Unprecedented is a remarkable collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from 29 chief executives at iconic Canadian companies. In this first part of a two-part series, I speak with Andrew Willis, business reporter with the Globe and Mail and co-author and editor of this unique and necessary book. We talk about the story behind the book and the tradecraft of editing that creates this cohesive read.
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Unprecedented is a remarkable collection of exclusive, first-person stories on leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic from 29 chief executives at iconic Canadian companies.
In this first part of a two-part series, I speak with Andrew Willis, business reporter with the Globe and Mail and co-author and editor of this unique and necessary book. We talk about the story behind the book and the tradecraft of editing that creates this cohesive read.
Lastly, I ask Andrew whether his reporting might change based on the experiences shared by these CEOs and the process of pulling the book together.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
About Andrew
Andrew Willis is a business columnist for the Report on Business at The Globe and Mail, based in Toronto.
He has been in business communications and journalism for three decades. From 2010 to 2016, he was senior vice president of communications for Brookfield Asset Management, a leading global alternative asset management company.
Andrew's career in journalism included stints at a number of publications, including writing the Streetwise column at the Globe and Mail from 1995 to 2010. He also worked at The Financial Post, The Financial Times of Canada, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, and Maclean’s magazine.
Andrew co-wrote a book, The Bre-X Fraud, with Report on Business colleague Douglas Goold.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from University of King's College, Halifax.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada. Unprecedented, it's a remarkable collection of exclusive first-person stories on leadership during the COVID 19 pandemic and 29 chief executives at iconic Canadian companies.
In this first part of a two-part series, I speak with Andrew Willis, business reporter with Globe and Mail and co-author and editor of this unique and necessary book. We talk about the story behind the book and the tradecraft of editing that creates this cohesive read. Lastly, I ask Andrew, whether his reporting might change based on the experiences shared by these CEOs and the process of pulling this book together.
Andrew Willis 00:43
There is a, occasionally an instinct in journalism, first of all, to report on the negative and then second (crossover talk) to try for like gotcha stuff. And I think what I realized as a reporter is a lot of these issues are really complex. It is very difficult to run a big nursing home chain when you got, you know, labor issues and pharmaceutical issues and an aging population. It's really tough to run Canadian Tire when you can't get bicycles and you can't get all the, all the auto parts that you need for your, for your inventory.
Michael LeBlanc 01:15
Andrew, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Andrew Willis 01:18
Really Well, Michael, thanks. Good to be here.
Michael LeBlanc 01:20
Well, thanks for joining me on the mic. I guess it's a bit of a different experience. Usually, you're on the other side of the mic interviewing people, I get to interview you today. So, that's, that's really fun for me. So, thanks, again for being open to the opportunity.
Andrew Willis 01:33
I've spent three decades asking the questions. This is going to be this is going to be fascinating. So, yeah, let's get to it.
Michael LeBlanc 01:38
Right on. Well, let's jump right in. Tell us a little bit about your personal professional journey. I'm sure many of you know you from your work in The Globe and Mail. But talk a little bit about your background, and what do you do for a living today?
Andrew Willis 01:49
Sure thing, I'm the Business columnist at the Globe and Mail. And I've been at the Globe and Mail on and off since the 1990s. And basically, I'm asked to sort of get inside the boardrooms, talk to the CEOs, and explain the underlying strategies behind business, you know, humanize business for The Global and Mail audience, but, but also really try and get ahead of the trends, try and talk to people to talk to our readers about where things are going. I took a brief break from business journalism to actually work in corporate communications. I was at Brookfield Asset Management for six years, a few years back, which was a really neat experience, because it taught me how big business really does work. And that was really useful when we got to this book project. Because with Unprecedented I was asking CEOs for their trust as they told their first-person stories about the pandemic.
Michael LeBlanc 02:39
Well, I noticed that in your LinkedIn profile, and it's such a great thing to do, if you have the opportunity, right? Be on both sides of the table. So, you can kind of get a sense of perspective from both from both sides. So, I think that really makes your reporting that much more insightful, because you've sat in that same chair of trying to communicate and, you know, craft the narrative that, that helps the business. Alright, so, what we're here to talk about is the, this great new book with your co-author, Steve Mayer, and the book is Unprecedented: Canada's Top CEOs on Leadership During COVID-19. It's a fantastic book, let's first talk about the origin story, like, you know, what did, what was the inspiration for the project? Where did it come from? What did it take to get the project greenlit? Somebody's got to put you know, books out on, out on the shelf. And, you know, it was public and published just recently in April? When did you start? So, give me a bit of the backstory for the book itself?
