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Board Governance Best Practices and Stories/Experiences Shared
Shane Wenzel: [00:00:01] When you hire the executives or even the operators of specific divisions, their values have to align. I will always hire that first and foremost over a skill set. I'll openly say, we're trying to create something here more than just production factory, where we're turning out houses day in day out and developing land day in day out. You're trying to create something special. That all starts from the top, and if you don't have the people who are operating the company working within those same kind of boundaries, those values and creating that culture, then you're going to fail. You're just going to end up with the McDonald's version of housing.
Munir Haque: [00:00:41] 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.
Munir Haque: [00:01:12] Today's guest is Shane Wenzel. Shane is the president and CEO of Shane Homes Group of Companies, and he's also its namesake. They are a leading builder in the Calgary region for over 45 years, and their mission is to create thriving communities with innovative design and customer centric services. His leadership focuses on building high quality, sustainable homes while advocating for industry friendly policies and economic growth. Shane oversees strategic direction, policy advice through BILD Calgary, which is Building Industry and Land Development, and economic engagement with the Alberta Enterprise Group, making him an industry leader in his field. Growing up with entrepreneurial parents, Cal and Edith, early on as a laborer within the company, then marketing assistant, moved up to director of marketing and then up through the ranks to president and CEO. He developed a strong foundation in sales and marketing, further enhanced by his involvement in a business advisory group. He is a self-proclaimed tech junkie, embracing technology and integrating smart systems and eco friendly practices. Under his leadership, they aim to grow and innovate, continually pushing boundaries into their new products and services. His commitment to excellence extends to his philanthropy and giving back to the community. Balancing professional responsibility with personal passion, he strives to lead with integrity and inclusivity, shaping a brighter future one home at a time. He's a proud member of the LGBTQ community and a social media influencer on various platforms. Hello Shane, and welcome to The Boardroom 180 Podcast. Thanks for making the time to get on our show.
Shane Wenzel: [00:02:45] Munir, thank you for having me.
Munir Haque: [00:02:46] I've been looking forward to this conversation. As you may or may not know, I cut my teeth in the land and real estate development industry in Calgary in the early 2000s, and the Wenzel name definitely was well known. We built homes in many of the same communities that I was heavily involved in, although I don't think we ever crossed paths. When we did launch this podcast, you were one of the people who reached out to me, responded with some positive messaging and feedback, and is very much appreciated on my part. So welcome.
Shane Wenzel: [00:03:16] Well thank you again for having me.
Munir Haque: [00:03:18] Before we get into it, is there anything else that I missed in your introduction that you want to tell people about?
Shane Wenzel: [00:03:23] No, I think that was pretty thorough. There's a lot to cover there. I've had enough time to at least cover all the bases, or at least as many as I possibly could.
Munir Haque: [00:03:34] For listeners who may not be that familiar with Shane Homes and the Group of Companies, do you want to give us a bit of a breakdown of what it is, and the groups?
Shane Wenzel: [00:03:43] The history of it is that my father and his business partner at the time, Barry Balsley, started the company after they finished their careers in the mobile home industry in 1979. The intent was is that Barry was always a minority partner and that he wanted to, if he financially could, he wanted to retire at the age of 55. True to his word, 55, Barry retired, and he has never looked back. That was our humble beginnings, and in our first year we only sold six houses, but everybody's got to start from somewhere and that's where we started from, six sales. Coming out of the ashes of the NEP program in the 1980s, you'd seen a lot of Calgary's finest home builders start that exact same way. Fast forward to today, 45 years later, it's not just Shane Homes now with selling and building single family homes, but rather the group has expanded to include not only just single family development, but multi-family development, land development and an investments division. So it's a uniquely diverse company and I get to oversee all of it now.
Munir Haque: [00:04:56] Talked a little bit about the growth of the company, can you say how many employees did you have to start with and where are you sitting now? I'm assuming it fluctuates a bit.
Shane Wenzel: [00:05:07] You go back in time, I think we had a part time accountant and that was it. As we progressed over time, even if we go back to where we were a mere six years ago, we had about 98 people on staff, to today where we have 147 with the growth not only in Calgary but within the Group of Companies as well. So it's jumped substantially and in a short period of time.
