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Board Governance Best Practices and Stories/Experiences Shared
Cadmus Delorme: [00:00:05] Residential schools impacted each of us differently. And so when you talk about unmarked graves around a board level, around a council level, it triggered people differently. It was very emotional. It was something that you could talk policy, you could talk strategy, but the personal stories would come out as well. And so, just referencing it to challenges around a board table, this is as emotional that it could get. And so not everybody agreed to it. Not everybody wanted it. But everybody knew that you couldn't ignore it anymore.
Munir Haque: [00:00:47] 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. We'll hear the good, the bad and the ugly, but with a keen focus on where the gaps are, discover emerging best practices and real world tools to better evaluate, guide and grow you and your boards. Today's guest is Cadmus Delorme. He's a former chief of the Cowessess First Nations in southern Saskatchewan. He is a graduate from the First Nations University and has a master's of Public Administration from the Johnson Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy. He has received his ICD.D Designation from the Institute of Directors, and under his leadership, Cowessess First Nations prioritized economic self-sustainability and progressed renewable energy, agriculture and land use efficiency initiatives to create current and future business opportunities. Cadmus is a chair of the Residential Schools Document Advisory Committee, and also the chair of the University of Regina Board of Governors. Through his work as a volunteer and committed athlete, Cadmus has a number of achievements which include. He was a member of the Saskatchewan golf team for 2009 to 2012. He is a mid-amateur, Saskatchewan golf champion for 2011. He has the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal recipient for 2012, as well as he received the CBC Saskatchewan's Future 40, which recognizes builders and changemakers under the age of 40.
Munir Haque: [00:02:24] Welcome, Cadmus. Thanks for joining us today on the Boardroom 180 Podcast. I don't know if you remember this, but we met a number of years back. I think it was at the mayoral debates in Regina, and I think you were sitting as a guest at the chamber table, the Regina Chamber of Commerce. So you're sitting a guest, I was sitting beside you there. So I was a kind of a first exposure to you. I think that was just recently, after you became chief. And so it was kind of nice to see you kind of at the beginning of that trajectory and kind of your launch into becoming a fairly common name in kind of political circles in Saskatchewan. So I recently kind of, in preparation for this, I listened to one of your Ted talks and, you know, you talk a little bit about your name and the challenge, not challenges, but, you know, you had to have a bit of a sense of humor growing up with a name like Cadmus.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:03:31] Thank you. My dad got my name out of an old Western book. I love it today. There was a bad cowboy named Cadmus Steele. So that's my name today. Cadmus Dale Delorme.
Munir Haque: [00:03:42] Dale. Okay. Middle name Dale. Okay. You know, our kind of pre-interview, you said that kind of God gave you the gift of gab. And I'm going to maybe put that to the test today. So I'm going to let you do most of the talking, but we'll try to keep it, you know, light and interesting. But I am going to kind of start with some stuff that's a little bit darker. It's one of the reasons where, you know, when I thought about doing this, your name was one of the first names that came onto the list just about in 2021. You were chief of the Cowessess First Nations, when kind of were launched into international headlines with the discovery of 751 unmarked graves at the residential schools in Saskatchewan. I don't know if you want to walk us a little bit through that, and it's been a little while. Just kind of give a little bit of a reminder to some of our listeners.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:04:30] In our country today, in 2024, we all inherited a history together as Canadians and Indigenous people. There was once a Canadian policy in this country that tried to remove the indigenous worldview out of anybody's mind. That thought that and through that, there was once 140 funded residential schools at different times across our country, the last one closing in 1996. I was chief of Cowessess First Nation and still am a proud Cowessess member today. We had a residential school from 1898 to 1996 when I was chief. We always knew there was unmarked graves. We just respected that area, but no one talked about it. And in 2021, we brought a GPR system, a ground radar penetrating system, and we validated there was unmarked graves there. And so in June of 2021, I explained it to the Cowessess members. Then I explained it to the public. And when I explained it to the public it was an overwhelming amount of information for the public to hear. And it created a conversation way beyond what I would have ever thought. And I just did my duty to make sure that the truth prevails. And communication was consistent throughout the entire time.
