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Board Governance Best Practices and Stories/Experiences Shared
Collin Pullar: [00:00:01] If you’re familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Index, there’s 16 main personality preference types. 85% of the people who are in executive leadership, of which that’s usually the pool that gets pulled into the board, come from just those four types. The challenge is that you can get caught in the group think that we spoke about earlier. Right from the cognitive level, from the personality level, it can be important to look at that. Boards can, over time, begin to think about things like this. What’s the strengths that people bring?
Munir Haque: [00:00:36] Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast. I'm your host, Munir Haque, an executive coach and senior board strategist. I have partnered with Action Edge Executive Development to lead their governance and political acumen division. In each episode, we meet with governance leaders and step into their boardrooms, where decisions shape the world around us.
Munir Haque: [00:00:56] Today's guest is Mr. Collin Pullar. For the past decade, Collin has been the president of the Saskatchewan Construction Safety Association. It's an organization providing construction, safety training, advisory and auditing services for over 10,000 companies in the Saskatchewan construction sector. Under his leadership, the SCSA has operations in Saskatoon and Regina and received numerous awards. With expertise in labor, economic development, government and public relations, and business leadership, Collin is an in-demand speaker for a wide range of business audiences. Collin is a regular contributor to Canadian business magazines, including the Journal of Commerce and Industry West Magazine, and is the host of the Bald Leadership Podcast. We're very excited to have him today on the podcast, hopefully pick his brain and have a bit of fun doing it. Hi, Collin.
Collin Pullar: [00:01:43] Hello, thanks for having me.
Munir Haque: [00:01:45] Thanks for being on the show. Our listening audience probably doesn't know this, but they will now. I'm officially designating this 'the lost episode'. We recorded it once before and we had some technical difficulties, but Collin has graciously accepted the offer to try to reenact that first podcast.
Collin Pullar: [00:02:04] We can call that the practice episode, how about we call it that.
Munir Haque: [00:02:08] It is a bit of a warm up, because it was the first interview that I did. I had reached out to Collin to do that because Collin and I have known each other for years, and I know that, as I mentioned in his intro, that he's been on a podcast. He understands how they work, and I thought I could get some tips and tricks from him. When I was doing a bit of background research on him to get ready for this podcast, I came across a picture of you. I think it was, of all places, it was on IMDb. International movie database. It's a picture of you from, I can tell that you're topless and all you have on, essentially, is a bow tie, and you're kind of dressed like a bit of a Chippendale there.
Collin Pullar: [00:02:53] I think I had cufflinks, I think I had cuffs on.
Munir Haque: [00:02:58] That's your modesty showing through. Where did that come from?
Collin Pullar: [00:03:04] That's funny. That was pretty well 20 years ago, Munir. There was a wonderful show called Corner Gas, it was just in its infancy at the time. A Canadian comedy show. I didn't know much about it. I was reached out to and said, hey, would you be interested in, first, being an extra? Then they said, hey, we've got this interesting role, could you be a dancer? That's how that character was born. Apparently it was one of their most popular reruns.
Munir Haque: [00:03:36] Okay, I didn't know you were a dancer, too. Do you remember which episode that is? I might have to pull that up, put it in the show notes.
Collin Pullar: [00:03:43] I think it was in the second year, and I think it was the one called 'The Elvis Wedding'.
Munir Haque: [00:03:50] I'm sure that'll have a lot of hits after this too.
Collin Pullar: [00:03:52] I'm sure it will.
Munir Haque: [00:03:56] So other than being an actor or a topless dancer, is there anything that I had missed in your intro that you'd like to point to?
Collin Pullar: [00:04:07] Well from that, you could tell I do enjoy having fun in what I do. We're going to talk about governance and it's honestly one of the areas that I've really enjoyed doing for a variety of reasons, getting involved with it. Our paths crossed in a governance circle as co-members of the chamber board, district Chamber of Commerce. I've had lots of enjoyment from it. I've learned lots, it's an opportunity to give a little bit, and I get to know some really great people. I think it's some of the things that I've enjoyed, and I enjoy laughing so I always make sure that in any boards I've been involved with, we've had some moments of levity.
