Description
The CEO of Coeur Mining, the largest U.S.-based primary silver producer and a significant gold producer, saw a need for immediate change during week one on the job. Instead of wasting time changing culture, Mitch Krebs built a new one by moving the company to Chicago, a non-traditional mining city, and replacing most of the corporate office. The firm he had inherited was informal and decentralized, as well as overly focused on next-month and next-quarter results to the extent that it risked losing sight of relations with the communities in which it operated and communication strategies. Krebs set a goal for Coeur to become the best precious metals mining company in the world, not the biggest. In this interview, he praises going big with organizational change as worth the effort, and recognizes the value of good relationships as the best lesson he learned in business school. For any team to excel, he states, a firm has to have the right kind of constructive conflicts that focus on the problem involved, not the people. Finally, he cautions against building anything in the mining industry until you know exactly where the money is going to come from.