How Four Rookie CEOs Handled the Great Recession

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Swinburn spent his first six months as CEO sketching out a framework for the new approach. In conversations with senior executives and in town hall meetings with employees, he came up with an unofficial motto—"Challenge the expected"—that he hoped would entice employees at all levels to think outside their roles. Swinburn also made sure employees had better tools to interact with one another. On the suggestion of one worker, he signed the company up for Yammer, a site for short messages similar to Twitter that would be visible only to colleagues. Some 2,000 employees now utilize the site to provide updates and collaborate on projects. Denver-based IT staffer Miguel Zlot recently used the site to communicate with colleagues from afar while working on a Web project. "We needed to grasp ahold of something common," he says.

Employees are also getting together in person more frequently. Benoit Maillette, the brewery manager in Toronto, says he meets with counterparts from around the world once or twice a year to socialize and share business ideas. One January gathering was in the company suite at a Montreal Canadiens hockey game, with a lot of time "around the bar," says Maillette. Swinburn's efforts appear to be having an impact. The employee research firm Towers Watson says that in independent surveys, 87% of Molson Coors (TAP) employees said the company had a "clear vision for the future" in 2009, up from 73% in 2008. The average for global high performers surveyed by Towers Watson was a one-percentage-point decline over the same period.

Swinburn, who started working at Bass Brewers in his 20s, takes the beer business personally. "When Peter goes to the grocery store with his wife, he typically wanders off after just a few minutes," says Leo Kiely, who heads a joint venture Molson Coors has with SABMiller. "He's gone off to the beer aisle, and he's over there rearranging the shelves, making sure his beer is displayed properly and there are no torn packages."

The brewer is eyeing more deals in the fast-consolidating beer market. Last May it bought Cobra Beer, a British brand popular in curry restaurants. Swinburn intends to keep expanding through acquisitions. "Our balance sheet is strong, so if the right opportunities come around, we can move," the CEO says.

For these new chief executives, survival was the first test. Still, their trials are far from over. As the economy recovers, they have to shift out of crisis mode and focus on long-term strategy and investments. If you come of age in a firestorm, your job has to change when the flames die out.

Douglas MacMillan is a staff writer for Bloomberg BusinessWeek in New York.

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