Munir Haque: [00:04:52] Just for our listening audience right now, you should know that Collin's fully dressed right now. He's got his suit jacket on and a white shirt.
Collin Pullar: [00:04:59] I didn't wear the bow tie today. I didn't want to dress up too much.
Munir Haque: [00:05:05] Why don't we talk a little bit about Saskatchewan and Construction Safety Association, the seat you're in right now as CEO. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the composition of your board, how it's put together.
Collin Pullar: [00:05:19] The way we are now would sound almost dry comparison to what it was when I first joined the organization. When I first joined, we had a 34 member board of directors. We have about 50 employees, so it was almost as many directors as there were employees, but it was not very functional. Lots of challenges with it, but the board recognized that and they were looking for some leadership for change. Over a bit of a process over 2 or 3 or 4 years, essentially, the board was able to move to a spot where they've now redefined themselves as a governance board. Currently a 10 to 12 person board. I believe right now we've got ten positions that are filled and they are looking much more diverse as compared to where they were a few years ago. I'm going to say, much more professional and very well trained. People that understand their roles. That makes a big difference for the industry itself, to have people that are well recognized, well respected, understand how business and governance works. I think it's had a real positive effect on the organization. It's a little bit of a story of where we came from, because I think that's probably just as important as where it is today.
Munir Haque: [00:06:40] Is it a bit of a rotating board or what processes do you have in place to make sure that there's some continuity?
Collin Pullar: [00:06:49] In terms of things like succession and continuity, the board does have terms. Some of the things that they've adopted, in addition to having a really strong governance manual, are things like having a skills matrix so they can understand what are the potential skill sets that they need based on gaps that the board may have. That would be one of the foundational things that they do each year as they look to fill 3 or 4 positions each year. That they've got that awareness of, hey, we realize that we've got gaps, or, we've got things pretty well balanced out in terms of skills. Do we have the right mix of diversity on the board to help bring us high quality as they can to their decision making The reality, at one point, it was a very male dominated board. The industry has probably been known for that traditionally, but we've also got this emerging group of really powerful executive leaders, particularly female leaders and ethnically diverse leaders in Saskatchewan that are CEOs of 100+ person organizations.
Collin Pullar: [00:08:07] We've slowly been able to bring folks into the mix who can bring additional quality, additional perspective to the board as well. So that's been a real foundational piece is understanding, do we have the right mix of skills, experiences, enough difference between people so that we don't get locked into a groupthink situation? What we've found is that people actually enjoyed their experience, it was a much richer experience as a board member. So it's not just what you are bringing to the organization, but also what you receive as a board member. These are volunteer positions, it's not like you're getting a big check and say, I can justify it by that. There's certainly gratification that people get, or learning that they get, by participating in a board like this. That's been something that I've been able to hear from board members that have participated in our board.
Munir Haque: [00:09:08] You talked a little bit about the skills matrix, making sure that you have all those gaps filled. Is there ever a situation where it comes to whatever election time or the AGM, and you don't have somebody lined up to fill that position, that you feel that there's a bit of a gap. Have you ever held off on that and then look for somebody specifically to fill that skill set?
Collin Pullar: [00:09:31] The board has that option and they've exercised that, where they have not found the right person to help fill that spot, so to speak. I think that's important for boards to consider doing that, not necessarily just grabbing somebody just because they're available. It's important that they be available, it's important that you bring a range of skills to the board. Somebody's going to be a little less experienced, but on balance, they're going to bring a lot of other values to it whether it be their energy, their newness to the industry. So their perspective comes in. But yes, there have been times where we did not have the necessary skill set. The board's had that option, and there's times where they said, let's overstock, so to speak. In our case we have a typical board of ten, but keep a couple of positions available so that if they see an opportunity to round out some skill sets or develop somebody who's got a little less experience, they could do that. I think that's something that boards should consider. Development is a really critical element to it. Often for people like you and myself, Munir, we all have to start from somewhere. Someone gave us a chance to bring our lack of experience to the table, but our energy came along with it and over time we were able to gather those skills. So I think it's really important to consider that from a perspective of long term succession for a board.
Munir Haque: [00:11:01] In the case of SCSA, whose decision was that? The board comes to that decision on a whole, that we don't have an appropriate feel for this spot, or is it something that's directed by the chair?
