Leadership, Cultural, And Performance Change At Meatpack: Case Study

Copyright © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education (Australia) Pty Ltd
McShane, Olekalns, Newman, Travaglione, Organisational Behaviour, 5e
1
CASE STUDY 05
LEADERSHIP, CULTURAL AND PERFORMANCE CHANGE AT
MEATPACK
BY WILLIAM S. HARVEY, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER, UK
Context
MeatPack is a family-owned food-processing business based in Sydney, Australia. The
company, which has over 27 years’ experience in meat products, fresh soups and prepared
meals, has processing plants in New South Wales and Queensland. Its customers are the
major retail chains and food-service companies in Australia and abroad. MeatPack is led by
the founder and CEO, Derek Bison, who is the fourth generation of his family to work in the
meat industry. In 2013, the company was performing well, with group sales of over
AUD$300 million. One of the strategic goals MeatPack set in 2002 was to become a 1 billion
dollar company by 2020. However, in order to meet these targets, the company is currently
dealing with two major sets of changes: senior leadership changes and cultural and
performance changes.
Senior leadership changes
Over the past two years, Bison has been keen to develop the leadership competencies of his
senior strategy team. He feels that there are a number of ways in which his leaders could
develop further and he recognises that he could have helped with this more in the past. He
describes himself, for example, as ‘interfering, visionary, driven, competitive, obsessive,
never satisfied and restless’. With a view to changing the mindset and behaviours of his
senior strategy team, Bison started working with an executive coaching and senior
leadership development company. A number of his team members said that they were
gaining a lot of insights from this exposure. Initially, Bison was very enthusiastic about this,
too, but in the past year he has stopped his own direct involvement in the coaching,
although the senior strategy team continue to be involved.
Influenced by the activities of a respected business colleague and personal friend, Bison

Copyright © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education (Australia) Pty Ltd
McShane, Olekalns, Newman, Travaglione, Organisational Behaviour, 5e
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has introduced the Human Synergistics Circumplex to MeatPack. This outlines 12 behaviours
into three colours: red (aggressive/defensive), green (passive/defensive) and blue
(constructive). Bison found that the organisational culture of MeatPack was red and he
recognised that it would need to switch to blue if his growth plans were to be realised. He
understood that MeatPack would need to shift its structure from a hierarchical organisation
to a more horizontal organisation, with front-line workers having greater responsibility and
accountability for their performance (Stayer, 1990).
Underpinning this transition have been the following: a number of changes to the
company’s human resources set-up; a company-wide leadership development program; and
a coaching consultation for members of the senior strategy team. Bison feels that these
have had a positive impact on members of his senior strategy team but confesses that he
himself has struggled with this transition. He finds it difficult, for example, not to intervene,
jump in or direct others when he feels that sufficient progress is not being made or when
decisions are not being taken expediently.
There has generally been a positive dynamic in the senior strategy team, which is
composed of the CEO, COO, CFO, head of People, head of Sales and head of Business
Development. Bison has fostered an open dialogue with his team and it is clear that
members are encouraged to speak frankly with him and each other, both on a one-on-one
basis as well as during meetings. There has, however, been some uncertainty about the
composition of the senior strategy team, with one attendee at a strategy meeting being
unsure of whether he was officially part of the senior strategy team. This led to subsequent
discussion among the group about the matter, as well as over whether another member,
who was not present at this point, should be part of the team. There is also a separate
senior leadership team, which includes all of the senior strategy team members above, plus
the senior line managers. There has been some discussion about the exact purpose of both
of these teams. Because Bison is one of the founders of the company and the current CEO,
some members of the senior strategy team are a little reluctant to question his decisions,
despite Bison actively encouraging an open dialogue. The CFO wonders whether the board
should hold Bison more accountable and whether Bison should hold the senior strategy
team more accountable. The COO expressed concern that MeatPack has lost some of its
senior leaders within the past few years. This has caused some anxiety for the following

Copyright © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education (Australia) Pty Ltd
McShane, Olekalns, Newman, Travaglione, Organisational Behaviour, 5e
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reasons: they were direct reports to Bison; their personalities were in conflict; Bison had
involvement in their area of operation; they were making a positive impact before they left;
and relationships with some suppliers and customers have been lost as a result, causing
business to move to a competitor.
The senior strategy team was about to embark upon some major structural changes—
with the arrival of a new CEO of the soups and meals business at the end of 2013, and the
existing COO of the meat division replacing Bison as the CEO of meat. Bison said that in the
short term he saw himself moving to group CEO alongside these two CEOs. In the long term,
he envisioned that he would move from group CEO to executive chairman, with both CEOs
reporting to him. In his own words, ‘I’m not really a big people person and the people thing
will go to the CEOs. I want CEOs to be CEOs.’
In five to 10 years, Bison’s vision is to move from executive chairman to chairman. When
this was broached in one of the strategy meetings, there was some heated discussion about
who would be reporting to whom in the new structure. For example, the CFO was
concerned about whether benefits would be derived if MeatPack decentralised the
functions of support teams such as Finance and IT. The head of Business Development asked
how the new structure was different from the old structure, and it was debated what, if
anything, the other employees should be told before the company’s annual meeting the
following week. It was decided by an independent chair of the meeting that discussions
would be paused and discussed further at a later date. Some members were clearly
frustrated that the issue was not resolved during the meeting.
Cultural and performance changes
In the past two years, MeatPack has introduced an enterprise resource planning (ERP)
initiative, which seeks to integrate multiple divisions of the company such as finance,
production, investment and management. At the heart of this system is the desire to be
more structured and efficient in ensuring that each line is hitting and exceeding its targets.
Part of this system is also about encouraging managers to change their methods of
communication. In the past, dominating, shouting and other aggressive forms of
confrontation were quite common practice. There was a focus on making things happen
instead of understanding how things worked and why they were not working. As with any