Munir Haque: [00:05:57] When you did do it, was it because there was a technology to do it, or was that one of your, you know, when you came in as the chief, was that part of your vision or the goals that you wanted to get through?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:06:11] It was a part of it. The bigger goal, the bigger vision was to help cultural rejuvenation for Cowessess First Nation. And cultural rejuvenation means that we have to address our own identity. We have to address our past, our current, in order to know where we're going. And so a lot of it has to do with our healing. What triggers us as indigenous people internally from indigenous to indigenous. And then also addressing the impact of residential schools and other 60 scoop and so forth. And so with that came the area of where the headstones were removed, the unmarked graves. And so we started it even before the pandemic, we started a committee. We started to talk about it. But then during the pandemic, everybody just paused what they were doing because this world was trying to figure out where we were at. And then when we redid it in 2021, we restarted it. Kamloops came forward. Kamloops and Chief Cashmere. At the beginning of June, we were already doing ours and, you know, we were starting to get bigger numbers, more numbers. And when our numbers hit, that's when we were like, well, we should share as well where we're at. And then that's when we did what we had to do.
Munir Haque: [00:07:32] It's interesting the way you kind of set it up that you looked at it, you found out the information first. You took it to your membership, to your own community and brief them on them before going outside of the community and kind of raising the flags there. So, you know, this podcast is about governance. And so I'm curious to see how, like governance in a time of crisis. I'm not sure if this is a crisis, but this was a major news effect that, as you said, had a big effect across the country and actually across the globe actually. At your council level, how did that affect the way that you were running things or, you know, did you have to set up new committees? Did you have to? How did that work?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:08:18] Yeah, this is very unique in regards to governance, because, you know, in a First Nations setting, in Cowessess First Nation governance setting there's one elected chief and eight elected councilors. And we're all Cowessess members. Some of us are different generations, you know, some are baby boomers, generation X, generation Y millennials. And so, residential schools impacted each of us differently. And so when you talk about unmarked graves around a board level, around a council level, it triggered people differently. It was very emotional. It was something that you could talk policy, you could talk strategy, but the personal stories would come out as well. And so, you know, just referencing it to, you know, challenges around a board table, this is as emotional that it could get. And so not everybody agreed to it. Not everybody wanted it. But everybody knew that you couldn't ignore it anymore. And so to focus on the end goal got us through it. And I would always say the end goal is to put names to these unmarked graves. That's our end goal. How are we going to get there? Well, we need to identify where these unmarked graves are. We need to identify a research team to go out and do the research for these teams. You know, what was challenging is how much external that we couldn't control. On continuous pressure to wanting to know more. The media that showed up, the guests that showed up. And we're not opposed to any of that, but it really threw us for a loop trying to focus on our end goal. When external factors and internal factors were both pressuring us. And, you know, we just had to pivot to always make sure we tried to focus on our end goal.
Munir Haque: [00:10:18] So kind of managing that the council like were there any tools or strategies you use? Like as you said, like they all everyone was very emotional time, you know, did you have to at some point start laying out some guidelines on how you're going to go through decision making process?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:10:38] Just so the audience knows like we're a political board. So like we were elected through popularity vote. So you know, not everybody were you know put their based on, you know, a certain merit or a certain, you know, specialty. You were politically elected to be there. So, you know, just to understand how the board dynamics works. And so during the time of truth, I would call it the moment of truth. You know, there's a boxer by the name of Mike Tyson who once said, everybody has a plan till you get punched in the face. And this is a moment where we got punched in the face and whatever plan we had just got shelved. Like it was just like, let's just see where we're at, you know, trying to stay engaged with our main shareholders. Who are the Cowessess citizens. Another shareholder was the residential school survivors who attended that were listening. And then the other audience was Canadians and international. And so, you know, the dynamics that I would go through working with Council is I would ask, what is our duty of care in this moment? I kept asking each of them, what is our duty of care? Who is our audience, you know? And then from there, I would get a consensus to where people were at, to where each decision maker was at, and they never all agreed, but they would always hear me be repetitive with all of them.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:12:08] And, you know, normally in moments like that, the tone at the top means a lot, you know, and I'm not saying that in our hierarchy that I'm above them. But as the chief or the chair of our board, as our council, the tone came from me and I constantly just kept saying, what is our duty of care in this moment? Who is our audience? What is our end goal? And so focusing on those three things to keep it simple, I believe, allowed all of us to just keep our eyes looking forward. And there was a disagreement all the way through. And so we just kept it. I tried to keep it simple as a board chair, as a chief.
