Creating a Culture of Courage: Thomas Morin Of TC Transcontinental Packaging On How Authenticity Benefits People and Profits in the Workplace
An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
A realization that it is ok to show some degree of vulnerability. I don’t need to be the most knowledgeable person in the room. Allowing yourself to be open and admit that you don’t know everything makes it acceptable for the rest of the team to do so as well.
In today’s social media filled, fast-paced world, authenticity in the workplace and in our personal lives has become more difficult to come by. Business leaders must focus on the bottom line of profits and corporate success, but does that have to be at the expense of the authenticity of their employees? I believe it is quite the opposite. I know from my own experience that a culture of authenticity allows the hiring of a team that will bring their all to the workplace. That fosters innovation, creativity and a level of success that few companies dream of. Yet, fostering an environment where individuals feel secure enough to express their true selves remains a challenge. The importance of authenticity cannot be overstated — it is the foundation of trust, innovation, and strong relationships. However, creating such a culture requires intention, understanding, and actionable strategies. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Thomas Morin.
Morin serves as president and chief executive officer of TC Transcontinental where he is responsible for the operations of the Packaging Sector, which represent revenues of about $1.6 billion on an annualized basis for the Corporation, and 4,000 employees, the majority of which are based in Canada, the United States and Latin America. He provides strategic leadership for global plant activities and has a driving passion of creating packaging that betters the lives of customers, consumers and the community. An ardent communicator, his leadership style is open and accessible and he values collaboration and insights from his team. Morin creates a culture of courage, that supports and embraces diversity and listening — to customers and fellow employees. He is leading the company’s commitment to sustainability and sustainable product development through investments in its R&D team and technologies, and the dedication of its people.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive into our discussion our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I’ve worked in global packaging for over 25 years, with the last 13 at the helm of $1B+ companies, overseeing teams comprised of thousands of employees located in factories around the world. I earned my Finance and Management Control degree from École supérieure de Commerce of Lyon (EM Lyon), in France. I have held leadership positions in flexible packaging in Asia Pacific, Singapore, and throughout Europe, including Zurich and Paris.
Early in my career, I believed I would learn everything by myself, and for the first 10 years, I focused on being a strong operator, running the business well and believing the numbers would be fine. However, over time my management style evolved as I embraced being coached, and accepted mentors. and learned from a diversity of other leaders. Through the years I have integrated this knowledge and guidance into my leadership approach which helped me in becoming a more well-rounded leader.
I’ve learned many valuable lessons through the years, lessons that have allowed me to achieve success in the packaging industry, which is extremely competitive. Understanding success hinges on listening more than talking. This is extremely relevant when it comes to customers and employees and provides the basis for informed decision-making and providing predictability through ups and downs.
As well, you can never underestimate the support of a solid team. Building a unified team who are aligned with the same goals and expectations is invaluable.
Lastly, I believe that facing challenges, or even failure, can have a positive outcome if faced honestly and reacted to in an efficient way. Each obstacle brings with it a lesson to be learned and ultimately strengthens the business and supports growth.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
I’ve had several inputs from my different bosses over the years, and two stand out as especially impactful. When I was in my early 30s or late 20s, I was working for Ilene Gordon at Alcan Packaging. One day she told me to give my team members a job bigger than they could handle, to stretch them beyond what the team or the individuals believed they could manage. She encouraged me to show them that I believed in this, and they were empowered to do bigger things than they thought possible. To be honest, I wasn’t sure it would work. But together, my team and I learned that sometimes you make mistakes, but most of the time you and your team will surprise yourselves when you stretch your goals
The second input was my former boss Peter Brues whom I worked with when I was at Amcor, another global packaging company. At this time, I managed things in a “hub and spoke” manner, so everything would go through me. He suggested that it was time for me let go a bit and rely on the processes and structure I had put in place. His advice to “let the team breathe and expand and fly” was not so different than what Ilene had told me a few years earlier.