Andrew Willis 03:30
Sure. Steve Mayer, my co-author on this, he's an investment banker, he's the head of a boutique investment bank in Canada called Greenhill. And he was advising companies early in the pandemic on, you know, basically how to raise the money to, to survive, you know, what, what to do and some of them were executing on some big transactions, even during the pandemic that the M&A went on. And, and what the CEOs were telling Steve was like, wow, we're, we're making this up as we go. There's no playbook for how you deal with this crisis. There's no case study at Harvard or IV on you know, what you do when there's a global pandemic and all your employees are locked down.
Andrew Willis 04:04
And, and, and someone, in this case it was actually the CEO of a company called Finning, which sells heavy equipment. The CEO said, you know, somebody should write a book on this. Steve said, yeah, someone should write a book on this. And over at The Globe and Mail in the early stages of the pandemic, I was doing these, these first-person interviews with CEOs so, I got the CEO at Stelco. I got Deborah Flynn, the CEO up at Toronto Pearson Airport, just to talk about you know, what this felt like and how they made the decisions on, in the case of Pearson laying off employees, shutting down the food services, getting the security re-, redone so, you know, people didn't get sick standing in line for an airplane.
Andrew Willis 04:45
Like those sort of first-person stories, and, and, and honestly, Michael, we can, we can measure our readership at the Globe and Mail with clicks and with the time spent on the stories, and anything we wrote about COVID leadership was off the scale in terms of reader appeal. In terms of, of hits on our website, so, I knew we were onto something. So, Steve had this idea, originally to do, to take some of these stories and do them as a book. He reached out to me, we, we the two of us have known each other for years. He reached out to me said, look, would you be willing to kind of be an editor, be a writer and work with some of these CEOs?
Andrew Willis 05:18
I've got a bunch of CEO connections and, and that was sort of the genesis for it. So, this was probably now in retrospect, midway through the pandemic. So, we come out on the first really tough lockdowns. And we were sort of talking to one another, but, but the crisis was by no means over. And at that point, we started an outreach program. And, and the idea, Michael is, as you can see, from the list of the 30 CEOs, we try to target individuals running companies, we're right in the middle of the store.
Andrew Willis 05:47
So, we went to the airlines and to our pleasure WestJet. And Air Canada signed on, we went to the grocery store chains. So, we signed on, we've a lot of conversations with Loblaws. They didn't end up participating. Canada Goose, Lululemon, they, they came in and then we went to some of the better chapters, I think some of them are incredible chapters are from the long-term care operators, the nursing home chains. So, Revera and, and Sienna they helped out. We got Couche-Tard, the parent to Circle K. And in a really fun one, we, we got the, the parent to Tim Hortons, which is Restaurant Brands International. And they're interesting, because in addition, obviously to Tim Hortons, they own Burger King, they own Popeyes. They're a major player in the US fast food industry, which meant they were, (crossover talk).
Michael LeBlanc 06:34
Global really. They're across the, they're across the world, right? I mean, they're, they're, you know, they're a mass. And I remember I was interviewing some folks in there, and they were talking about they open up one restaurant, like every two hours or some crazy number, like they have thousands and thousands of, of restaurants globally, right? They're big, big, big, (crossover talk), -
Andrew Willis 06:49
They're no, they're, they're massive. And what we, one of the interesting points of this is Restaurant Brands is a perfect example is, is a lot of the global companies had an advantage over the purely domestic companies because they, they were exposed to the Covid, the, the virus earlier. They had European or Asian operations, they, they have a sense of what was coming. And they were also, it felt to me, and you read this a lot in the book. They were able to bring techniques and, and management learning from, from their global operations and bring it into Canada and, and arguably fared better during the pandemic, than, than companies that just had to do it based on what they were seeing in the Canadian market.
Michael LeBlanc 07:28
Yeah, I pick up on that point, because a lot of the retailers that I spoke to, in that time had kind of let's call it a, an early warning system, right? Whether they were sourcing product from Asia, or whether they were operating in some cases, they were like, huh, this is big, and this is trouble. How does this you know, how does this impact me? Now, for the listeners, I would say a couple of things.