Munir Haque: [00:12:47] Thanks for actually taking us back and telling us a little bit more about the structure of how kind of a First Nations Council is brought together. Now, that that's kind of my miss. I probably should have started out with that. But thanks for kind of reminding us all or informing us all of, of how they're put together. Coming out of this, you know, kind of that discovery. I think I saw that last year you were appointed as a chairperson to the new Residential School Documents Advisory Committee. Is that a federal appointed committee by Ottawa?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:13:18] It's 100% federal appointed committee internally to government. This isn't a commission. This isn't a inquiry. The Government of Canada holds 21 million documents related to the 140 once funded residential schools. Some of it is in Treasury, some of it is in Indigenous Services Canada. Some of it is in lands and there's many different departments, RCMP post office, you know, the agencies and departments. And so this is how it came upon to do this and why my name is there is when I was chief, we were doing research. We would go to the Roman Catholic archives because our residential school was run by Roman Catholic Church. So we would go there and, you know, find as much records as we could. We would go to other researchers. Then we start to go to the federal government. And we realized that the federal government had three laws. One of them was the Privacy Act. The second one was privilege and of client information, privileged client information. And the third one was the sharing of how you share documents internally and externally. And we couldn't get access to our own documents that related to the Maryville Residential School. At that time I told Minister Miller, who was Minister of Indigenous Crown Relations at the time, I'm like, how do we heal as indigenous people when we can't even get access to our own documents that your government is holding? This committee was created internally. It's a each department has a committee member. There's survivors, residential school living witnesses. And Minister Miller asked if I would chair it. And so I said, well, I'm not a government official. I don't want a government email, but I will chair this to make sure that every indigenous researcher or doing research on behalf of an indigenous community can have access to this information. And so we've been going active since February of 2023. We are still going active, and our goal by 2027 is to transition all these documents outside of government.
Munir Haque: [00:15:32] And I mean, it there a thought given to where outside of government it lands?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:15:38] That's right. There is. It's called the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation. It's on the University of Manitoba grounds in treaty one territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Munir Haque: [00:15:50] Well thanks. Before we kind of move on to hopefully a little bit lighter subjects, is there anything else that you'd want to say about kind of the whole experience dealing with the unmarked graves and then moving forward on that?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:16:01] I really learned in my own personal journey to understand the audience. And what I mean by that is if you ever heard me speak during that time, I would focus on one audience in my message. It was residential school living witnesses. If they were sitting in their home all alone, and they heard me speaking about this, I knew they were triggered because many will not talk about it, not for the fact that they don't want to. It's for the fact that as Canadians, we never showed much interest in the truth of what happened before. Now we do, which is amazing. And I thank everybody who's on this journey now together. But I would always speak to that residential school living witness sitting in their house alone, listening or hearing me, and I would give them hope. I would talk about their grandkids and Canadian grandkids walking this land as if indigenous history and Canadian history were always here to coexist together. And you know, it takes tone at the top to drive hope in the time of unknown. And I learned a lot during that time that I learned from elders and senior citizens of indigenous. And today I bring that same tone into other things I do now. And, you know, it's not an easy goal, but we just got to understand, in this country, there was once 140 funded residential schools. We've only identified 16 so far. So we're on this journey for a while. So when the next one comes forward, as Canadians and Indigenous people, let's pause, reflect and realize how important reconciliation is, what we can control today.
Munir Haque: [00:17:50] Well, thanks for that. Kind of moving on a little bit. One of the other things that really struck me about you and Cowessess First Nations is kind of how forward thinking you are. When you came in, there was a big change of focus on economic self-sustainability looking at the renewable solar, wind and land development. I had to go take a tour of your facility just outside of Regina with the solar and the wind research and you know, it's an impressive installation. And so how did that come about? Like, from once again, like you were dealing with eight other elected members, kind of moving them all in that direction. Was that something that started before you, or is it something that you brought along or.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:18:40] It started before me. And there's also batteries there, too. I just want to make sure it's solar, wind and battery. And so in 2012, the then chief and council and one of those council members was my late father were introduced to a potential turbine and battery storage. And I recall as a young university student at the time, my dad talking about this, and I seen it, but to talk renewable energy to an audience of Cowessess members who we normally never heard this, it was really tough to try and convince because, you know, as much as you're bored, your council make decisions. They're the tone. They're the tone setters. They consult, indigenous consult continuously with our community members. And so at that time it was created a purchase power agreement. When I was elected in 2016 as the chief, we had three pillars that we focused on. Economic self-sustainability, which this one fell under. The other two were political sovereignty and cultural rejuvenation. And I campaigned on that. I said anything that I will help us do with council on behalf of Cowessess will have those three pillars.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:19:55] And so we assessed our purchase power agreement and we weren't even being efficient. We were still 200kW short of our one megawatt purchase power agreement. So we added solar panels on to the current turbine and batteries to just hit our peak in our one purchase power agreement. Two years later, we created a ten megawatt or 4500 solar panels to do a ten megawatt, and it's valued at $21 million. We came in as 95% equity owner and 100% equity owner after year six. So that one was completed while I was chief. And then we moved on to a 36 turbine, our $370 million turbine site, where we're 18% equity owner. And we finished the financial side of it, the toughest side while I was chief. And when I stopped being chief in April of 2023 construction started. So today, as you and I talk, they just about two thirds of those turbines are up. And that that one will be launched in the next year. But it makes Cowessess one of the strongest renewable energy First Nations across the country.
