Mike Gerbis from the Delphi Group shares his experience in the B Corp world and discusses why he thinks it's important for companies to become more ethical and socially responsible.
Mike Gerbis from the Delphi Group shares his experience in the B Corp world and discusses why he thinks it's important for companies to become more ethical and socially responsible.
Mike talks climate change, youth education, mentorship, diversity and inclusion and intentional leadership.
Mike's one policy or procedure he thinks every company, B Corp or not, should have: "Give 1% of growth sale to charity or pass a policy that will prevent anybody making 3 or 5 times more than the lowest paid employee."
To contact Mike, visit her website: The Delphi Group or on LinkedIn
To contact Peter on LinkedIn from KarmaDharma Creative Marketing Agency
To contact Jeremy on LinkedIn from DeepNet IT Consulting
If you want to be featured on the show, or you know someone who should, feel free to contact us podcast@karmadharma.ca
Intro: Welcome to “The Awakened Organization.”
Jeremy: Welcome to “The Awakened Organization.
Peter: I’m Peter Georgariou.
Jeremy: And I am Jeremy Stayton and today we have the honour to meet another awesome business owner who is living in a way that is changing the world and has been for decades.
Peter: Yeah, Mike has been running climate sustainability practice before it was cool, as Jeremy will point out, and helping organizations minimize their footprint and create a more sustainable world. He’s running actually four organizations all linked together, whether it be youth leadership or networking in the climate space or putting on events to bring people together. His whole life has been dedicated to making this planet more sustainable and a better place to live so you wouldn’t want to miss it. If you care about this planet you should stay here.
Mike, welcome to the “Awakened Organization Podcast.” Thank you for being here; really excited to have you. You’ve got a lot that you’ve accomplished in your career and I’m glad to call myself a friend of yours. Jeremy and I are psyched that you’re here and to go through a little bit about what you and your team have done over the past 30 years.
Mike: Yeah, it’s been a long time.
Peter: Give or take a year. Yeah, it’s been a while. You’re like an original gangster of climate change I feel that we’ve got with us you know? You were there before it was cool and trendy.
Mike: Yeah.
Peter: But we’ve got lots to unpack with you over the course of our chat today but maybe for the audience and for us if you could just – you know you don’t have one purpose‑driven organization, you have four. You decided to go bigger, go home, so maybe you could just give us a bit of an overview of the four organizations that you’re a part of and running.
Mike: Yeah, for sure. Well, great being here. Thanks, Jeremy and Peter. It’s awesome to join you. So yeah, I’m Mike Gerbis, I’m the CEO of a group of organizations which we refer to as a constellation often – it drives my marketing people crazy – but they are a group; it’s based on a constellation business model where each organization has a separate mission but we’re all focused along a common vision and that vision is to create a sustainable, prosperous and socially just future, in a generation.
So the four organizations; the largest, the Delphi Group, strategic consulting firm, particularly here in Canada although we’re expanding into the US. We have service lines around corporate sustainability, climate change risk management, clean tech innovation and green and circular economy and we are one of the first. We’ve been doing this since 1988 and I always tell people they know us because they’re in a hotel and hanging up their towels or putting a card on their bed and that’s the first project we did back in 1988.
Peter: Wow.
Mike: So we’ve been doing sustainability well before this big takeoff point. The second group is called the GLOBE Series. That’s our convenient organization and it’s been bringing people together for, again, 30 years, since 1990 in big and small events, all about trying to drive forward the dialogue around the critical issues like climate change and most importantly drive an action. You know to make a difference.
The third organization, the Canadian Business for Social Responsibility; they came under our constellation just a few years ago. They’re not‑for‑for profit and again been around 25 years or so and it stands for Canadian Business for Social Responsibility, which is a membership‑based organization. We have about 60 members, and again it’s all about advancing corporate sustainability, so it’s a peer to peer learning organisation like TEC, so these are executives that are driven to advance sustainability.
And then Leading Change founded in ’93 out of Delphi; made it into a not-for-profit and it’s all about activating youth and providing mentorship and leadership training for those young people, and when I say young sort of in their early careers, 20s and mid‑30s, that are trying to make a positive difference. So they all work together and the idea is that we have more impact and more influence in shifting the economy.