Collin Pullar: [00:11:14] First of all, it's really important that there be a strong and positive relationship between the CEO and the chair. I've benefited from the unique position of being a CEO, but also being on a board of directors and seeing things from both sides. Senior management needs to take a role in help guiding the board if they're not aware of these options, to bring that to their attention. That was certainly something that I would do if it was something that the chair themselves or others on the board didn't raise. That being said, somebody needs to champion these concepts, particularly if it's new. The champion is often the chair or perhaps another board member who is maybe in the role of a chair of the governance committee, that can champion these concepts and share them amongst the board for their consideration. Getting back to the relationship between the CEO and chair, what's really valuable, it's not a one way street in terms of giving direction to the CEO. But again, for the CEO to bring advice to their board of directors. To bring knowledge that they're bringing. Remember, the CEO is spending, at minimum, a couple thousand hours a year, maybe 2500 or 3000 hours a year, in the business as well as what they're thinking about when they're off time. Board of directors might be fortunate if they have 10% of that. There's perspectives that I'm able to bring to the board for their consideration, and thankfully over the years I've been fortunate to have board chairs that have been both open to these ideas and then brought their own flavor to it and been able to implement it.
Munir Haque: [00:13:03] You talked a little bit earlier about how when you joined the board, they had recognized that there were some issues in their board structure or governance, they were able to work through that. As the CEO, maybe tell us a little bit about what your involvement was in that. Were you helping guide it or were you a resource? Did they bring in outside expertise?
Collin Pullar: [00:13:24] In my case, it was the convergence of two things. One, me identifying that this dynamic was creating challenges both for myself as a CEO, but also within the organization. It wasn't just because of the size. There were other challenges of engagement and perhaps a lack of understanding of some people's rolls on it. Simply, it was very, very large. And the types of interactions and decision making was slow. So they were looking to me to help find them tools, resources, perhaps consultants, others that can help support them. As a CEO, president, executive director, a lot of these things the board looks to you to help guide them. In my case, I did those things. Brought books to open the conversation with, brought in a speaker, brought in a consultant to help work on the nitty gritty. I would play the role of support, and I think it was very important that I do that and not appear to be the one that was driving the change, allow them to champion it. I would be the conduit to which they could access those resources. I, too, would go out and seek those. Again, coming back to the relationship between the CEO and the board, I didn't want to try to flip things over where I was driving the board to do something that they weren't necessarily interested in doing.
Munir Haque: [00:14:56] You had mentioned a little bit earlier about succession planning. Thinking a bit about the chair position, do you have a process in place that the chair has some experience on the board prior to becoming the chair?
Collin Pullar: [00:15:09] I both think it's very important, but also boards recognize, I think more rapidly, that having some understanding of the organization takes time. It's very difficult to just walk in dry. It takes time to get orientated to the organization, get orientated to the board. Ideally, having somebody who's had some experience around the table, the stages that our board chairs try to guide, chairs as being the manager of the board, they would try to build in somebody who would be new to the organization, new to the board. Give them a year of experience before asking them to chair a committee, and would use that as a way to prepare somebody to potentially become the future chair of our board of directors. Not unlike how I might do this within the organization, having a new person come in, gain some experiences, work on a couple of teams, and then asking them to lead the team, as a way of preparing them to eventually succeed the next role of leadership. That's the pattern that our board has used, and it's a pattern that I think is pretty common amongst board members. I think it works quite effectively.
Munir Haque: [00:16:24] I agree. I think it's difficult to come into something cold, even if you do have experience being a chair of another board. Some of the cultures are different. Definitely the strategies and visions are different from board to board.
Collin Pullar: [00:16:37] A board chair has a number of skill sets they have to bring. Yes, they're managing the board, but you're managing a lot of different relationships and wanting to try to draw the best that you can out of new people coming into the board. As well as understanding the organization and managing the relationship with the CEO, president and executive director, that just takes time. Very rarely can you take somebody to come in and go through that storming, norming, forming, those various stages to eventually get to high performance. So to take the time to do that, ideally that's what you'd like to do regardless if you're a very experienced chair or not. It's a new organization with new relationships and they need to be established.