You are a successful individual. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Collaboration is a priority for me and it plays into my natural curiosity. I’m always trying to find a different approach that complements an idea or discover a new solution and this starts with building a culture of collaboration. I truly believe the team brings much better insights than individuals, and a strong focus on collaboration nets the best results. It’s important to put things in place so that the team feels comfortable sharing and challenging themselves.
At the end of the day, I want team members to feel comfortable expressing themselves and have it become ingrained behavior.
A second area of focus is setting an example for the team. A starting point is agreeing on priorities, and deciding what we are doing for and against our priorities, so the team knows when and how to best contribute. In other words, aligning on our values and making sure everybody understands the do’s and don’ts and feels good about it. It’s not enough to perform well, we need to also work well. My goal is to be open and available for the team.
Lastly, I remind our team often that we are all leaders. Having diverse leadership is important in the scope of what we need, but also in the appreciation of different opinions. We thrive with healthy debates from experts, bringing different viewpoints. Their opinions are valued and they know what they’re talking about. They know how to communicate and collaborate, and they are not shy in sharing their opinion because they come from diverse and different angles. The team makes decisions because they understand our goals and know our expectations.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a pivotal moment in your career or personal life when being authentic made a significant impact on your success or well-being?
I would say the way we handled the challenges around the pandemic and employee safety. It wasn’t a tough decision to put the care and health of our employees above other needs. In that moment, I was a leader making a decision about people who depended on me and frankly, whom I depended on as well. Safety is the number one priority and making sure our coworkers were safe was the number one focus..
We created a culture of courage and caring and we had to decide if we were going to shut down some sites for a week or two because there was a spread. We knew this was something that was out of our control and even though we had doubts we ultimately decided there was no point in waiting. This was not difficult to do for two reasons.
First, because food safety is already at the forefront of our priorities, we knew people would understand from the bottom to the top why we would do that. Second, as I’ve said, the team was totally empowered to speak out, and some of our general managers told us they needed help.
We took an inside look — and asked what we needed to do. Taking care of our coworkers, showing them we care, and helping them through difficult times was the right thing for our team.
What strategies have you found most effective in fostering an environment where employees or team members feel safe to express their true selves, including their ideas, concerns, and aspirations?
Empowerment — As I’ve talked about, by empowering the team, I would say 80% or 90% of our decisions don’t even come to me. And this is by design. We encourage the team to seek out others for advice when they don’t know the right answer or when they have doubts. They know what their goals are and can use this as a guide to find the right direction.
By empowering them, they can make their own decisions and understand they’re also allowed to make mistakes. They don’t need to bring it to me. At my level, only the medium to long-term process-related or strategic decisions are debated and that’s totally fine.
Diversity — I’ve found by encouraging diversity from all different angles, understanding our goals and what success looks like we are fostering a supportive and collaborative environment where employees feel safe and comfortable being their authentic selves.
Respect — With diversity of thought, background, and opinion, comes the need to be respectful of each other’s opinions and make mindful decisions.
How do you navigate the challenges that come with encouraging authenticity in a diverse workplace, where different backgrounds and perspectives may sometimes lead to conflict?
I’ve found the same thing, every single time I change positions or companies — it doesn’t matter if everything is ready, day one. What matters most is that we have the potential to align and allow all team members to contribute to the discussions at some point.
My role is to converge, to make everyone feel comfortable sharing, to grow when they can. And, learning when they can’t, that they shouldn’t be part of the team.
I look at the potential of the business and the team to make sure we are aligning from different angles. It doesn’t have to happen on day one and that’s OK.
Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways to Create a Culture Where People Feel Safe to be Authentic?”
1. The one thing really, that makes our team stronger is when they feel comfortable, sharing different views and disagreeing sometimes. And that’s my role — to align the team and to make sure we speak about the right things.
2. When we are aligned, we can decide on our goals, expectations and priorities together. By collaborating, we’ll have shared acceptance and responsibility on the next steps and what it takes to get there.