Peter: Every time I hear about that it stresses me out, Mike; that’s a lot going on. I know you’ve got an amazing team but I’m like, holy crap, that is one hell of an ecosystem you’ve built. We do want to talk a bit about those but I’d like to hear from you maybe, when did you know you personally wanted to literally save the planet and change the world? You know there is one that’s doing the work that you’re doing now that we’ll talk about a bit after, but you personally? Was there like a moment or a series of moments where you were like I need to be doing something of meaning with my time here on the planet?
Mike: Yeah, it’s funny you say that. My dad says that I’ve always had a slightly green bent but I always remember the shift occurred when I took a course, a geography course – I was taking chemical engineering at Queens and took a geography course – and the prof got right into the environment and that’s when I got jazzed up and sort of shifted and took a Master's in Environmental Engineering and then started my own business – first business out of school in waste reduction, pollution prevention‑type stuff, so that’s kind of the turning point. Early 20s where I really jumped off and said let’s go do this, or try anyway.
Peter: Was there a big community around that back then because that’s – you know you’re a young man but that’s a couple of years ago before everything was trendy like we see now.
Mike: No, it certainly wasn’t. I mean you know waste – at the time waste reduction, industrial ecology, pollution prevention, these were the concepts back then but it was a small community. In fact, that’s why I founded Leading Change back in 2003; even by then I found that that community was quite small. You know it was just starting to take off in the early 2000s and people didn’t have a network, so they didn’t have a place to go to share successes or cry, you know when you got another climate change paper released.
And so the idea was to start to build the network of young people that could then really you know educate one another, engage one another, and most importantly really empower one another to make more change, you know positive change.
Peter: Yeah, that’s cool. I love how you're creating the network. You know not just yourself but that impact, that ripple effect that you’ve got going on with the other leaders, whether people of our age or the young next generation coming up. Jeremy, you hop in here anytime?
Jeremy: Yeah, so I’m particularly curious about this idea of cultivating an ecosystem of like‑minded organizations and so you know – just you know within my own organization we’ve gone through our vendor list and tried to find you know B-Corp or other purpose‑driven alternative vendors to replace everything we do from banking to finance to whatever it is, legal, etc.
And we’ve done a good job; there is quite a bigger ecosystem now than there was even ten years ago, but I’m curious how this ecosystem has formed for you and whether you see there is more opportunity. I haven’t felt that B‑Lab has particularly been the one to facilitate that process. You know like you’re talking about this kind of peer group and also this advisory mentorship group of bringing folks into the fold. I’m just curious, from your perspective, you know where is the ecosystem now and where do you see it going?
Mike: Yeah, so I mean the ecosystem is certainly – like if you talk about sustainability, that kind of ecosystem and B‑Lab being an incredible part. I mean you think of how much it’s grown and that, it has certainly matured and gotten a lot more sophisticated. I think from my perspective though there is still a need, you know as in anything, that there is a need for leadership and there is a need to be intentional, right?
So we all have busy jobs. We talked about that at the beginning, right; family lives, jobs. And fostering an ecosystem, whether it’s our kind of constellation internally or it’s networking with B‑Labs as you’ve done – or sorry, B-Corps as you’ve done – takes time, right? It takes effort. It takes work. You’ve got to roll up the sleeves. You’ve got to get over the different cultures, the personalities, the visions, you know what you think, where you should go, etc.
But, or and, when you do that it’s so powerful, right? Like that’s the only way we’re going to solve the problems that we’re facing right now, is together. We’re not going to do this on our own you know, whether we’re a small firm like us and 90 people or a massive multinational with 50,000. You’re still not going to solve it along. We’ve got to do this together.
And that’s the one thing that’s got me quite excited, Peter, I can tell you, is that I’m seeing that more and more. People are getting excited and jumping onboard and different perspectives, right? People who haven’t even thought about this stuff in the past are now like, oh, wait a minute. We need to do something and that’s exciting.
Jeremy: Yeah, I’m definitely excited by it and I’m seeing a lot of that momentum as well. I’m wondering if there is room for almost like a better business bureau accreditation or some other like – you know or Chamber of Commerce or something for sustainability‑oriented businesses to really have a place for that ecosystem to sit, that’s broader than just a B‑Lab you know in one of these one‑off orgs that just like holds it all, because I completely agree. The only way that we survive all of this is if all business is used as a force for good, and all organizations are oriented towards a common future that we want to see happen.