Munir Haque: [00:17:27] I agree wholeheartedly. Just looking at your role as a CEO as well as your experience with various chairs, are there any strategies or tools that you use to keep boards focused and moving in the same direction and to focus on either short term or long term goals?
Collin Pullar: [00:17:44] A couple of things that I think are really important. First of all, within a meeting itself, we use a consent agenda where a number of notes are maybe minutes from other meetings are all put together. Rather than rehash the content of all of that in a meeting, is allow board members to digest those and if there's things that they have questions about, we will then pull that into the main body of the meeting. Then think about not just having a board approve a bunch of things, but also give time for some discussion around how it connects to strategy. That's important. Most boards, they will tell you that they just don't feel like they spend enough time talking about strategy in the future of the organization, and are they actually achieving the goals that they've laid out. That's become a bigger and bigger thing for us, to be able to free up the time to allow that to happen in a fairly concise manner. What leads that, the strategy before that, is actually the strategic planning process, which is not just bringing our heads into the room and having myself and the management team tell them everything we think that they need to know. We will work with and we will bring data in from other sources. We will bring data in from evaluations and feedback that we receive as an organization. And we'll also, at times, we will have asked third parties to talk to our membership and check with stakeholders and put a series of questions so we can get some context in terms of the performance of the organization, of where our membership feels that we need to go next. We bring all that together and allow the board to process that, discuss with them, present back to them the perspectives that come from a lot of different stakeholders.
Collin Pullar: [00:19:39] As we process that, they come to a final decision of, we agree this is the direction that we want to go. We agree with the vision. We just did this recently, just a couple of weeks ago with our board, where it was a check in to say, is the vision still accurate? Is this the right thing? Do we need to make a change? Is this an evolution or a revolution in terms of our strategy? Those are big questions to ask at times. COVID, for some organizations, created a real revolution in the way they may have approached their business. For us, we were beginning to make some big moves that we thought were going to take 7 to 10 years to fully implement. COVID shortened the timelines on those kinds of things and caused us to reevaluate. I think for the most part we evolved, but it was a fast evolution to something that the board already had a vision for. I think those are some of the questions that have to happen as you're building a strategy to get the type of engagement that you need from that board of directors.
Munir Haque: [00:20:48] Let's pivot a little bit away from the SCSA, we talked a lot about that board. You do have a lot of other experience serving on boards in different capacities. You're currently on the Access Communications Cooperative Limited. We had Karen Smith talk about ethical decision making, and she is the current chair of that board. You're also on BuildForce Canada, you're on the Regina Exhibition Association Limited, Canadian Federation of Construction Safety Association, you're the chairperson there, you're on the Horizon College and Seminary, you're the vice chair, Regina Skills and Trade Center board, Regina and District Chamber of Commerce, you're the former chair there, which you mentioned before, and you're also on the Canadian Black Chamber of Commerce.
Collin Pullar: [00:21:35] Some of those, I've rotated off of those boards, but new ones keep showing up, as usual. I've been fortunate to gain a variety of experiences and, you could tell, varied industries and the sectors that were both important to me, but I think important to the community as well.
Munir Haque: [00:22:04] This is starting to paint a bit of a picture of you for the people who are listening to us. I think I mentioned before that you have a podcast called Bald Leadership, so we know what your hairstyle is based on the pictures on the internet. Sometimes you wear clothes, sometimes you don't, but you look good in a bow tie. Now we know that you're black. You've served on a lot of boards. If you want to share some insights into your experience serving on a variety of different boards and how does that strengthen you.
Collin Pullar: [00:22:33] For those that are interested in leadership or governance, to me, they're one and the same in a lot of ways. If you're involved in governance, you're at the highest level of leadership in an organization. There's a lot of reliance on you as a board member to help move the organization forward and move it in a particular direction. I've encouraged employees that I work with and friends and others, to get a varied set of experiences that they can draw from in order to round out their skill set. Sometimes we pigeonhole ourselves into thinking, I can only do this path. I can only do this one type of working experience or leadership experience. But in reality, leadership is a transferable skill. I think while you may not be a technical expert in an area, access communication is very much around technology and broadcasting and internet and a lot of things I don't know a lot of, but it's also an organization which I have some experience working with an organization. I don't know if you mentioned it, but the board for Legal Aid Saskatchewan, I recently became chair of the governance committee there, I joined that board about about three years ago. And, I thought, I'm not a lawyer.