3. A realization that it is ok to show some degree of vulnerability. I don’t need to be the most knowledgeable person in the room. Allowing yourself to be open and admit that you don’t know everything makes it acceptable for the rest of the team to do so as well.
4. Create a culture based on mutual respect that treats every opinion respectfully, every single time. Lead by example to show others there is nothing to be gained and much to be lost in turning down other people or their opinions. This mutual acceptance makes our debates more informed and builds trust and empowerment. This translates to our work with customers as well.
5. Set up processes to help us be agile and flexible to respond quickly to customers’ needs. Stay close to your customers, through listening and engaging It’s no different today than it was four years ago when we were facing the upheaval and uncertainty of the pandemic. When conditions are unclear, it’s important to stay close to them and show them you are listening. Be ready to adjust and adapt with speed. This doesn’t mean being erratic but you find what matters to them and be consistent.
In your opinion, how does authenticity within an organization influence its relationship with customers, clients, or the broader community?
Fifteen years ago, I read a book called Playing to Win, which is centered on five key principles and choices organizations must make to be successful. By embodying these core values and authentically leading through them, we’ve created an authentic culture at TC Transcontinental Packaging.
1. First, it starts with asking, what does success look like? Is it different from one business to another? How do the financials, talent, or products affect it? Once you’ve looked at this, then you examine what success means for not only you but for your team. This plays very well in the packaging industry.
2. Next, you choose your battles and recognize it’s OK to say no. It’s OK to step away from some of the battles and stay focused. This helps us to prioritize, be agile, and concentrate on understanding the needs of our customers. Realize, if you spread your organization or resources too thin across too much, then you’re losing — it becomes a distraction from the end goal.
3. Third, decide what you want to do — where you want to play, what industries, what segments, which customers you want to reach, and with what products. Are there other geographies you want to be winning in and are there others by default where you don’t want to play? This takes a tremendous amount of time to focus the business and it’s been a priority during my time at TC Transcontinental. We’ve made huge progress in this area. Once you decide this, you look at what it takes for you to be there? What are the key capabilities you need? How long will it take? What is it you need to start doing now so that you can win and, do you have the right team to do that? Once you’ve decided what you want to achieve and who are you going to do it with, the next step is going back to the team, ensuring you have the right diversity of talent to be successful.
4. Then, determine the right structure to put in place so that you organize the governance and oversight needed. It’s a methodical process. I’ve been told in the past that this is too simplistic and while I agree there are much more sophisticated ways, as an industry, we manufacture goods and we need to be capable of explaining this to everybody in the organization.
5. Lastly, listen. Packaging is pretty much on the high side of competitiveness and it’s important to be extremely close to our customers and to make decisions that keep pace in terms of capacity investments in technology, people, R&D and sustainability. It’s not all about making sure we are as fast or faster than anybody else, but ensuring we are on the right course. We have examples of growing with a customer from nothing to 50 million packages in three years. And we have some on the other end of the spectrum, with steady growth. When I ask the CEOs of our customers, “What are we doing better than our competitors,” the answer is “You listen to us more”.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
At TC Transcontinental Packaging, investment in sustainable technologies is deeply ingrained in our culture. This is an initiative I’m passionate about because it is so critical to the future of our planet. Creating a more circular economy for plastic is an ambitious goal we plan to continue to work toward.
Last year we invested $174 million, almost twice as much and probably four times as much as our competitors, because we had three key strategic investments in the pipeline happening at the same time. Our mission to create fresh, sustainable, innovative packaging is the driving force behind our growth.
We will continue our investments in the commercialization of recyclable flexible plastic packaging as well as in technology, R&D, and the dedication and insight of our employees and hope others will join this movement as well.
How can our readers further follow you online?
https://www.linkedin.com/company/tctranscontinentalpackaging/posts/?feedView=all
Thank you for the time you spent sharing these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
Creating a Culture of Courage: Thomas Morin Of TC Transcontinental Packaging On How Authenticity… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.