Munir Haque: [00:05:34] So you started out in the Calgary area, you've expanded slightly further out. What communities are you in?
Shane Wenzel: [00:05:42] For the time being, we were down at Okotoks, we were in Lake Chestermere, but that's been few and far between, but we will be back there starting in the new year, surrounding in Airdrie as well.
Munir Haque: [00:05:56] You've got three, I'm not sure if you want to refer to them as, divisions or entities. Shane Homes, Shane Multifamily, Shane Communities and Shane Investments, they're all operated separately? How do you keep a division between them?
Shane Wenzel: [00:06:13] We integrate some of our staff, I think that's how we've managed to do it fairly well. We try and utilize resources cross-functionally and that, I think, is the key to our success. It allows for some consistency as well, when you look at running separate divisions, you don't want people running under a different culture or a different banner. So we've tried to keep it functioning that way.
Munir Haque: [00:06:37] I think I saw something on, I'm not sure if it was LinkedIn or Instagram about a bit of your marketing background, talking about branding. The Shane Home carries that strong brand and so that's what you've used to move forward into these other ventures as well?
Shane Wenzel: [00:06:53] Yes, I think that's been a strength of the company over the last 45 years, is our strong ability as marketers to brand the company, but truly brand the company. I'm not certain everybody understands exactly what that means. That ties back into your culture, it ties back into your processes, it ties back to even your profitability and what you give back to the community. That's all a part of your brand.
Munir Haque: [00:07:22] Do you have to separate that at all between the companies in terms of, does one company give back to the community and the other one holds it a little bit closer, or do you operate it as one?
Shane Wenzel: [00:07:35] Like I said, we operate it as one entity and one culture. Again, that has really, I think, contributed to the success that you've seen over the years. To me, it's just the best way you can possibly manage it. Now, if we were selling cars or something separately that way, we would probably end up having to rebrand a different division, but I think when everything is so closely tied to housing, it's much easier as one entity just to operate correctly.
Munir Haque: [00:08:11] We talk a lot about the culture, a lot of that starts out with the corporate vision and mission. We talked a little bit about, in the introduction, about what your current mission is. Does that hold true to what the original vision was that, let's say, that Cal had when he started out the company?
Shane Wenzel: [00:08:28] No, it's actually evolved over the years as with anything with a growing business. Just over time with the differences in the people and the way they view the company. They really drive the culture, that's why your vision and your mission begin to change over time. I think the best word to use is evolve, you evolve as a company, you evolve as a corporate culture, but you evolve based on the people within the company and how they see it as well.
Munir Haque: [00:08:58] Do you see a bit of a natural progression though, or was there one point where there was a, not a 180, but there were other influences that changed your vision drastically?
Shane Wenzel: [00:09:08] Sure it does. Like I said, it just happens over time. As my father has slowly moved out of the day to day operations of the business, and I've taken over it, it changes that way. You have a group of leaders here that help drive that as well, and that's really where it starts from, with the evolution. Let's face it, we're not building the same homes now that we were 45 years ago. It's a completely different marketplace, there's different needs, there's different wants that people have and a different planning going forward. So you have to evolve with the times.
Munir Haque: [00:09:44] You're in a unique situation of being the second generation leader. Did you take over from Cal?
Shane Wenzel: [00:09:53] I did, but that took some time, that happened roughly 15 years ago. He had to be confident that I was capable of it, so we went through a plethora of testing, not only myself, but other members of the executive team. He wanted to maintain it as more of a family owned, family driven business. That's been his one philosophy that he stuck to hard over all these years. It's a family company and that's the way it shall remain.
Munir Haque: [00:10:22] Have there been any struggles with maintaining that vision or culture? Given changes in technology, innovation or even the market, have you ever come across any times where that was a bit of a struggle?