Munir Haque: [00:21:12] Impressive. So it was a research facility as well. Was that the research? Do you keep all that research kind of internal, or did you work together with universities?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:21:23] Yes, we worked externally with Saskatchewan Research Council. We do have a couple relationships with universities. You know, one of the things, you know, we must understand today is that indigenous people, it's not that we lack talent. We have the talent to do anything in this country. We lack the resources to lift us to talented places. And engineers, there's not too much indigenous engineers in this country right now. And for the simple fact that we see social workers, we see business, we see teachers, we see tradespeople at our own kitchen tables right now, but we don't see much engineers. So it's really tough to convince a teenager or a young person to be an engineer when it's not normal yet. And so a lot of our research and renewable energy, now that this is something we own, now we tell our high school kids, now go get an engineering degree and help look after our project. Until then, we need to partner with the Saskatchewan Research Council and so forth. So, you know, that's how we work together today is, you know, the non-Indigenous. We need help as indigenous people from the non-Indigenous, but to help us and make it normal that we can be engineers, we can be doctors, we can be all these things that we're just not there yet because we have the talent to be there.
Munir Haque: [00:22:47] Thanks. Thanks for that. I want to kind of switch over a little bit to talk a little bit more about. I think you sit on the board of governors for the University of Regina. I think you're the chair as well as for the First Nations University. So how is kind of stepping into that role or working on kind of educational governance? How did that differ? Or maybe you just tell me more about that.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:23:13] I'm the current board chair of the University of Regina Board of Governors. The First Nations University of Canada is a college within the University of Regina. They have their own board of governors, but I'm the board chair of the University of Regina board of governors. I just to kind of throw the bigger picture. So I'm also the board chair of Eden Care Communities, Inc., which we look after assets and services to help senior citizens and others who require a little more assistance in Regina and Saskatoon. I sit on SAS Gaming Board. I sit on one more board, I sit on another board somewhere, I can't think at the moment. And so, you know, to be board chair of two, I'm the board chair of Eden Care and the University of Regina Board of Governors. I took my ICD training Institute of Corporate Directors designation training, and I loved it, like it totally transitioned my brain to know the role of a board member or a director and, you know, your stewardship to your purpose, your stewardship to your HR, to your finances, and all the other great stuff that you have to analyze and so forth. I became an appointed board member to the University of Regina when I was still chief of Cowessess First Nation.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:24:29] It's an order in council from the Government of Saskatchewan. My first three years, I just got reappointed to my second three years and the board chair position came up last year. And so I just said, if anybody you know, wants it, I'm going to put my name forward as well. I believe I can be the board chair. And I was appointed the board chair in 2023. And I was just recently reappointed to a second year. And so we run the affairs of the University of Regina. We have the legislation act that we follow from the legislation Government of Saskatchewan. We balanced our books and finances. We set tuition, which is always a tough conversation. We work with the president and it's such a good dynamic. So that's the board part of it. The personal side is that university helped build me. The First Nations University of Canada, the Johnson Shyama School of Public Policy, the University of Regina. I'm a graduate from all three. And so just giving back is just an honour to be on that board.
Munir Haque: [00:25:39] It's a nice thing that you talk about kind of giving back. And I think that's that's key to serving on a lot of boards. One of our last guests was, you know, talking about how encouraged some of, you know, executives to kind of start giving back. They've got a lot of knowledge and experience that can help other organizations. So they kind of, you know, kind of kudos on you for taking on that. Like, you know, I said, like, you're on so many boards right now, you can't even remember all the names. So you said, like the ICD is what kind of shifted your mindset. So did you see a difference on how you've been the chair of, you're the chair of the board of governors, and you were the kind of the chair of Cowessess First Nations. You know, is there a stark difference in the way, you know, things are run at a meeting level or at a, they say once an elected position.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:26:34] Yeah. The chief role being an elected official, you chart your course. Based on what happens in that moment. So your course is constantly like, what's in your council meeting, what's in camera? It's usually you're addressing, you know, the moments that are happening. If I can better describe it, your hands in the cookie jar. And when you chair a non-for-profit university setting board structure, your nose is in the cookie jar but not your hand. And you focus on strategy and, you know, you have a very strong executive that has pretty much everything laid out for you, uploaded into a diligent software format a week before you get to read all your documents. You just have such a good board dynamics. And so it's very everything is kind of pre-done. So you only know 20% of what's going on, which is a normal board members role is you only know 20% of what's going on and you have to make decisions. So you're constantly trying to read everything. When you're a chief or a counselor, like an elected official. You have to know what 80% is what's going on. Because if you don't make a good decision, your popularity goes down. And what's an elected official's main goal is to get reelected. As much as you want to do what is right. Elected officials need to get re-elected. And so there is a difference in duty of care as well in the role you play.
