purpose play in your culture?
Our corporate philosophy is doing well by doing good. This philosophy has created the purpose for the organization. We do good by creating value for our customers, by providing good customer service, by being good citizens to our community, by being a good employer to our teams. In return, we are able to do well by being a profitable business.
Our name represents our core values: Trust, respect, integrity, community and opportunity. It all goes back to how we run our business. Our culture, purpose and the core philosophy of how we run the company all marry together. I think business has to play a role in civil society besides making profit. Part of our purpose is making quality housing that is affordable for people.
How do you define a high-performance culture at Trico?
A high-performing culture at Trico comes down to teamwork and thinking like an owner. Each team member has to be respectful, innovative, responsible for their work. With this foundation we are able to make sure we perform well as an organization and for each other.
How is your culture helping your organization thrive through the pandemic?
When we went into lockdown, we tried to work out what was the worst scenario for us as a company. Could we bear the maximum loss that would bring? When we figured out that yes, we could handle that loss, we tried to keep everybody employed. Six months after the lockdown announcement, the business stabilized.
But something else happened. The team became more loyal and engaged. We gained more trust. I can proudly say we became an employer of choice in Calgary. Our financial performance also improved. Since 2020, revenues are up 25 per cent and our workforce increased by 15
per cent to 175 people. Our culture and philosophy helped us grow.
JUDI HESS, CEO, COPPERLEAF: GROWTH CATEGORY WINNER How does culture impact performance at Copperleaf?
Our culture is the key to our success. If you don't build the right culture you might be successful, but we want to be determined about our success. Our culture is about delivering exceptional value to our clients, providing them extraordinary experiences with a huge focus on teamwork and creating joy within our teams and our clients.
One of the key pillars of our culture is to be agile. The market is always moving, things are always changing and we have to be open to new ideas and be innovative and able to change. We saw 52 per cent growth in our annual recurring revenue at the end of the third quarter. We hired more than 100 employees around the globe this past year.
As a leader, what's your role in crafting, building and promoting corporate culture?
I co-created the culture with our whole team in 2012 when we were 30 people and we refreshed it in 2020 when we were 250 people. This is not for the faint of heart. It meant involving everyone in the whole process of reviewing our culture, understanding what we needed to do, and adjusting going forward. It was an eight-month process.
Our culture is about how we think, act and interact. It's not just internal; it affects everybody we interact with outside the company. I give our three-hour culture course to every single new team member because it's that important. We get team members to come back to the culture course at least every two years.
What's inspiring you?
A documentary called 14 Peaks. Nirmal Purja and his team had a vision to make the impossible possible: summit 14 peaks that are greater than 8,000 metres in seven months. It had never been done before. When you look at what made them successful, it was teamwork. It was celebrating successes, being
kind, compassionate, brave and caring about each other and the amazing sheer determination in removing roadblocks.
LORI NIKKEL, CEO, SECOND HARVEST: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP CATEGORY WINNER
How have you built a culture of innovation and transformation?
When I started at Second Harvest we were a Toronto-based, grassroots organization. The transformation began because we recognized we needed to see the big picture. If we're working on food loss and waste, let's try to understand what the actual problem is, but there was no data in Canada about how much waste there was or where it was.
Step two was going beyond the bricks-and-mortar operations we had in Toronto. How can we work as that networker connecting the 61,000 charities and non-profits across Canada that provide food? That led to the creation of the Food and Rescue app, connecting food businesses to charities.
When the pandemic hit, we had to execute on this threeyear transformation plan in three weeks. We wanted to have a huge impact and make sure no Canadian was left behind. Second Harvest created the Food Rescue Canadian Alliance Task Force, which included industry, national and regional charities, the Government of Canada, Indigenous communities. We used the Food Rescue app to connect organizations with food and funding. By the end of 2020, Second Harvest helped more than 2,500 non-profits and 4,300 food programs across nearly 700 communities in Canada,
As a leader, what's your role in crafting, building and promoting corporate culture?