Shane Wenzel: [00:10:35] Lots. Anybody in a family based business, if they're telling you that they haven't had struggles in a family based business, they're, quite honestly, lying. One story really sticks out in my mind, if I go back even to 1996 when we first came up with our first incarnation of our website. Back then, things were a little more challenging. You couldn't just make modifications or make additions to a website internally, you had to send that out to a programmer at the time to insert different models, different floor plans. That was costing us about $30,000 a year back in the late 90s, which is a tremendous amount now. Every year for about eight years, Cal was on my case about that. Kept asking the question, why are we doing this? Why are we maintaining this stupid website? It probably took me that long before he saw the benefits of it and what it could actually do for the consumer by allowing them access to all your information 24/7. That little story is one that always sticks in my mind and, quite honestly, he pulled the same thing on me when it came to having a full time social media person. He couldn't understand the rationale as to why we did this, or why we had this one person focused in on this specifically. So those are little challenges that you run into and you do get past them, but it's not without a little bit of strife, and a little bit of encouragement along the way.
Munir Haque: [00:12:12] I think, and maybe I'm wrong, but there's a slightly different dynamic in a family run business, especially one that's multi-generational comes to process or structure in making decisions. Would you agree with that, or do you have structures in place to help make those decisions at the time?
Shane Wenzel: [00:12:31] There's more structure to it now, more or less because of the size of the Group of Companies now. Cal will always joke with me that his management style was that of a passive dictator, and mine is probably more collaborative than anything. Again, it's largely because of the size of the Group of Companies that it's evolved in that way. Of course, Cal and Barry starting from the ground up, they were the all and everything. Cal was more towards the sales and marketing side of the business, Barry's expertise was more to the field operations and construction. It was split up that way, but as you grow naturally, you have to add people into key positions. Now when we talk about an executive, we have a COO, we have a VP of sales and marketing, a VP of finance, VP of land development, a GM of multifamily, a GM of field operations or operations in general. You do have to be a little more collaborative, you have to be able to understand everybody's side of the business and some of the challenges that they're faced with, and you have to be able to address them that way. It's not a matter of me just running in and saying, we're doing it this way. Even I want to hear different perspectives, and I want them to be able to make decisions. I expect them to be the future leaders of this company, because I know I won't be around forever.
Munir Haque: [00:14:02] Do you have other family members currently involved?
Shane Wenzel: [00:14:05] My brother-in-law is the COO of the company, and my sister holds an executive VP role in the company, but she's semi-retired at this point. My father still comes in at his age, he still wants to know what's going on and he still wants to have certain approvals, and that's the dynamic that we work with within the Group of Companies. With any luck, my son will be involved, but will he be one of the operators? Will he be the president and CEO of the company? That is yet to be determined.
Munir Haque: [00:14:37] In terms of balancing the family dynamic, is there things you need to do in order to manage expectations or, as a CEO, do you have the last say?
Shane Wenzel: [00:14:49] As CEO, I do have the final say in a lot of things, although Cal will step in on occasion because he would obviously like to see things done a certain way that he's more comfortable with, and that's fine, usually we can agree on that. Like I mentioned before, being collaborative with your executive team because you are trying to develop your leaders for the future. You have to allow them that empowerment to make key decisions for the best interest of the company. I think that's been one of our strengths as well, is that we do have some very capable people who are making very good decisions and helping with the growth of the group.
Munir Haque: [00:15:31] I think some of our audience who's listening that are already involved or have a family business, I think they would like to hear about some of the struggles and how you've overcome them, specific to having a family business. You talked a little bit about the website, but is there any words, tidbits of wisdom that you've come against dealing specifically with family, and how you worked your way through it?
Shane Wenzel: [00:15:56] I think it comes down to the fact that, you have to understand it's a business first and foremost. As much as all of us love it for the fact that it is a family business, if we're not the most capable people to go into a role, then I think that's as far as you can go. Operating with a family code of conduct loosely is the way that we manage to get through some of the challenges that we've had as a family. Just because you have 'family' beside your name, doesn't mean that you get to treat people poorly. It doesn't mean that you get to overrule them. Simply put, you're one of the many people in the company, and if your role is such and it starts here and it stops there, that's about as far as the decision making goes. We're all close enough that if we view that there's something not right, then we can call that individual out.