Munir Haque: [00:28:21] So you had mentioned that you've gone through the Institute of Corporate Directors. So ICD program. And I think in our pre-interview you talked about how you went through the program, but now you teach it. That there were some elements that were missing from it. And now you want to talk a little bit about that.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:28:39] I'm a proud ICD designated process country, and I know there's many. They do amazing job out of Rotman's University in the University of Toronto. I took mine in 2018 and 19. And during that time you go through three weekends full of classes since Friday to Sunday, and one of the weekends was an Aboriginal component to it. And I'm not a fan of the term Aboriginal. I just want to be forefront on that. And when I took it, they had a good teacher, like Gary was a great teacher, but then they had this person come in after him and tried to explain it from their perspective as well. And, you know, they were non-Indigenous and I'm not judging, but I could feel the shakiness in their voice. So finally, halfway through, I was chief at the time. I put up my hand and I'm like, can I say a few things? And this teacher is like, please do, please do. And at that moment, everybody in the room just listened to me for like ten minutes. I just explained it and I'm like, I think that's what's missing is, you know, you could teach, you know, the theory.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:29:48] But there's a reality as well. And that's what makes learning so amazing, is you take anything you've learned. It's the cases and the personal stories and the connection that you heard that really resonates in your brain as to why this is relevant to you. And so after I got my designation, I reached out to ICD and I said, hey I believe I can play a role here. I think I could help you with your indigenous component side of things. And so today, a good friend of mine Kelly and I help across this country. And what I love is ICD makes this a part of the every cohort across the country. Before, they only did it in highly indigenous populated areas. But now it's a mandatory part which I just think you set the tone at the board level across this country, that reconciliation is domestically one of the most important relationships to long term growth in this country. We are going to get it right as a country this time.
Munir Haque: [00:30:51] So I just want to talk a little bit about you know, one of the things we try to get across in this podcast, we want listeners to have, you know, takeaways and understand what kind of current trends are where they see the gaps, like where they can look for to get other support. I think as you're aware, kind of from our previous discussion, I'm with a group called Action Edge Executive Development, and we're launching a stream of services that will help support board governance, corporate governance. So in terms of understanding where the gaps are, common gaps, you served on enough boards now to, you know, have a good idea of, you know, what makes for a successful board. But what are some of the also some of the common gaps and issues that you see when boards are kind of going a little bit off the rails?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:31:40] When you, oh, this is the answer to your question. When it's the people that know the purpose of why you sit there. Like, that's very foundational I find in any board or any kind of level of that that I sit with is I'll look around the room and I'm like, does everybody know the end goal? Like, what is our purpose? What is the end goal? And if, you know, sometimes you get some that have been there for seven plus years and for some of these non-for-profits, some of them have been there for quite some time and they're amazing with their corporate knowledge and the history. You know, and so, you know, then some are new, some, you know, are there. They just got put there because they want to partake and help. But everybody has to know the end goal or what your purpose is. And one example is, you know, serving on the University of Regina Board of Governors. When I became the board chair, I asked the board and the executive, can we all just meet for one day just to go over what is our niche market? What makes University of Regina unique and different amongst all universities in this country. So we all went into a room for a whole day, and I believe we all came out rejuvenated. Like everybody just came out like, wow. Like I knew we're a great university.