Collin Pullar: [00:24:12] I watch a lot of Matlock and Law and Order and so I figured, okay, I'm very well experienced and the majority of people who would be attracted to that board would have a legal background. The value that I was able to bring there was that I had experience as an executive and at the time one of the things that they needed was to identify a new leader for that organization. I was able to contribute in that way and I knew a little bit about governance so I was able to contribute in that way as well. At the same time, I learned a lot of things I didn't know before, and I was able to take that back into my own organization or other boards. I think by having varied experiences, volunteer, paid or otherwise, a person can not only round out their experience but enhance their skill set, the things that they could bring from one place to the other, including their own career. I found in every one of those boards I've involved with, I was able to bring something back to the organization that I work with currently, as a daytime regular profession, but also to other boards as well. So I encourage that, and it makes things a little more enjoyable too.
Munir Haque: [00:25:31] I think you help paint a picture a little bit more now that you referenced Matlock. So our listeners can have an idea of maybe how old, what generation you're coming from.
Collin Pullar: [00:25:42] I just remember my dad watching Matlock.
Munir Haque: [00:25:47] Yeah, my dad watched Matlock too. One of the questions I wanted to ask is, what's the difference between the Chamber of Commerce and the Black Chamber of Commerce?
Collin Pullar: [00:25:58] While they have the same name, they are slightly different structures. The Black Chamber of Commerce would be more like an association of black business owners. Chamber of Commerce is also but it also falls under a different act. There's a specific act for boards of trade that there are some requirements and structures that are recognized more so in various parts of legislation. Black Chamber of Commerce is a network of black business owners that look to each other for supports, contacts and a network across the country. I spent a short period of time in their early development as an organization there to support them, even as I was involved with the Regina and District Chamber of Commerce, which again, very local. I think at the time we had about 1200, 1300 member businesses in the Regina area. Through that, we were able to both influence policy at the municipal, provincial level, but also to bring services to the broader business community and attract those that needed support in their journey as business owners.
Munir Haque: [00:27:22] That is a nice segue into the next thing I want to talk about, which is a little bit about diversity, equity and inclusion. You mentioned that we served on the Regina and District Chamber of Commerce together and I remember the first meeting that we went to. All the, for lack of a better word, all the minorities were sitting outside on one side, gravitated and sat on one side of the table and all the, I guess, non-minorities were on the other side. Perhaps that's because the food was on our side, but it was a bit of an interesting dynamic to be able to see that and I wonder a little bit about what was behind that. I think most of us were new members at that time around. I think the doors were opening up a little bit more. I don't recall what year exactly that was, but we're probably looking at about ten years ago or so, things were starting to shift.
Collin Pullar: [00:28:15] That particular meeting, I think it was just by the fact that, yes, the food was closer to us and so we thought, I'm just going to kick the chair where I can just turn around and grab what I want to eat. We might have just been the smarter folks in the room, or at least the hungrier ones. But that was a funny moment, and I think one of the times where that board probably had a very, one of the first times, I had a very strong representation of folks that were beyond what was, at that time, was considered to be a fairly homogeneous group. At least that was people's perception of the organization. I think we were able to bring together different perspectives that brought a lot of value and moved the needle in a lot of other ways in terms of performance of that chamber. To this day, I was able to spend six years on that board. I was very fortunate to be able to do that, and left that board with a very visibly diverse group of people. I think more importantly is that we had some of the highest quality leaders in the community serving on that board. To this day, they continue to carry down that path. I think it's pretty exciting, I think there was a recognition that you don't have to give something up to make this diversity thing work.