Munir Haque: [00:16:59] You mentioned that you have a number of internal executive positions, and presumably they all report to you, or do they form an executive group that helps in decision making? And if so, is there a process to how those meetings go? Do you keep solid minutes on them, action items, decision matrixes?
Shane Wenzel: [00:17:22] Again, that comes back to the structure that we have. Certain ones will report to me and certain ones will report to the COO, my brother in law, of the company. We meet every couple of weeks as an executive just to review where we're at, where we're going and how we're going to get there. We're just trying to stay focused on some of the higher level issues. One other way we'll do that is, we'll get together biannually for strategic planning sessions. We'll have one in the spring and we'll have one in the fall just to reconfirm where we're going and if we have to make any adjustments to it. We're very structured in that sense that, yes, we like to have strong action items that we review and regularly. Who's taking ownership of that action? I think that's the best way, and that way we can follow up with each other every couple of weeks.
Munir Haque: [00:18:16] When you do these biannual 'strat sessions', do you bring in outside resources or do you manage it with internal?
Shane Wenzel: [00:18:23] We bring in a facilitator, and we do take a tremendous amount of time planning that out. We'll have one here later in October, we've already been planning it out for the last couple of months as to what we're going to talk about, what are we going to focus on. We always start with what we'll call 'the seven pillars'. That tends to lead back to separate divisions of the company and which ones were going to focus more on over the next year. There'll be a few visionary ones, like getting into purpose built rentals as an example. That's not on the radar right this second, but we will certainly have more of a conversation about it in the fall as we begin to plan out what resources are required to tackle that and effectively. If we go back a couple of years, we took a long, hard look at our expansion into the United States. What started off as Nashville originally, actually turned into opening up a division in Dallas. So that'll be live, that'll be active with a full show home here starting in May, June of 2025.
Munir Haque: [00:19:38] Is that branded under Shane Homes?
Shane Wenzel: [00:19:40] That's still branded under Shane Homes, yes. It's just Shane Homes USA now. We'll likely see a bit of a cultural shift there as we deal with, what is life like operating a housing division out of Texas? Largely because we have a strong partnership with the Qualico Group of companies here in Calgary. We've had, or at least Cal has had, a long term relationship with the ownership back in Winnipeg. As it stands here in Calgary, we're invested in about seven different subdivisions in and around the Calgary area with the Qualico Group of companies. We just asked the question, you're open up in Dallas, is that something you would like to have a valued partner involved with? They agreed immediately. So we went down, we visited, we talked to their operators down there and they welcomed us with open arms.
Munir Haque: [00:20:38] That's great, that's the value of these strategic relationships. Not that it was a strategic one, it turns out it's a long term relationship with Qualico. It has its advantages, obviously. One of the things that you said that piqued my interest, and maybe listeners as well, you mentioned seven pillars. Is that something you can go into in a little bit more depth or is that proprietary?
Shane Wenzel: [00:21:00] I can go into a certain amount of depth on it. It was just to allow us to focus at our strategic planning sessions. I think largely, because when we had more people involved with it, we ended up talking about more operational efficiencies. Which is not to say that we don't, but we don't need to be in a strategic setting where we're talking about day to day items. We wanted to speak more about where we're going to in the future and how we tackle the growth of the companies. We developed the seven pillars, which included all the divisions, the expansion to Dallas, the purpose built rentals, and further defining what investments would be. So we ended up with those seven pillars as a driver for where the company is going to over the next 3, 4 or 5 years.
Munir Haque: [00:21:49] Is that how far you like to plan out, three, four, five years? I've talked to some people who like the long range planning, but the way the world is changing these days, it's hard to plan three years out.
Shane Wenzel: [00:21:59] I grew up learning about ten year back planning. I'm still a big proponent of that in certain aspects of it but, to your point Munir, that is absolutely correct. It is hard to look ten years out now and say, this is where we're going to be, without the last five years of that plan changing dramatically. Yeah. We tend to refine it more back to five years, but if I wanted to look ten years out, I would love to be $1 billion company.