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:33:07] But I didn't realize that was our niche market. And, you know, that's an example of, you know, what makes a board go is you got to know your purpose. And, you know, it's the board chair that is going to set the tone for that and remind people of that. And I've sat with many amazing board chairs, you know, secondly is what is your foundation and framework of the in between the meetings? You know, you can have a solid board, solid directors, if your executives are truly implementing and doing what the in between meetings are, because board members only know 20% of what's going on, we fully trust executive to fulfill these. You get to the next meeting in the next quarter and you know you get your highlights and updates. You know, do you have a measurable, you know, spreadsheet that you are making progress? Are your tires spinning? You know, and it's really important that executive know that role and respect that a director only knows 20% and to try and fill them in to make that decision. You know, I've sat with some executives that are so amazing, like you just feel it in their message. You're like, yeah, I get it. But then there's the odd one. It's like, I don't know if I believe you. I don't know, like, you just seem to be just kind of giving me the runaround here. Like, that really throws off a board member and, you know, and that sometimes when I see that, I, you know, I've been here long enough and I'm only 42, I'm not trying to act like I'm older, but I'll actually get to know that person a little better.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:34:39] I'm like, you know, maybe there's something going on that I don't know without putting my hand in the cookie jar. So remember, put your nose in the cookie jar, but never put your hand in the cookie jar because you will get identified as a board member who is getting too far into operations. And then lastly, it's why do you want to sit there as an individual? What's your drive to be there? You know, if it's you know, I finally sit on one board where I actually get a little remuneration. I never really got one before. And I'm like, wow, that's a cool incentive. Like, I actually feel like I'm on a job here. I got to step up my duty and, you know, and then there's some. I get a coffee maybe if I show up and I put in ten hours of reading and I'll travel to get there. And, you know, you got to know your incentive, you know, is it personal? What is it? Is it just because you like governance? Me, it's because I love governance. Like, I just think board and governance are so unique and needed. And, you know, one day I think I'm gonna get bored. I'm gonna be like, yeah, I did my time. Maybe I'll try something else. But those are the three things is what's your personal drive? Is your executive, you know, fulfilling because that's momentum. And then thirdly is you just have to understand, you know, just the board itself and the purpose of why you're there as a collective.
Munir Haque: [00:35:58] And so I think you said that you with one board, you kind of you all went into a room and you came or was it half a day, a day and then came out kind of rejuvenated or got everybody going in the same direction? Have you kind of experienced situations where that was a little bit more challenging. Where everybody has, you said everybody's got their reasons to be on a board and everybody's reasons are slightly different, but you still need to kind of move them in the same direction. So have you ever come across any times when it wasn't so easy to move everybody to focus on the end goal type thing?
Cadmus Delorme: [00:36:34] Yeah. I experienced a moment where I was on a board and we were running out of gas in the tank. It was a non-for-profit. We had to sell an asset or we had to cut staff because we didn't have enough gas in the tank to make it to the end of that year. And so, you know, the thing is, is the CEO at that time was a glass half full mindset. And, you know, I constantly just, you know, told the CEO at that time, I love your optimism. But in moments of truth, we have to just be understanding that this is how it is and you're going to upset somebody. And, you know, how do we go about this? And we had to let some staff go, you know, that we had to cut down on what our services were. We had to sell an asset as well. And then, you know, one of the things, you know, I said in the meeting was we didn't pivot quick enough. That's why we're in this moment. We didn't pivot in how the government was funding this certain area we were in. And, you know, governments constantly change and how they fund things. And when you're dependent on highly dependent on government funding something, if you don't pivot and know their strategies and know how, you know things are going, you are going to fall behind.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:38:06] And as a board, you're going to be put in a real tough corner to try to dig yourself out of. And so we slowly got out of it. We pivoted a few times. They're still pivoting today. But you know, that's just something you got to understand is in those moments of truth, your CEO has to be very forward thinking, and the CEO is going to upset somebody. And, you know, I think a lot of us are people pleasers, which is not a bad thing. I'm a people pleaser, but if I have to tell you something, I will tell it directly to your face and I'll be as direct as I can. And you know, I'll wait for your response and I'll respond as best I can. We may disagree, but at least I hope I get the respect for telling you directly rather than hearing it through something else, someone else. And so those are the tough things of being on boards is, you know, in those moments of truth, you just need to be direct, less words. Know it's emotional, but just make sure that you know, the right people are saying the right things at the right time.