Michael LeBlanc 07:48
First of all, you know, there's a long, what is it, 20, 29 major CEOs and for the, for the retail, retail, we've got Canada Goose, Canadian Tire, we've got Couche-Tard, we've got, we got McKesson, Canada, which is Rexall and we got Sobeys. Now, the great news is with Sobeys, Michael Medline is going to be my guest to talk about the book as well and talk about his piece next week. So, I was really thrilled to get this. So, I get to talk to you, and then I get to talk to one of the participants. So, I'm really, I'm really looking forward to that. So, great story. Now, how did you, you know, 29 major CEOs? Oh, by the way, we should mention that the proceeds for this book are going to United Way, right? Is that, is that the case?
Andrew Willis 08:29
Yeah, that's, that's right. So, we're donating all the author proceeds. And, and a lot of the companies have made donations to, to COVID Relief charities, and we're funding it all through United Way. And today, my calling, not to brag, but my contribution to helping Canadians through the pandemic is that this book raised over $3 million. So, (crossover talk) Yup. No, it's been terrific.
Michael LeBlanc 08:46
Wow, wow. Congratulations. That's fantastic. All right. So, 29 CEOs participate. Plus, you had a (inaudible), so let's call that 30. You know, at the best of times, these men and women are extremely busy, they lead very tightly managed professional lives. And these were certainly not the best of times, how'd you manage to pull this off? Like how, how, you know, clearly you and, and your co-author have, you know, preexisting connections to some, if not many, but just tell me a little bit about that and how successful you are getting folks to participate?
Andrew Willis 09:20
Sure, we, we, we were honored that almost everybody we pitched saw the wisdom in the book. I've got a few, a few CEOs begged off just you know, we're in a crisis, we're too busy. It's, it's amusing would be the strong word. But it's interesting, Michael, when you eliminate air travel, and you eliminate in person meetings, a lot of CEOs actually found they had a little more time on their hands than normal, and they, they tended to spend it on operational issues.
Andrew Willis 09:46
And, and look, most of the companies we reached out to they, first of all, they, they wanted a record. A number of the companies, including the airlines, frankly, they felt their story hadn't been well told during the pandemic. They were, they were a little upset with some of the media coverage they got. So, they were interested in getting kind of their account of, of how it all worked in partly for an internal audience, but also for the world to see.
Andrew Willis 10:07
And then these are big public companies, most of them have communications groups. So, you know, when, when they, I'm not sure the CEO sat in front of a typewriter or in front of a keyboard for too long. I think they had help in, in writing their stories. I know a number of them have professional writers who are part of the group but, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 10:25
But you'd be knowing that they still, (crossover talk), -
Andrew Willis 10:27
Just like anybody working in comms, we give them pretty tight deadlines. And most of them produced 4-6 thousand words within two or three months. It was great working with a lot of them, they were, they kept the stories personal, they, they didn't do them as press releases, I was really pleased to see that. And, you know, you, you saw admissions that you know, I have, during the early stage of the crisis. I was scared. You know, I was, I feared what was coming and then I. There were times when there was nowhere to look for answers. I had to look at our core, core corporate values. There's just a lot of honesty is what I'm trying to say. A lot of honesty in the book.
Michael LeBlanc 11:01
My, in my experience talking to leaders was they were either hit by the you know, the, the shockwave of demand or the sledgehammer of closures, right. It was really, you know, who you were, what you sold, where you're located, you know, what kind of customers relied on you. I mean, I talked to retailers who in the very early weeks were afraid of liquidity crisis's that then turned to, we can't get enough stuff fast enough, like it was really a bit of a whipsaw.
Michael LeBlanc 11:24
Now, talking about the book, it's a sprawling book over I mean, over 500 pages, 30 different competitive, 30 different contributors, yet somehow it feels cohesive. So, you know, talk about the editorial process that, you know, makes it a very actually readable and I think essential, essential book.
Andrew Willis 11:39
Well, I'm really thrilled to hear you say that it feels cohesive, because I did work really hard on that. Yeah, look, the, the overwhelming arc is, is, is one of look, trying, take us, we asked each CEO to sort of in your own way, take us through the, your journey through the pandemic.