Munir Haque: [00:22:30] Things I want to talk about a little bit, the role of external advisors. I don't know if you've had a chance to listen to some of our previous episodes, but Rachel Mielke, who was in episode two, she put together a group of external advisors. It's a loose, unstructured relationship, but it's a valuable relationship. Do you find most of your advice coming from internal, or other options, or have you thought about going external for advice?
Shane Wenzel: [00:22:56] We don't do a lot of external, but moving forward, I can see that that's probably the only way that we're going to be able to operate the company. I'm the the youngest of all the siblings, I'm not getting any younger, unfortunately. But I can see, moving forward, that we're going to have to operate, we're actually going to have to oversee the company with a family/advisory board. Especially if I want to get to that lofty goal, I think that's the only way that it's achievable. I can see that happening within the next 2 or 3 years, especially with aging parents who still want to be involved and still want to give advice and mentorship. I think that's ultimately the best way to manage it.
Munir Haque: [00:23:38] Next question is around succession planning. Obviously you've been through one succession plan where you took over the reins from your father, and you said you're not too sure whether or not your son's going to end up in the same industry. So what steps are you taking right now or what hurdles are there?
Shane Wenzel: [00:23:57] The hurdles are, when I'm the youngest of all the siblings in the company and I'm already over 50 years old. It's finding those leaders for the future, so we were very selective with the executives that we hired, how they had to fit into the culture, how they could drive the culture of the company, but obviously they had to have some capabilities too. The rest you were able to teach and they were able to pick up by osmosis, but they're respective experts in everything that they do. We're in the process of our succession planning for this second round, and those leaders will play integral roles moving forward. In the case of my son, yes he is involved within the company. He's still going to school though, but I can't place that kind of burden on him right now to say, you're going to be this, you're going to be that. As part of his succession planning, as he wraps up school, he's spending more time in specific areas of the company learning how all the pieces fit together and how they integrate. He's actually finished up an internship with the Qualico group of companies, learning more about how they operate within their land division. That was a very special gift given by some friends over there. That was one of the best learning experiences he had, is working for the competitors. Will he succeed me in the company? That's totally up to him. He might only want to occupy a board role in the future, and I'm quite comfortable even with that.
Munir Haque: [00:25:29] For the executives that you do have within the company, how do you keep them with a vested interest in the company? I know, personal experience, that I was brought in as part of a succession plan to one company where the owner had some assumptions that he didn't have any family members that would come along, but partway through my tenure there, a family member started showing their worth. How do you keep non-family members and guests vested in terms of their potential future growth?
Shane Wenzel: [00:25:58] I think that part of it, is the empowerment that you give them to run their respective departments. I'm not getting involved with the day to day sales and marketing activities within the company anymore, I let go of that years ago when I became president of the company. I like to allow them to operate with a certain amount of autonomy, but make key decisions as well. Even when we get to the strategic planning session, for example, they're developing the agenda. I'm going to make some subtle suggestions, or comment on the full agenda and have final approval of it, but I want them to drive it because these are the people you're going to rely on to run the company in the future. The monetary part is obviously there, but when you give them that kind of autonomy and empower them that way, I think that's what keeps them interested. As they can see a future and they feel like they're making a difference.
Munir Haque: [00:26:56] Some of my other questions are dealing more with hypotheticals in terms of, how do you see the structure evolving as you expand, especially as you're expanding into the states, and presumably you'll go maybe a little further than Texas?
Shane Wenzel: [00:27:10] That's not an impossibility. I still like Nashville, but the raw land pricing was getting out of hand there very rapidly. Again, sky's the limit. If we can prove that we can increase volumes here in Calgary and surrounding area, that's one option. There's obviously expansion to other regions within Texas or even other regions of the United States. You need operators in those divisions, and usually they're native to that state and to that culture. There's a different challenge even in that, and I can see that that will eventually take more of my focus away, even from what's happening in Calgary. That's how you can see it evolving, I don't have the full crystal ball, but certainly now it's hard to be involved and know exactly what's going on with not being involved in the day to day. Fortunately, that's what management meetings are for and those happen on a monthly basis. I think one thing that we do pride ourselves on here is strong communication.