Munir Haque: [00:39:11] You mentioned earlier that you're still pretty young, 42 years old, that you, you know, you're kind of governance career is, you know, kind of, you know, maybe mid-stride right now. I think I read that you started probably fairly early, like in kind of student and during your student life kind of getting involved in student organizations and governance there. Over your time, have you seen any, like, changing trends, things that have you know, when you started out, they were pretty commonplace, but now have become gone the way of the dodo bird or something like that.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:39:45] Yeah, I have. I was raised by baby boomer parents, and I'm going to start here. I am not saying baby boomer parents are different, but I was raised by a dad who would tell me, you're getting in my way, get off my way kind of attitude. You know, I could have did this half an hour quicker without you here. And like, you're sitting there like, trying to help. And so I learned really quickly to just take criticism without taking it so personal. And I'm not saying that's how all baby boomers are, but that's how my parents were. And then, you know, so that very stern industrial just get it done attitude. Come show me the results. You know, I was raised in a very encouraging home as well. And so I learned that as a young kid from baby boomers and baby boomers are always my favorite because my dad's no longer here. But when someone says that, in a good way, of course I don't want someone ignorant just to say it. I laugh because I'm like, I get it, okay, I'll just I know what you're saying. And then, you know, I feel that we shifted a few times. We shifted from your military style leader to like, get it done, march forward to then we move to a leadership of numbers.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:41:03] Like we went to, you know, what's the numbers? Everything is numbers. I feel today now we're starting to move into a leadership of leading with heart. Before something more, you know, just understanding, you know, the LGBTQ2, the, you know, inequality of females to males, indigenous to non-indigenous to, you know, and and so, you know, we're starting to see that transition now today it's more coming from the heart. And so it's interesting to see where our next is. And I just want to be real. Our politics don't show that in this world right now. Like our politics is pretty cutthroat. And there's a lot of polarization. So there's a difference between corporate and political. And it's not just in the non-Indigenous, it's actually happening in the indigenous side as well. So politics is a real tough go right now. But I find, you know, in the board dynamics, I find that is shifting as well. In just how you go from military to numbers to now you're starting to make decisions based on, you know, understanding of what we inherited. And coming more from an emotional side. So I do see a shift.
Munir Haque: [00:42:21] No, that's actually very good insight. You know, I think now that you've mentioned it I've kind of seen that trajectory as in boards that I've been involved with and organizations that I've been involved with. At one point, maybe about five, seven years ago, there was this hard reliance on data. And that's how you drove your decisions. But yes. Now when you talk about leading with the heart or it I think the challenge there is that kind of understanding what your success factors are. It makes it a little bit more challenging with data. It's always, you can always set something right. But so great for that. Thanks for that insight. One of the questions I had like when I was going through your bio, I see that you are a competitive golfer. And just wondering how something like that, like being a competitive golfer, which is, you know, essentially an individual sport. Did that affect your abilities or did it contribute at all to working on your board or governance? Because those are often kind of more of a team sport.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:43:27] I love sports, I'm a very competitive person. No matter what you do, if you do it, I'm thinking I could do it just as good as you. I just happen to excel in golf, so I just want to say that I'm a Happy Gilmore in hockey I love hockey, I'd be a professional hockey player, but I'm no good at it. And I excelled in golf at a young age for the fact that it takes a community to raise a child in my home fire and community really excelled me to be a good golfer. And I always, you know, thank my community for that. It helped me in so many ways. I'm a very proud indigenous person, but I'm also a very proud Canadian. And I represented Team Saskatchewan and the province of Saskatchewan. I represented them 13 times at the nationals in my lifetime, so I represented all of Saskatchewan at national golf tournaments. I won a provincial championship before and I was the only indigenous person sometimes. And so I had to understand that I don't normally see the same identity as me in certain places, and that taught me that I belong in both worlds. I belong in both worlds and both worlds, it's up to me. And the thing about golf, when I say it's up to me, is golf taught me it's between my ears. That's my only enemy in this world is one enemy, and it's my own thoughts between my ears. You know, when you golf, it's a tough game. You know you're going to have a couple good holes and you're going to have a couple bad holes. And then how you talk to yourself and how you try and get your mental game back on track, is foundational to what makes you a champion.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:45:00] And you know the practice and time it takes to practice. And if you don't continue practicing, you're not going to remain good. Just like governance, if you just get lazy and just think you're going to know governance and stop going to training and stop, you know, updating your tools, you're going to become, you know, status quo. And so I'm not saying status quo is a bad thing, but that's what I learned from golf. You always got to be practicing no matter what. And then lastly, it's how you look after your competitors. You know, in golf, you know, I always when I golf with people, I'm going to roast you. I'm gonna wait for my joke back from you. I'm gonna tease you. I hope you tease me back. But if I see you're in trouble. If I see you hit your ball, I'm going to watch where your ball goes. And I'm going to be there with you. And I'm going to go help you find your golf ball, and I'm going to help you, you know, get through the round. And that's just how life is. You know, I don't have competitors. I don't have enemies. If I disagree with somebody. Not gonna stop talking to you. I mean, there's probably something we could talk about, but it doesn't mean that we have to just stop talking. I learned that from golf is, you know, you just learn to help one another, but at the same time, you're the only one that control yourself right to that end goal. And that's what I learned in golf. I'm still a golfer today. I'm not a scratch golfer anymore, but I still take a little bit of lunch money from time and time, which keeps me motivated.