Collin Pullar: [00:29:48] As a matter of fact, I think I left things a much stronger position, and they continue to grow in that position in terms of their effectiveness, their ability to engage a broader group of stakeholders than they ever could. That was always a challenge where we felt like we were hitting a ceiling in some areas, and the ceiling is a lot higher now, and you've got groups of people that can bring skill sets from around the world. I think that's really important, particularly in a Prairie based, or in terms of Regina, Saskatchewan based chamber. Especially when so much of what that province does is in exports to people around the world. To have people who have links, experiences, both cultural and professional experiences that were that diverse actually helps position this chamber to effectively guide people to those kinds of opportunities. It's an amazing amount of export that happens. If I just take the country of India alone, the amount of export from Canada to India that happens year to year, 46% of it comes out of the province of Saskatchewan. Being an export province, this becomes important. Through relationships, experiences, things that are sometimes hard to get unless you've actually had that lived experience, you suddenly have that. It's a bunch of assets that, it may take some time to unlock, but they're there. And I think it's worth grinding to get there.
Munir Haque: [00:31:25] I used to be of the opinion that the board should represent the diversity within the community, but that's not necessarily the case if you look at the Saskatchewan community. But the way you're looking at it right now, that diversity is a lot more forward looking. When you're looking at dealing on the global scale, it helps you understand that from that perspective and not just a local perspective.
Collin Pullar: [00:31:48] To recognize, we don't compete locally anymore as businesses, we just don't. We're competing with somebody on the other side of the planet and we do it daily. Technology has allowed this to happen. Picture what do you need to have around the table. You need to have enough cognitive diversity, enough intellectual diversity to be able to capture that. Not to say that two people who come from a similar background can't be competitive with the rest of the world, but they recognize they need to build the types of relationships that can get them around the world. At the board level, if you're able to do that, you now position the company to make decisions or recognize gaps that otherwise wouldn't be seen. To me, that's a real asset. It takes work because you're talking about somebody who may be a bit different, they might think a little differently. It's not just what people look like, there's personality types. I don't know if you and I have spoken about this before, but at the senior levels in Canada, if you're familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Index, there's 16 main personality preference types. 85% of the people who are in executive leadership, of which that's usually the pool that gets pulled into the board, come from just those four types.
Collin Pullar: [00:33:21] The challenge is that you can get caught in the group think that we spoke about earlier. Right from the cognitive level, from the personality level, it can be important to look at that. Boards can, over time, begin to think about things like this. What's the strengths that people bring? I just happen to be, percentage wise, I think I'm in 0.2% of the population that would fit into the executive category. It's very small, so I'm really odd to start off with, as you can tell, but I've learned to be able to navigate that space. Being able to navigate spaces you're unfamiliar with actually becomes a strength. That's why you want people who are a little bit different. They've had to navigate things maybe differently than you can. You could start to bring in some thought, whether it be in an advisory capacity or a full board capacity, or in a management capacity that can help you move things along in terms of strategy and implementation.
Munir Haque: [00:34:30] Before we leave some of your board experience, throughout your board career so far, have you made any major mistakes that you've learned from? I say that it's easier to learn from other people's mistakes. If there's anything you'd want to share, other than dancing on Corner Gas.
Collin Pullar: [00:34:48] I talked about learning, having enough experience in different places that you can round out your experiences. Along the way, you're going to hit bumps in the road. I've stepped into circumstances where, I'm going to say, the situation wasn't necessarily ideal. I would look at some circumstances, for example, working with the executive of a team that of I'm on the board, or have been on the board where we've had an executive leader that maybe needed correction earlier than we're prepared to give it, where maybe we as a board and myself, even as chair, being a little bit nervous in broaching those things. Some of my learning, is that it's important to broach those things early, quickly and thoughtfully. Sometimes as a leader on a board, you can get in a trap where the executive has been there a lot longer than you have. There's sometimes a tendency to give deference when you shouldn't give deference, while being respectful of the person that's there to broach issues such as the direction of the organization, whether we're actually fulfilling the mandate that we're expecting or recognizing that there's things in the environment that force us to adjust our strategy.
Collin Pullar: [00:36:10] There's times I've made the mistake of not broaching that early enough, and beyond broaching that, being strong enough to be sure that we're able to make the adjustments as an organization. I personally want that leader to be successful, so part of my job is to make sure that, the train coming down the track, they're seeing it so they don't get hit by it. Because when those things happen, the organization obviously goes into shock itself, so it's really important to do that. The second area is, I think in the areas of accountability, is to set up structures that allow that CEO to demonstrate accountability and to hold them accountable. That doesn't mean coming down on somebody all the time, but hey, if you said you're going to do this, you need to tell us what happened and why. It's much more of the area of transparency than it really is anything else because we have great intentions. I can tell you that, being in a president role, that you'll have great intentions, you put great efforts, you don't necessarily get the outcomes that you would have expected. But at the same time, I still hold myself accountable for my inputs and accountability to my team around me.