I believe in good role-modeling, providing people the tools they need to do their job successfully, including meeting their financial requirements. There's this misnomer that if you work in a charity, you should volunteer. High-performing people get paid.
I'm a firm believer in vacations and taking time. Last
year, we gave frontline staff two weeks vacation in addition to the four weeks they already have. We have a mental health committee. We believe in transparency and talking about things. We now have an HR department. You can't just rely on the CEO. We are all in this together.
What's inspiring you?
It's always people I find inspiring. I'm listening to people in my sector, such as Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University to learn about food analytics and supply chains; Dr. Elisa Levi, who was critical in the formation of the Alliance. There are so many.
ZAK HEMRAJ, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, LOOPIO INC: EMERGING CATEGORY WINNER How have you built a culture of innovation and transformation?
It was always our ambition to be a high-growth company. That set the tone. If we want to build a high-growth company we all have to have a high-growth mindset, and that means reinventing ourselves regularly, being curious, constantly learning and building values around that ethos.
A lot of the culture we built was a byproduct of how the three co-founders worked together: with mutual respect and collaboration. We are constantly striving to find that balance of being an ambitious high-performing company and still have a warm environment where people are supportive, look out for each other, grow and learn together.
How do you define high performance at Loopio?
I see it in three layers: people, customers and revenue. We are a people-first company. We do pulse surveys and pulse checks, askme-anything sessions, checking the sentiment and engagement of the workforce. We've had more than 100 promotions in our team in the last three years. As a software company, our customers are also our end users. What is their level of engagement in the product? Are customers referring others to us?
Revenue is the final measure of performance. It shows all the other stuff is working. Through the pandemic, we grew 50 per cent year over year. The team grew from 120 employees to more than 200 now. Our employee retention numbers get better quarter over quarter, and customer retention metrics also continue to thrive. In early 2021, we raised $200 million.
What's inspiring you?
I'm reading and listening to Cal Newport. He's the author of Deep Work and Digital Minimalism and has a podcast called Deep Questions. His work is inspiring how I try to live my life. It's a different lens of how we think of the world. So much is focused on moving faster, being more connected, using more technology. This is an opposite mind frame. It's about taking control and finding ways to disconnect. It's inspiring to think we can thrive in this hyper-connected world by actually doing the opposite.
MICHAEL LAVIS, CEO, CREATIVE OPTIONS REGINA (COR): BROADER PUBLIC SECTOR CATEGORY WINNER What role does purpose play in your culture?
Our culture is our central purpose: to nurture, teach and sustain the experience of connectedness, companionship and community. Our purpose helps to connect us all to the work, our goal and our collective why. The central purpose is true for both the employee and the people whom we serve.
From the employee perspective, it's important we nurture an environment where people feel safe, valued, supported and connected. As an organization we've embraced a philosophy called gentle teaching. It has evolved into a culture of gentleness, and we've taken this culture of gentleness and woven it throughout the fabric of the organization. It's reflected not only in our approach to care but it's reflected in our governance, our people practices, every aspect of how we do business, engage with funders, partners and families.
How do you define a high-performing culture at COR?
Are employees engaged, connected? Are they feeling values alignment? Are they experiencing a high degree of trust and autonomy in their role? Are we empowering people, both our employees and the people we support? A high-performing culture is one where people feel safe and feel valued and respected.
Over the last couple of years, we have had a heightened focus on employee well-being, prioritizing the physical, emotional and financial well-being of our people. In 2020/21 our budget grew by 32 per cent and in the next fiscal year it increased an additional 23 per cent. We have 307 employees today, up from 222 in 2020.
As a leader, what's your role in crafting, building and promoting corporate culture?
Part of my role is to set the cultural tone for the organization — but the culture of an organization is not the responsibility of any one person. Ultimately, it's each and every employee. As a leader, it's important for us to empower others and support them and nurture them to help them shine bright.