Mike: And that’s why it’s important, and now just to build on what you said, Jeremy, is you have to be careful of putting us all into a pot because then we just – it’s our own echo chamber, right? So we get – like our GLOBE Series events bring – you know the big one brings in 2,000 people, registrants and the challenge though is that 80, 90 percent of them were all converted or were all working towards the same goal, so that’s great because it gets you jacked up and you’re pumped and you want to make a change and you’re getting together and making deals.
However, there is this whole other ecosystem that’s still not there and we’ve got to figure out how to get them – you know the other piece of that bell curve in there and talking and learning, OK, why isn’t it moving forward? OK, how do we solve that? What do we do? And I don’t mean the nay‑sayers, the small end of the tail at one end. We’re not going to convince them, but I mean the vast majority in the middle who are just you know working their job, creating widgets, driving finance, doing IT, whatever, but they haven’t – they don’t see the connection.
Peter: What do you think, Mike, is the barrier like speaking of your bell curve there, between the early adopters which sad to say I’d even say your GLOBE Series events you still are the early part of the people who are – there’s a consciousness but there are very few people doing shit about it, right? Let’s be honest, so what is that barrier between that middle of the bell curve, in your mind?
Mike: Wow, this could be a two day workshop you know, right? The system – I’ll just say it this way and see what you guys think – the system is not setup to incent good behaviour, right? Our economic system doesn’t reward and doesn’t define success as helping you know local community and get kids out of poverty, right? It doesn’t help or it doesn’t reward – sorry, it doesn’t reward me for spending a whole bunch of extra money to make sure that toxic waste that I generate is dealt with properly and recycled if possible, right? It doesn’t incent that right now.
So it’s hard for people to bring what they do at home – I always say, you know people, you’re not dumping garbage in your own backyard, right? You’re not – I almost said taking a dump anyway, but you know? Right, you’re not doing – you don’t treat your family – you know I know some – I guess some do but you’re not treating your family and friends with disrespect, right, getting them to do – you know paying them 14 bucks an hour while, you know, you’re making tens of millions of dollars a day, right? It’s backwards, right, and the system is broken in my belief. You know that’s the philosophical, anyway, piece.
Peter: But usually that’s where it starts, right, is that shift in perspective which is the whole [raison d’etre? 00:14:33], the reason for being of the B-Corp is to shift past that profit motive, sole shareholder motive, profit motive idea to get to the multi‑stakeholder lens, which we’re seeing growing but it’s still you know a small percentage I guess of total GDP, quote/unquote.
Mike: It is because how do you – you know you think of even millenials, right? I hear this all the time. They’re purpose‑driven. They want to have purpose. They want to be in organizations that have purpose but if you can’t pay the bills, you can’t even cover the rent or food, right, it’s hard to stick. You know it’s hard to stay in that, right?
Peter: You can’t afford to stay on mission. You’re right; like it’s just if you can’t get a living wage you’ve got to go do something else.
Mike: Right.
Jeremy: This is super‑interesting to me. Sorry, I’ve got like a thought experiment that’s bubbling as you were talking, Mike; it’s very compelling for me. So this idea of like a larger ecosystem, and you were talking about the outside of the – you know the fringe of the circle being where it is exposed to the majority of the bell curve, being that it needs to grow, we need to grow this circle.
And I agree, and I’m wondering as you were speaking about kind of the specific systemic issues, if this ecosystem were organized so that say all folks could lean and push that lever in one direction towards some change could something happen, right? So some organization at a broader level to prioritize some things that might be imperatives for our future, you know is there the ability to actually fix some of that system, right? If you get enough folks enrolled and onboard even if it’s a minority in the greater scheme, is it enough, and this is kind of where I’m wondering like – yeah, so is it enough?
And then also you know if there is an in‑crowd – so if I’m giving discounts, which we do to other purpose‑aligned businesses, great, we’ll work with whomever and we’ll talk to other companies and they’ll find out that we offer discounts and then, “What’s that?” Well, here, this is why we would do it.
And then maybe there is an incentive to help kids on the street or there is an incentive to deal with that toxic waste because now your ecosystem of business partners will give you a discount and incentivize you to do that, right? So maybe there is enough of an ecosystem at some point where the critical mass can actually enable a micro‑economy within the larger economy that supports that positive future.