Collin Pullar: [00:37:29] I think from my experience being on boards that those are a couple of areas that perhaps I made a mistake on not having that front end conversation and setting up structures to support the accountability. Today I'm much more, I don't want to use the word aggressive, but I'm much more deliberate about that. So it's something that I've learned, you make a mistake and that's okay. You're going to make mistakes, but you do have to learn from them. Remember, the challenge that we have as board members is, again, we might have, if we're lucky, 10% of the hours and the oversight of the organization. Usually it's a lot less than that. A chair might be on the higher end of that range, just simply because they tend to have more conversations with the CEO. We don't necessarily see everything that's happening at the operational level. We're not always dealing with a lot of information that's going to get us into decision making at a micro level, but we do have to be really focused on being sure we've got good policies, practices, processes that we can feel comfortable with the direction that the organization is going.
Munir Haque: [00:38:42] That's great advice for anybody listening who are serving on boards or CEO capacities. Let's talk a little bit about the Institute of Corporate Directors. My understanding is you have your ICD.D designation. How is getting that designation help influence your approach to governance?
Collin Pullar: [00:39:01] It has made a big difference for me. The Institute of Corporate Directors designation is about director's education. Building a good foundation in terms of having tools and methods to approach governance. It's given, for myself, a really strong awareness of the things that could happen and the ways that I can mitigate risk, but also begin to see opportunities where I can contribute in more creative ways to the organization. Most education programs will focus on that. Are you aware of your responsibilities? Have you got some tools to address areas of concern? I think that's really important for people to get a foundation like that. Not only have I done the work to go into getting the ICD, but I continue to try to learn, how can I be more effective with it? For myself, I've gotten involved with the chapter executive, which is focusing on the continuing education elements, where we meet maybe ten times a year, where we may have lunch-and-learns or a case study work that we'll do together to try to enhance our skills. Because the reality is, you could take an education course and think that you're trained, but it's not until the fire actually hits you that you understand what a burn feels like. That's what you have to have, and then we share those experiences with each other so you could start to see the signs that the temperature might be getting hot, you have something to refer back to in a way to possibly address those. It's been, for me, a really positive way for me to add on to the initial training and add to my experience. And skills that I gain, I bring back to what I do, not just on boards, but what I do in my own day to day employment.
Munir Haque: [00:40:57] I don't know if you had a chance to listen, but in episode one, we had Cadmus Delorme on the program, and he talked a little bit about indigenous governance. It's one of the sections that he instructs or teaches within the ICD program.
Collin Pullar: [00:41:11] That would be one great example of areas that, for most of us, we get involved with a couple of boards, we stay fairly focused on what that organization does. These education programs allow us to take a step back and understand what's broadly happening in the world of governance. So understanding indigenous governance or governance from around the world becomes particularly useful for us. I mentioned earlier about being able to engage and work with companies from around the world, whether we're selling something to them or bringing that back and understanding within our own Canadian market, that governance, particularly with indigenous governance, can be a really great asset to understand.
Munir Haque: [00:41:54] Talking a little bit more about you, personally knowing you, I know that you're involved in powerlifting. Sports often plays a key role in development. Just wondering how working through powerlifting, how has that influenced your approach to leadership or governance or if there's any parallels?
Collin Pullar: [00:42:17] I think any sport, getting committed to a sport in the course of your life, it teaches you things that you just can't pick out of a book. The practice, the disciplines of getting up at a certain time, going through a regimen even if you don't feel like it. Doing that over and over and over creates a discipline for yourself that I think is very applicable in our work, but also in the area of governance. It's very easy to pick the governance opportunities that are very easy to work through. Everything's running well, don't have to do too much. It's a very different thing to stay committed to an organization that's very early in its formation, and it's got a lot of ups and downs that it has to work through. The discipline of sport and working through periods of time where things aren't going very well, things are very painful, you may not be getting the wins that you would hope to get. Learning the discipline of how to handle yourself there, it translates very well to the governance world. My strongest experiences in governance have been in situations where we had to work through very difficult circumstances.