Andrew Willis 11:56
So, most of them started in those early days and in February, March when we realized that something bad was coming out of Asia and, and that you know. And then the lockdowns took place nationally in Canada and that was of course kind of a common starting point for the stories and then each, each story from there diverged as to, as to just what happened at your company. And a lot of it is you know, you're on the shop floor, you're, you're in the warehouses with, with Mike Medline, as he tries to figure out home delivery and how to keep Canadians fed or Kruger products, which, who makes most of the toilet paper in Canada, you're kind of working with their CEO, as he realizes Canadians are hoarding toilet paper and he can't keep Costco stocked, shelves at Costco stocked and like, (crossover talk), -
Michael LeBlanc 12:40
What does that say about us, by the way that the first thing we're worried about is, is toilet paper?
Andrew Willis 12:44
Isn't that incredible? I think the LCBO and the toilet paper were the first things you know, we stocked up on booze and we stocked up on TP. (crossover talk) It was a very real phenomenon.
Michael LeBlanc 12:54
Cannabis. Cannabis did really well. Bread makers and then it so, so, you know, it's funny, as I've watched the demand curve, suddenly there's, there's you know, okay, its bread makers, and then it's coffee, espresso makers. And then it turned out to be, you know, everything from tooth whiteners when the masks started to come off, like you can really reflect society and what's sometimes it's purchased, (crossover talk), -
Andrew Willis 13:13
The other side of this though Michael, and this is a leadership lesson, is that, that institutions were behaving the same way as you and I as homeowners. So, you mentioned McKesson was one of the participants in the book. And they're relatively new CEO, Rebecca McKillican. She was confronted with, they, they run a huge drug distribution business and the hospitals across Canada are their major clients.
Andrew Willis 13:14
And she ran into a phenomenon where the hospitals were hoarding drugs, they were worried that the drug supply chain would break down, they wouldn't be able to get a hold of key pharmaceuticals. And, and McKesson was running out of drugs. So, they had to go through this exercise where they went back, they reviewed all your previous pharmaceutical orders, and they started rationing drugs to the big hospitals. And McKillican said, The only way we could do that was to be completely transparent about our supplies, about, you know, each of, the value of each customer and what they've ordered in the past.
Andrew Willis 14:06
But she said they were really tough conversations with key clients, in order to prevent hoarding and to prevent shortfalls in drugs for, for individuals who really needed them. It was like the, the, the scale of, like the fear of that we felt as a society, it wasn't just you and I holding, hoarding toilet paper or red wine. Like, there was a lot of really important industries that were really worried about the supply chain, and I think, frankly, are still very concerned about the vulnerabilities in supply chain, (crossover talk), that we saw in the crisis.
Michael LeBlanc 14:34
Yeah, I got I've got a question about that, later on, later on to ask you. Now, you know, as you reflect on the different stories, and you're already kind of in and around this, did you pick up any central themes, like any kind of central narrative that the, the readers will take away from the book, anything jump out at you? So, if you had to summarize this book and what you learned or the central theme in, in kind of a sentence or two, or is it too, is it just too sprawling to kind of trap it like that?
Andrew Willis 14:57
No, the, the way that I try and think as a journalist is that you got to have themes to your storytelling. So, so, I've sort of picked off three is that. The first is that the companies that did well here, and not everybody did well, but the companies did, that did well, they were very agile. They showed a lot of ingenuity. And, and they showed a lot of empathy. The agility like out of the retail world is actually one of the best examples was the Couche-Tard.
Andrew Willis 15:22
So, the Circle K chain, as we talked about a minute ago, Michael, they had a first look at what the pandemic was going to mean for their operations when it hit Europe. And they had a store in Poland of all places, where the store manager or the regional manager figured out how to put Plexiglas around the cashier, so the cashiers could stay healthy, even while the store stayed open and while COVID, that first wave of COVID was running wild in Europe.
Andrew Willis 15:47
And they, they had the ability, the agility within their management system to get that idea from Poland, to head office in Montreal, and then out to the huge network of convenience stores they've got in North America, they were, and, and by being quick, they were able to preorder the plexiglass and they were able to you know, everybody eventually figured this out. Sobeys figured it out, Loblaws figured it out. But, but Couche-Tard I think can take credit for taking an idea in Europe, and within a matter of weeks, having it rolled out right across the chain. And that was huge for their staffing, you know? The, the ability to say to a cashier, you can come in, you can work an eight-hour shift, and you're not going to get sick, if someone coughs on you, that's, that kept those stores open. And so, that was, that was one of the key themes. A lot of the companies had that where they, they were able to move ideas quickly from the, from the frontlines up to head office, and then to the rest of the, the rest of the company.