Munir Haque: [00:46:25] Nice, nice. Kind of just to wind up some stuff here, I, a couple things I'll ask you. You can answer however you want to. Just in terms of, you know, if there's any pointers you have for people who are listening, who are kind of on the edge of whether or not to get more involved with governance or to, you know, take on that next step is to be a committee chair or a chair. Any advice you have for them, somebody who's kind of questioning themselves. And then after that, you can maybe move into what you're doing today and how governance plays a part in that.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:47:00] Every one of us have governance in our lives every day. You don't have to be sitting on a board or be a director to be in governance. You are in governance right now. You know, in your own family dynamics. You know, from parents to child's to nephews to nieces, you know, like it's a governance structure. Everybody has a role. Everybody has a duty to play, to make sure your family dynamics continues on, you know, in your own community, your own, if you're just in a subdivision of a city or if you're in your city, you know, you have a, you know, a place to play in governance, even if you're, you know, complain about a pothole or complain about the way your town or city is doing things. If you don't go vote, then why are you complaining? You know, and your own politics of province, federal, First Nation. We all live in this governance structure. That's just how our demographics works and how we live today. But you know, when you sit on a corporate or non-for-profit or get an elected official or something of that nature, you get to be stimulating the governance of where you are. And I mean stimulating as in, maybe I'm not using the right word, but you get to nudge it. You get to help steer it in a direction you feel it needs to go. You know? And just remember, it's not just your hand on that steering wheel. You're not the one steering it. But if you can help chart the course, you'd be amazed that where we can get together in this country when you get there and you know, and that's why I, you know, encourage people to try a non-for-profit, to try, you know, enhance your board governance because you have to know your steward.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:48:38] You have to know your stewardship to purpose. Just like life, just like in a board organization, you have to know your stewardship to finances, to HR. And then lastly, how you measure them. If you don't know how to measure them, then how do you know if you're getting stronger? And you get to meet people? It's the company that I love sitting on a lot of these boards. You meet all different kinds of people and, you know, sometimes you're going to realize that you even have a law of association. You'd be like, oh, my kid's playing that division as well. Or oh, my mom, you know, traveled to there a month ago as well. And so it's the it's the journey of the company that I feel that you get a huge incentive back. In regards to your last question, what am I doing today and how does that associate? So after being a chief, I decided not to run a third term. I did two terms as an elected First Nation chief. I have little kids, I have a beautiful wife, and I just didn't think being a part time husband and dad was beneficial to my kids and my wife. When you're an elected politician, you dedicate yourself to the people and even your own family become not the most important time that you can spend time with.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:50:03] And I said, I have my whole life to be a politician. So I took a break and one day I do have incentives to maybe get back into politics, maybe non-Indigenous, maybe indigenous. But I started two companies today. I started a indigenous advisory services company called One Hoop and it's OneHoop.ca the website. And I started a second company called Flowing River Capital, and it's private equity. And this is why. When we get the full reconciliation, we're going to have two relationships between indigenous people and Canadians. One of them is going to be quasi jurisdictional, and the other one is going to be economics. And I want to help in the economics right now. I feel when a child wakes up and watches their parents get ready for work, you can change so much in the home fire in one generation. And right now across this country, indigenous are not at that top equity ownership table right now, but we're going to get there. So these two companies are going to help us get there. And so I founded it with other partners. And it's a journey we're on. We're fundraising, our first fundraiser for private equity. It's a beautiful journey. And then we're doing advisory services, meaning that any corporation government, our first nation, if you have legal advisory services, which you should, you should also be having indigenous advisory services, because indigenous people are rights holders in this country. And that's how we're going to get it right this time. So we give advisory services where needed.
Munir Haque: [00:51:35] Well, thanks for all that. As we'll keep the, I think you said OneHoop.ca we'll keep that in our show notes. So if anybody's interested, they can find that there. So I'd like to thank you again, Cadmus, for joining us here today. Think our listeners will learn a lot from you. I think it was much deeper than I thought it would be, but it's always good. So. And it's been nice seeing you again.
Cadmus Delorme: [00:52:01] Thank you, everybody for listening.
Munir Haque: [00:52:02] Thanks everyone for listening to The Boardroom 180 Podcast. You can learn more about me and Action Edge Executive Development on our website at aeenow.com. That's 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 AEX forums in the show notes. We've come full circle to conclude this episode of The Boardroom 180 podcast. Goodbye and good governance.