Munir Haque: [00:28:17] How important is it to you, after you retire and if your son doesn't necessarily move into a management position within the company, to maintain those original family values that went into growing the company? How do you think you can maintain those as you get larger and maybe less of a flat organization?
Shane Wenzel: [00:28:39] That's a good question, and that's one I don't know if I totally have the answer for. Again, I go back to the fact that when you hire the executives or even the operators of specific divisions, their values have to align. Core values of the company, I will always hire that first and foremost over a skill set. Largely because you want that maintained. I openly say, we're trying to create something here more than just a production factory where we're turning out houses day in and day out and developing land day in day out. You're trying to create something special in a brand that people love in an endearing way. That all starts from the top, and if you don't have the people who are operating the company working within those same boundaries, those values, and creating that culture, then you're going to fail. You're just going to end up with the McDonald's version of housing. I think there are enough of those out there in the world. They're cold, they're lifeless, they're not built on maintaining a relationship, they're just churning out numbers. They're very transactional rather than relationship driven. I think that's something that's unique to us, and that's what I would look for in an operator. For any end of the company is, you have to be relationship driven, you have to be culturally driven, and you have to follow these values. If you can't, then I've made a mistake. I need to move on.
Munir Haque: [00:30:08] With today in the industry where a lot of things are equal, you being marketing out there, the company culture is a large selling factor and potentially your biggest advantage, that you are able to align with the people that you're serving.
Shane Wenzel: [00:30:26] That's a huge part of it. I want people to show up here every day and I want them to have fun. I don't want them to look at this as, I'm just coming in to put in my eight hours and then I'm gone. That's a big part of your culture right there, the people.
Munir Haque: [00:30:40] Just want to go back to a couple of things from your intro. One of them is that you're a self-proclaimed tech junkie, other than the website in the late 90s. How has that helped you along the way, worked its way into the corporate operations and product that you deliver?
Shane Wenzel: [00:31:01] I think it helps you in the sense that, it helps your company evolve and stay current with the times. Trust me, over my 35 years involved with the company, it's been painfully obvious from some of our competitors who are no longer with us that, they couldn't change with the times and part of that was technology. They didn't want to integrate it, they were the last people to come in with a website, they were the last people to try and integrate anything in the office past the accounting system. You could see it, the writing was on the wall was that they weren't prepared to change. I've been a big proponent of change, and there's some of it that even I don't agree with, but it's been for the better. That's been one of the ways that a company ends up surviving 45 years, is that they integrate virtually every end of it. When customers told us they wanted access to their information 24/7, they got it.
Shane Wenzel: [00:31:57] Lockdowns, if they taught us anything was, we needed to be fully integrated in order to manage a company, even if we had to do it remotely. We took our lumps there, we weren't 100% ready, but we were that close. Now everything is. Quite honestly, god forbid, if a plane were to hit our building here, being this close to the international airport and just off Deerfoot, people could sign on from their computers at home and the company can still operate. Again, to the benefit of the customer, we've even included a virtual sale of a home, so we can and we do. We deal with people from anywhere on the planet. If they want to buy a house, we can do it over zoom calls, and we can put together the deal electronically and have them sign all the documentation from afar. Being a tech junkie, I understand that, and I understood the importance of it, we did years ago and we do today. That's why we have some total online sales, people buying a single family home.
Munir Haque: [00:32:59] It makes me think about, the purchase of your house is, for a lot of people, the largest single financial decision that you're going to make. It makes sense with technology, that access to information has become a lot smoother for them. It can take off a lot of the anxiety, but it can also cost a little bit more too. So, too much information isn't always what you need depending on your personality type.
Shane Wenzel: [00:33:23] But communication has to be strong, and that's the key. From that perspective, I just want to add in, it comes down to your salespeople as well. Even when we're hiring now, we're hiring an entirely different generation of salespeople just to manage even sales like that.
Munir Haque: [00:33:41] In the intro, we talked a little bit about philanthropy and balancing your personal passions with professional responsibilities. I see, I think probably from your LinkedIn profile, that you sit on the board of the Cal Wenzel Family Foundation, you're board member there. Being in Calgary, I've seen you've got the Shane Homes YMCA as well as the University of Calgary Foothills Hospital campus building, Precision Health. It's a question about governance when it comes to philanthropy. Obviously there's money involved in this, how are those decisions made, where to spend your philanthropic dollars?