Michael LeBlanc 16:42
Well, picking up on this theme of kind of lessons learned. You know, where we seem to be at least out of the most intense phase of COVID. I mean, we're not out of it completely, out of the COVID era. Now, while we're there, while we're out of that trouble, a global scale is not over. I mean, from free floating anxiety to climate change to war in Europe, you know, there's always another crisis to deal with. And some of them are pretty big orders of magnitude.
Michael LeBlanc 17:04
Now, after reading and interacting with the CEOs, do you think Canadian businesses will come out on the other side of the COVID era more resilient, more agile, more battle tested, more ready to take on what's next? Or is there always that temptation to the kind of regression to the mean, and picking up the old habits? You think we've formed some new habits that will, that will actually serve us well?
Andrew Willis 17:23
I really think that, that the pandemic has strengthened Canadian business. We talked a moment ago, Michael, about this whole concern with supply chains. It's very real, you know, and you're, you're seeing right through, from banking, through pharmaceuticals, through all the manufacturing industries, this recognition that having a domestic ability to make something is a huge advantage, even if it costs more, and you got to pass that cost on to consumer. There's a reliability factor that's really important.
Andrew Willis 17:54
And, and look, again, going back to chapters in the book the, the folks at Canada Goose were all over this right? Danny, Danny, recently, the CEO of Canada Goose has always made domestic manufacturing a key part of, of, of what their parkas stand for. And even during the pandemic, when, when they were shutting down some of the lines, Canada Goose could easily switch to making protective equipment for hospital staff, which they supplied at cost.
Andrew Willis 18:22
And I, I thought that was a wonderful gesture, it makes for great part of their story. So, yeah, I, I, I think when I look at all sectors, including retail, I think one of the signs of resilience coming out of this pandemic, is a recognition that supply chains need to be shorter, and that if you can have domestic sourcing and, and a shorter supply chain, even if that means higher costs, that is going to be a net benefit, and the consumer is going to get it.
Michael LeBlanc 18:47
So, after two, maybe three years of the COVID era, what do you think has changed. So, you know, in business and culture, people technology, and I'm talking about change structurally as opposed to kind of short-term accommodations to a very strange time in our lives. A lot of people, for example, shopped online, but now you see those numbers go down, because they're now going back to the store. So, as you reflect on the COVID, era, and as you do your reporting today, what do you think has changed structurally? Thanks to or, (crossover talk), -
Andrew Willis 19:16
Yeah, that's a, that's a really good question. And I think that, that it's going to take us a while to sort out where the consumer has changed and what they do and don't want. And then look, again, you've got Michael Medline coming on and he'll talk about this a lot. But I think that Sobeys did a great job with Voila of, of bringing on a, a home delivery system that probably would have taken him a couple of years. And they got it up and running in a couple of months. And that is to their credit.
Andrew Willis 19:38
I guess the biggest change that, that I feel will be permanent is the acceptance of remote work. You mentioned Michelle Romanov. She's the, the dragon from Dragon's Den and the co-founder and CEO at Clearco, a big finance company. She's got a great line and she says in the book, she says, as a leader, prior to the pandemic, I would have told you that if you're not at work, you're not really working. You know, she figured that anybody working from home is actually doing their laundry or, or, or cooking rather than doing their work.
Andrew Willis 20:05
And what she realized was that her company, which is in software, was in finance and became much more productive. When people didn't have to commute and, and work, you know, moving around. So, I think remote work will be permanent. The, the thing that we're all trying to figure out is how you maintain corporate culture, Michael, and how, you know, if you're a younger employee, how you get mentored, how you get promoted, if you're not in front of your bosses, if you're not working with coworkers’ day in and day out.
Andrew Willis 20:29
So, I'm still optimistic that people are going to go to offices, but I do think that we've shown remote work is a, can be a permanent part of, of most people's jobs. And I think that is a social benefit. That's huge. I mean, it, it, it really helps, or it helps women who are trying to balance different, anybody who's trying to balance different issues, excuse me. Trying to balance family and, and, and workplace issues, if you can work remotely effectively and still get paid still get promoted. Huge change in your life.
Michael LeBlanc 20:59
Well, and I'd echo that I mean, I think, you know, the technology was always there was always a cultural barrier, you know, people didn't want to hire senior roles that weren't sitting in, bum in chair at, you know, with a cup of coffee at nine o'clock in the morning. That was all, all about culture. And, and it's interesting as I talk to retailers, and they reflect on Well, if we're going to build team, because you're right, cohesion is hard, right? Culture is, particularly the younger, mentoring is harder.