Mike: Yeah, and I think you’re already seeing that with all kinds of drivers, right? There are so many drivers that are converging which are – the analogy I always use when I’m talking to students is you know change is the only constant in life other than death and birth, and yet we fight it all the way, right?
And the massive changes is like rolling a snowball; at first you’re bending over and it’s hard and then it gets bigger and you’re pushing it up the hill and then, oh my gosh, it’s inertia, right, of changes, pushing. But you get it to the top and then you just give it a little – and off it goes, right? And all change, at least from my perspective in history, has been like that, right? It’s hard, hard, hard, then something happens and then you get the speed down the hill.
And so what you’re talking about is happening all over the place, right? Companies are putting in green procurement policies, so that’s an incentive, right, or they’re mandating it. Government regulations. Young people are demanding that you have a purpose. That you’re dealing with sustainability, right, and so on, right? We could go on for hours.
The finance industry, which to me is the biggest change agent right now in this, is driving the cost of capital up if you’re not – you know if you’re not taking care of climate risk in that, right? So it’s all happening, it’s just can we get it up to the top of that hill to see it – you know to see it really take off and really roll down before the shit hits the fan, you know?
Peter: There is a lot of doom and gloom out there, Mike, and we’ve talked a bit about that over the years. Do you see a glimmer of hope in all of that because you know if you look at the trends and everybody thinks there is going to be some miraculous cure to climate change? We’re going on like these technological changes versus changing our living habits.
I don’t know anybody better placed than you to have a shot or – actually, sorry, everybody says they have an opinion or feels the world needs to hear their opinion – you’re actually one that I care about because you might be educated and work in the space so it’s actually credible – you know what are your thoughts on that? I know it’s a loaded question but you know is there a glimmer of hope for us?
Mike: Yeah, absolutely, because you know I’m a believer and you just think of what humans have done in history, right? Let’s leave the bad out. Let’s talk about the good but you know when they put their ingenuity, when we as a species put our ingenuity behind something and we put our desire to fly like the birds or go to the moon, right, or go to the depths of the ocean we do it, right? We figure it out, right?
And this is what’s happening when the opportunity is there and presented, right? So solar power can out‑compete coal now in the Southern US and probably mid‑US now without even blinking, right? We made that ingenuity. We made that change. So what gives me hope is that desire, right, and the ingenuity of the human spirit, number one. Number two the young people – as always change happens with the young – are coming up and demanding that change, right. And number three, the money is starting to get onboard, right?
So back to that system is broken, but if the money is starting to change where you have banks completely changing their investment portfolio and funds looking to put in climate risk screens and so on, you will start to get back huge change. At the same time though I am still a believer that the change that – when I did that with my finger for the roll to go down – is usually a point in time where there is a bit of a collapse, right?
There is a reset of some kind and I think that will come and that means you know some pain in that, but that’s how change happens, right, to us personally. We have to have pain before we change, right, or it happens as an organization or a country or a democracy, right, and so I think that we are going to go through some pain but we will emerge at the other side because of our – yeah, our ingenuity, our community spirit, our just desire. We’re mostly good people you know? The vast majority of us are good people.
Peter: It would be nice though if we didn’t feel like we needed to actually touch the stove to know it was hot and going to burn us and for shit to absolutely collapse before we fix it, but I guess human nature might be a longer haul in changing.
Mike: Yeah, it’s just who we are I think. As someone told me, you know it’s evolution; it’s Darwin’s theory there. We just – yeah, it’s just who we are.
Jeremy: So Mike you’re – from the sounds of it you’ve got purpose in your DNA, had it there for a while, why did you feel it necessary to go after your B‑Corp accreditation? Like you were already doing it, living it, why was that important to you?
Mike: So it’s really important, just like we tell our clients you’ve got to – you know you’ve got to measure things, right? You’ve got to assess yourself. It’s easy to say – and I often hear people say, “Oh, we’re doing lots. We’re just not telling people about it or communicating.” Well, really? Are you? Let’s figure out some standard or measurement and then you realize, oh, geez, we’re not doing so great in this area, right?
So the B-Corp, number one, made us dive in and dissect what we were doing, right? Number two is the communication piece is important, back to Jeremy’s comment, right? Like you have to get out and put a stake in the ground and say, no, no, this is important. We don’t make all our decisions based on the fiduciary responsibility of our board and to make profit, and why would we? Like I live in a community, why would I only base everything on profit, right?