Shane Wenzel: [00:34:28] Believe it or not, that is a corporate value that was given to us by Cal and Edith, my parents. Simply put, we cannot derive an income from the community without giving back to it. That philosophy doesn't ring true for everybody in our industry, or in a lot of industries, but how do you make an income without giving anything back to it? It has always baffled us, but that's what drove that one value. We operate in that sense, is that a recreation center is a great way to give back to the community because everybody can use it. We tend to focus in on health, wellness and education in our charitable giving plan. As a board member of the Family Foundation, ultimately, Edith is the president so she gets to decide in the end. She's very focused when she receives a proposal on a lot of things is, what is your contribution to the community? What are your administrative costs? How are you going to utilize the funds that we give you? What kind of lives are you going to change as an organization? There's a lot of thought that goes into this, and we do meet quarterly and we go through a lot of proposals, and unfortunately not everybody is a winner, but we just feel that we need to give something back to the community. Because, again, we do derive an income from it, we'd be remiss if we just hoarded it all.
Munir Haque: [00:35:54] Also mentions in all your bios that you're a bit of a social media influencer. Tell me a little bit about what you do on social media.
Shane Wenzel: [00:36:03] That one happened by fluke. I was curious of it when it came into play here, I think, about 15 years ago with Twitter. You saw literal elections being swayed just from having influence that way. I got involved that way, and in some cases I quite enjoyed it and just kept adding to it and during lockdowns, it grew. I was approached by our marketing team to ask, you have a social media presence, can you help support us? I said, sure I can help support you, but I'm going to do it my own way because you manage the Shane Homes Group of Companies and I just manage myself. So out of, I think, pure boredom I ended up doing videos because things were slower, things were quieter at the time. You're locked down, so you're looking for ways just to fill your time now. It grew substantially from there. I never used the title before of 'influencer', but I kept getting branded that way, and only because I started sharing my opinion in the nicest possible way. People appreciated it, they appreciated learning more about the business, they appreciated the passion of politics and learning a little bit more about what makes me tick. A lot of it was based on business and sharing the knowledge that I had accumulated over the years, just sharing it with people. I never thought they would care, but again out of pure boredom, you're doing videos about strategic planning sessions or hiring practices or trying to change building code practices for the better and why we're asking for it. So it just took off from there.
Munir Haque: [00:37:53] So if any of our listeners want to follow you or hear anything more about you, do you have a Twitter handle or a Instagram?
Shane Wenzel: [00:38:01] They can find me on X, they can find me on Instagram, they can find me on LinkedIn, TikTok, now YouTube. It's all under, just simply put, Shane Wenzel.
Munir Haque: [00:38:11] That's usually where I end off is, if somebody wants to find out more about you, where do they look? There's a lot of different platforms to look for you on. Before we leave for today, is there anything that, from a governance perspective coming into this podcast, you wanted to get off your chest in terms of either corporate governance or nonprofit community governance?
Shane Wenzel: [00:38:37] I think in corporate governance, you can never take your eye off the ball. Just because we have an executive doesn't mean that I don't read every note that comes through. I want to know what decision has been made, I want to know exactly what's going on in my company. You spend a lot of time having conversations with people, and that's okay. Hire the right people for your culture, don't always start with, they have the right skill set. Make sure that they fit the culture, because if they don't, you're going to end up with a mishmash and I think that that is the one way that you can hurt your organization as it grows.
Munir Haque: [00:39:14] Definitely, you can teach skills.
Shane Wenzel: [00:39:15] You can easily teach skills.
Munir Haque: [00:39:17] Culture and personality is a little bit more challenging.
Shane Wenzel: [00:39:20] Huge, big part of it.
Munir Haque: [00:39:21] Thank you, Shane, for joining us today and I hope you enjoyed yourself. We'll look forward to get this thing being aired.
Shane Wenzel: [00:39:28] Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.
Munir Haque: [00:39:30] 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.