Michael LeBlanc 21:22
So, how do we think outside the office? I've talked to retailers who are bringing people together more frequently, more often to other settings, not just the office, right? So, that, that demarcation between the office is a place to have a meeting and work together. But really, let's find a third place, not the home, not the office a, a third place. So, that's how I'm you know, it'll be fascinating to see how, how it all evolves.
Andrew Willis 21:46
Michael, even cutting-edge companies. Shopify is not in this book. But I know that Shopify still believes that, you know, they talk a lot about oh, well, you, we may never have an office, they still believe in getting people together to launch projects into, into build teams, that's, that's still critical to, to everything we do.
Andrew Willis 22:01
And the other thing that, that I think is become a, I don't know about a permanent change. But certainly a shift in the way that leaders think is that you had a lot of CEOs in this book, talk about the fact that in the past, when they had to make a decision, they could take the time to get all the data they needed, and all that, you know, all sorts of analysis, bring in McKinsey bringing the consultants and in COVID, they didn't have that opportunity, they had to make decisions very quickly.
Andrew Willis 22:27
So, they had to fail, you know, fail fast. If something didn't work, realize it didn't work, move to something else, or this value that I talked about, about empathy, about making decisions based not just on profits or on data, but also about, you know, what's, what is your, who are your core stakeholders? What is, what are your core corporate values, and a lot of, a lot of executives said, you know, once, once we were making decisions, with everybody in mind, it was actually relatively easy to make decisions, which is a very different approach.
Andrew Willis 22:56
I'm not sure if I'm stating that as clearly as I'd like to but, but some of these companies really thought a lot more about their employees needs and, and their communities at large than I think they had prior to, prior to the pandemic. And, and I'd like to think that that's going to be a permanent change.
Michael LeBlanc 23:12
Looking forward, do you think the COVID era and now the war in Europe, has it broken the back of globalization, as we knew it? You referenced that about supply chain challenges stuff closer to home. I mean, the reality is, it's a very difficult thing to do. And supply chain challenges are real.
Michael LeBlanc 23:26
I was reading an article yesterday that automakers are buying, if you can believe it, washing machines, and stripping them of their microchips. So, this washing machine company saw this sudden growth in their sales, couldn't figure it out, turns out to be a carmaker that was stripping out washing machines for chips. Is this a sea change of kind of this religion of regimented efficiency, right?
Michael LeBlanc 23:47
Like, if we would have had spent a million dollars on PPE and stored it, you know, pre-COVID, it would have been, that's a waste of money. Post-COVID, we spent about a billion dollars to get it here quick. Like, do you think this is a real change in the, in globalization from a perspective of businesses?
Andrew Willis 24:05
I do think there's been a real change on things like just-in-time inventories, and, and sourcing, single source suppliers from, from with long, long shipping lines, and, and, and everything determined by who's the lowest cost supplier of a given good. Yeah, I think, I think that has changed. And, and you know, it's not just retailers that have been banging the drum on that. If you look at some recent speeches from the CEO at Royal Bank, David McKay is really going hard on the need to develop, if not domestic Canadian supply chains than, than, than North American supply chains.
Andrew Willis 24:39
And it fits the political agenda right now, right? Bring the jobs home, you know? (Crossover talk), create jobs in your own backyard as opposed to, to sorting them out. Like, ultimately the consumer is going to have to decide are they willing to pay a little more because, especially early on there will be a supplier who's may be able to compete on price due to lower labor costs, but, but yeah.
Andrew Willis 24:59
I think there's been a, a global recognition that, that having these long supply chains leaves you vulnerable, and, and ensures that some of the major parts of your life like pharmaceuticals, those products are, are no longer under the control of the home company. So, that I think is yeah, that's going to be a rethink. I don't think globalization can actually be stopped. Because ultimately these, our economies are all linked.
Andrew Willis 25:24
But there will be a rethink of where the jobs go and where the plants go, and, and, and how you source suppliers and how reliable your suppliers are. You know, some of the companies that I know, in food manufacturing, for example, got down to a single supplier relationship. I don't think I'd take that chance based on what I saw on COVID. I think I'd want two or three suppliers of flour or of eggs or of, of critical ingredients if I was running a bakery.
