Beyond Corporate Responsibility at Kingsford Charcoal

Working with Kingsford was such a rich, multilayered experience — it demonstrates beautifully what can happen when a company uses a comprehensive set of frameworks and processes to address every aspect of its operations in an integrated way. When Will Lynn took over Kingsford, its workforce was relatively uneducated, it was a regional brand sold in a relatively short season, and it was costly to produce with a limited return to the corporate bottom and top lines. Will, who had been based in Kingsford’s Oakland, California, headquarters, liked to barbeque. He was a good host and loved being outdoors in the California sunshine, serving friends good food and good conversation. But his new focus on improving charcoal made him aware that he spent more time fussing with his grill than being with his guests. He took pride in being able to cook to order, serving burgers and steaks at precisely the right level of doneness, but the grill and the charcoal just wouldn’t cooperate. So when he began Kingsford’s strategic planning, he was already standing in his customer’s shoes.

Will also knew that he had to get his vice presidents to also stand in those shoes. Nothing fundamentally different was going to get created if they stayed locked into their marketing, manufacturing, and R&D mind-sets. As part of the requested radical new thinking, Will organized a company picnic with the Kingsford senior team serving, a sort of living laboratory for enacting and observing the barbeque experience. They set up a line of grills at a regional…