So sticking that B-Corp – I don’t know about you Jeremy and Peter, if you guys have had the same – but as soon as I did it then I had all kinds of conversations with people. Why would you do that? What do you mean? Why would you – what is a B-Corp, right?
Peter: I hear that all the time. We’re in our application process, Mike, and I just say that and I am astounded by people, “Oh, what is that?” and then they all want to learn more because I think in their heart of hearts they want to get there. I’m with you. People are inherently good and I’m going to keep believing it. Like Einstein said, “The biggest choice we’ll ever make in our lives is whether we see the universe as friendly or hostile.” I’m sticking to friendly like crazy but I think it just opens that dialogue.
Mike: I agree. I agree.
Peter: Yeah. Sorry, I cut you off there. You were going to say a little bit more on that. I mean I’m sure – like it’s allowed you to educate people on that there is another way because you’re living it. Your business – like you know in Jeremy’s case he’s an IT company that’s a B-Corp. You’re a B‑Corp that’s doing directly – not just your CSR policies or how you treat your people, your work in and of itself is sustainable work, right?
Mike: Yeah, it is but it doesn’t mean we’ve got it perfect and we’re nowhere near that, right?
Peter: What? Don’t shatter my bubble, Mike. Don’t mess with me here.
Mike: You need to be tested, right, so you know diversity, inclusion has been a great area to dive into. When you know you look at our ownership we’re four white people and we’ve got one woman and three guys, right? After doing the B-Corp – I’ll tell you a story – after doing the B-Corp we made a conscious decision on several areas but I explain the reason is, unless you’re intentional sometimes you can’t get the change that you seek, right?
Peter: Yeah, well said.
Mike: Right, so the same with our speakers, is we now have targets for – you know has to be 50/50 women, men. Has to have a percentage of young people. Has to be representative of our indigenous population, etc, right? So back to the B-Corp, you can only do that if you stick a target there and measure it, monitor it, right, and you’ve continually got to challenge yourself because it’s hard sometimes, right?
If you put out a job posting and you don’t get any people of colour or women applying what do you do? What do you do, so now you’ve got to look at different ways of actually putting the job description out? You’ve got to change your whole perspective. Well, are we putting it out in the right place? Are we telling the right communities about it, you know? Maybe LinkedIn is not the best just to post a job or whatever it is, you know?
Peter: 100 percent.
Mike: Yeah, so that’s when I found the B-Corp, all that to say is it got us thinking differently about everything, right. Oh, well, wait a minute, are we looking at this right?
Jeremy: I had a similar experience, because the assessment is well‑rounded across dimensions, that I was focused in a few of the dimensions, and just in going through the others I was like, holy crap, there is a lot more we could do here. And so even just the process, and that’s kind of why I like this idea of – you don’t even need to convert folks ahead of time.
Maybe there is enough incentive – hopefully there is enough business incentive to differentiate and to be part of a community that has the companies you want to work with, that you start down that process and you realize that, oh, there is a bunch of things that we could do and should do. These are the right things to do. Even just bringing the awareness, right? That first step of awareness of going through that assessment is invaluable, right? So I definitely am appreciative of their learning model and adaptive model, so it’s not this static thing that becomes outdated.
I am super‑curious though, Mike, about – to backtrack a bit you know you founded these non‑profits or at least Leading Change in the early 2000s, were you bored? Did you not have enough to do with your other – I just can’t fathom about starting another business. Can you just walk me through how you kept adding to this constellation? I’m very curious about this.
Mike: Well, some of it – I mean to be honest some of it was – well, probably most of it was organic. So you know Leading Change, for example, sat within Delphi as part of our CSR program, right, and we would get employees to do the form every year. Then I remember the shareholder meeting we were like, OK, we’ve either got to shit or get off the pot; like we’ve either got to infuse this thing and get it going on its own and do more or you know we continue just to play with it, and so you know, so you start that.
GLOBE came to us – we had a strategic partnership with the GLOBE Foundation which ran the GLOBE Series and the CEO was retiring and he came to us and said, “Hey, do you want to run this” and that’s when all of a sudden we started to put the dots together. Oh, wait a minute, like if we help our companies actually take action then we can give them a platform where they can tell people about it, engage people about it and get others onboard.