Collin Pullar: [00:43:26] As you know me personally, I went through circumstance where our CEO was very sick for a period of time and eventually passed away. That was a very difficult period of time for the team, the organization and for the board as well as the stakeholders. Cared for the CEO, the CEO very much was engaged in their work, but over a period of time had declined and we had to go through the eventual situation where we transitioned to another CEO and unfortunately we lost him. I learned so much from that and staying committed to that process because it was very difficult. It would have been very easy to say, I can't do this anymore. I think learning to work through sports, through a discipline of sport, or even if you're not directly involved in the sport, but exercise or those kinds of things, helps create a structure that we can then lean on when things get very difficult. I think it translates very well. Today I mentioned that through the weekend I was working on some courses. I'm currently working on a masters in law in corporate governance. That was entirely my choice, nobody forced me to take it.
Munir Haque: [00:44:46] No gun to your head?
Collin Pullar: [00:44:48] There was nothing like that. Nobody was poking me with a hot stick or anything like that. I could just say, I didn't need to do it. I'm at an age where it takes a lot self discipline to just get it done. I knew the process of having to be competitive in a sport where most of the time you're in pain and suffering until you get that one day when things all come together and you can actually perform. I'm reengaged in that process again, and my confidence in being able to get through successfully is really from the experiences that I could draw on from other things that were very difficult, but I was able to get through. So I think it's very transferable.
Munir Haque: [00:45:33] That's some great insight. Why don't we finish off today finding out more about where people can find out more about you if they're interested. As I mentioned, you have a podcast called The Bald Leadership Podcast, and I think you also have a program on Access Communications. So why don't you tell us a little bit about those.
Collin Pullar: [00:45:52] First of all, if anybody wanted to reach out and connect, certainly through LinkedIn, you can connect to me. You can either go through our Bald Leadership platform on LinkedIn or just 'Collin Pullar' on LinkedIn. The Bald Leadership Podcast, you can find links to it from Spotify or one of those channels, but also from a website which is baldleadership.ca, or you can go to leadershiptalks.ca and find a host there. I think there's probably about 30 or 35 episodes. Those episodes are very similar to what you do here, you talk to others and be prepared to laugh. That's all I'll tell you. We use humor intentionally because it allows people to listen. Just knowing how the brain works relaxes people. We'll get in conversations with leaders that, they're being very vulnerable. To get to a level of comfort, it's very helpful to laugh about things that may have been silly in the moment, and you could turn back and go, oh my goodness, I can't believe that happened. Or you made a mistake and you laugh about it later and share that story. It allows people to open up, be vulnerable, and now you can get behind how people not only think, but how they approach life, how they approach business, how they approach governance or whatever area that they apply themselves to on a daily basis. So we've been fortunate to have some really, I'm going to say, people will say, very successful people in their field share things that probably never had an opportunity to do in their day to day life and to be able to share it in a format where people feel comfortable and others can now learn, hey, I can be a leader as well.
Munir Haque: [00:47:38] Thanks a lot, Collin, for joining us today on the podcast. That's it for today, thanks again, Collin.
Collin Pullar: [00:47:43] Thank you, Munir. I really appreciate it.
Munir Haque: [00:47:44] Thanks everyone for listening to The Boardroom 180 Podcast. You can learn more about me and Action Edge Executive Development on our website at aeednow.com. Fill out the form if you want me to reach out to you, or if you have any thoughts for future subjects or guests on the podcast. We also have a free board self-evaluation that will be linked on our website. You and your board can fill this out either individually or together, and it gives you a bit of a quick temperature check on how your board health is. As always, don't forget to hit like and subscribe to The Boardroom 180 Podcast, it helps us grow and bring more governance insights. We're recording from the Pushysix Studios in Calgary, Alberta, with production assistance from Astronomic Audio. You can find their info and the links to the AEX forums in the show notes. We've come full circle to conclude this episode of The Boardroom 180 Podcast, goodbye and good governance.