Mistakes Tolerated Speed Rewarded

“take a decision that the advantages of moving quickly were often lost. There would be no such problem with McCain Foods. Decisions were quickly made and it was also acceptable to make mistakes, provided one learned from them. Morris explained, “If you were wrong, you got a heck of an education and you probably didn’t make that mistake again. If you were right, you were so far ahead of everybody else and it was a major coup for the company.”24 The McCain brothers and Morris hired staff that were of like mind.”

“of the McCain family, believe me.” Harrison and Wallace also learned management by doing, by try- ing this and that, and by sharing information freely. They had no for- mal training, no management school training, and certainly no MBA degree. What they knew about management they had learned from K.C. Irving. Like him, they would lead by example, put in long hours, improvise when necessary, look a few years down the road, manage by suggestion, and give wide flexibility to their managers and staff to operate the way they saw fit. Harrison was never one to draft a memo when a phone call or a brief visit would do. They hired competent staff, no small feat in Florenceville, far from”