Michael LeBlanc 25:48
Yeah, it's, it's a little less efficient, because now you're dividing your volume in threes. But this is the point, right? It's a little less efficient, little more costly, but you know.
Andrew Willis 25:57
It's not all driven by, by P&L, it, it is also driven by reliability and, and by you know, what, what you want to stand for in terms of your values as a company.
Michael LeBlanc 26:06
Yeah, it feels like Mexico and South America is going to be, if we can have a winner out of this horrible thing that you know, this, this, I see more pivot to manufacturing, you know. A truck drive away or in the same continent or second continent, you know?
Andrew Willis 26:20
It's interesting you mentioned Mexico, you know, one of the stories we were writing right through the pandemic is this enormous fight between the two big Canadian (inaudible), Canadian railways, over railway company that's got the basically got the monopoly on all the rail lines in Mexico. Everybody thinks, yeah, like, it's a continental strategy now on manufacturing. And that's, that's huge. And it meant that, you know, factories and, and supply lines into that country are, are now at a premium.
Michael LeBlanc 26:46
All right, last question. Has this process, as a report of the COVID era, these CEO insights, does it change your reporting, or how the media can and should report on these big, big complex stories?
Andrew Willis 26:57
That's a really good question. I mean, the, there is an occasionally a, an instinct in journalism, first of all, to, to report on the negative and, and then second to try for the gotcha stuff, (crossover talk). And I think what I realized as a reporter is a lot of these issues are really complex. It is very difficult to run a big nursing home chain, when you got you know, labor issues and pharmaceutical issues and an aging population.
Andrew Willis 27:22
It's really tough to run Canadian Tire when you can't get bicycles and you can't get all the, all the auto parts that you need for your, for your inventory. I, I have a new appreciation for just how difficult it is, and how many facets of a business have to go right, in order to get products on the shelves. So, yeah, I think there's coming out of COVID I think there's more sophistication in the reporting on healthcare, and then the reporting on industry.
Andrew Willis 27:47
I really, I really think there was, this was an education process. And, and from my point of view as somebody who worked on this book and I can say this, for a lot of my colleagues at the Globe and Mail, companies were very open about talking about what they were going through. They need, they knew they needed to communicate to their employees, to their stakeholders, and that, that openness was really welcome, and I hope it was reflected in the coverage.
Michael LeBlanc 28:07
Well, the book is Unprecedented: Canada's Top CEOs On Leadership During COVID-19. My guest is Andrew Willis, a great business reporter with The Globe and Mail. Andrew, thank you so much for, for joining me, the book is now out and available at everywhere you like to buy books, right? And if someone wants to get in touch with you, maybe they got a story to tell, or maybe they just want to connect and how do they get a hold of you? Are you a LinkedIn person? Or what's the best way to get hold of you?
Andrew Willis 28:30
I, I am a LinkedIn person, my, my email address is on my Globe and Mail articles most days, and I'm always thrilled to hear from new sources. And thanks for this opportunity, Michael really enjoyed the conversation.
Michael LeBlanc 28:42
Yeah, it was great. And hope you enjoyed being on the other side of the mic. I guess I should ask you, do you have anything else to say? That's always the closing question I get, you know, to fill in kind of the interesting parts of the interview, (crossover talk), -
Andrew Willis 28:53
I just, I am just profoundly grateful that, that 30 CEOs were willing to spend the time and support this project. So, a big thank you to every frontline worker who, who put it on the line during the pandemic. And a big thank you to all the CEOs who helped with this project.
Michael LeBlanc 29:09
Well, congratulations on the book. It's a, it's a great read. I'd recommend it to every single person listening and for raising that kind of money to help, to help for the United Way and, and to help COVID. And thank you for being on The Voice of Retail podcast, a real treat to talk with you. And wish you continued success and, and good reporting.
Michael LeBlanc 29:27
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week. And check out my other retail industry media properties, the Remarkable Retail podcast, Conversations with CommerceNext podcast and The Food Professor podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois.
Andrew Willis 29:46
Thanks, Michael.
Michael LeBlanc 29:48
Last but not least, if you're into barbecue, check out my all-new YouTube barbecue show Last Request Barbecue with new episodes each and every week.
I'm your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company and Maven Media. And if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co
Have a safe week everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
pandemic, book, CEOs, companies, Michael, supply chain, talk, big, stories, Canada, people, business, retail, run, Canadian, mail, sourcing, crisis, suppliers, figured