Oh, wait a minute, and we have youth that are trying to get into this career so if we’re mentoring them then they’re going to be the clients and they’re going to be the next leaders of the organization. And oh yeah, we’ve got – at the time it was called the Excel Partnership, long story but they merged with CBSR – and they were a group of executives who were trying to advance it, so it’s like a circle and all of a sudden we thought we’ve got a nice flywheel concept. You know like Jim Collin’s flywheel concept –
Jeremy: Yeah, yeah.
Mike: – and we can start to turn this. Then the next phase, which has been harder though because the pandemic hit, it’s OK, where are the gaps that we can start to fill? So we’re more E than S in our sustainability, so we’re talking to a group that is the S part. You know can we fill them and get them to come onboard you know? Can we get indigenous engagement? Can we get them to be onboards?
So we might not be the – like I might not be the CEO but they become part of the community like you talked about, Jeremy, where you’re bringing them in and then all of a sudden you can offer more and more services and perspectives for clients and you can compete, you know, with the big guys who jump in and throw money and a pyramid structure but they’re not authentic, you know? It’s not – and no disrespect to them, in their current success they do just fine, profit and making money but –
Jeremy: I love the idea of showing a pie chart on a dollar bill. This is how a dollar you spend with us – this is how it goes, right, versus our competitor. You choose. And how is that flywheel working, just out of curiosity? So this has now been, what, 20 years in the making, over 20 years in the making but at least 20 years since you’ve assembled some pieces, some adjunct pieces to it. Has it been working as anticipated?
Mike: So actually just to clarify that, so it’s been assembled – GLOBE joined us in – like the end of 2014 but say 2015. CBSR just joined us three years ago I think it’s been, two years? The pandemic sort of throws me –
Jeremy: Yes, I know.
Mike: – so these things are – I have such a skewed memory now with this pandemic so it’s quite – like the business model was only setup a few years ago, this constellation business model because what we saw as it came to us, and we kind of got it and then we brought a firm in and they said, “Well, why don’t you – instead of doing a branded house or a house of brands why don’t you do this constellation model” and we were like, “Well, OK, I like that” right? It drives our marketing guys crazy but we’re actually going to have a name for it. We’re going to launch it in the fall and then get others to join us.
So to your point it’s starting to get traction because now we have companies, you know CN has been an amazing client of ours or BSF, another one, CN, they have been a client of Delphi’s. They come to GLOBE and sponsor it all the time. They support Leading Change and send their young people and their executives are members of Excel/CBSR, right?
Jeremy: Yeah.
Mike: It’s starting to take hold.
Peter: Well, and I’d also argue – you don’t have to give away all the numbers, Mike, but how much has your staff grown during COVID as proof in the pudding of this flywheel?
Mike: Yeah, absolutely, Peter. So I mean we’ve gone from less than 40 people before the pandemic to now we’re 90, so you know it’s been –
Peter: I think the flywheel is working.
Mike: Yeah, it’s been quite a growth and you know that’s positive on one side, you know and –
Peter: Headaches on the other?
Mike: Yeah, and headaches on the other of growing business.
Jeremy: Did you have any – and this is a total tangent but again I’m a very curious person – so did you have any thoughts about limits on growth, so capping the employee size, potentially splitting, and now Gore & Associates has an interesting model where every time they get to 150 people they split off an office to make sure that – I’m curious did you –
Mike: Yeah, like it’s a great question because we – and we discuss it all the time. All the time. Like in one of the things we’ve agreed is that we are not doing growth for the sake of growth, so it’s not a top line or bottom line. It’s intentional growth where we think we can get more impact and influence. But on saying that you’ve got to feed the – right, this is the challenge with growth that I hadn’t experienced until we get here – but you have to feed the beast, right?
As you get bigger you need more support for the higher levels. You’ve got to put overhead on. Oh, more overhead you’ve got to get more billable, right? The beast is off kind of thing and so that fallacy, for those entrepreneurs out there, the piece that was told me where it was like, oh, well, wait until you’re you know 20, because at 20 it’s better. And then at 20, well, you’ve got to be 50 because 50 is – oh, no, it’s 100, whatever. The challenges of that [unintelligible 00:35:06] just change, yeah.
Jeremy: A series of painful plateaus; I can totally relate.
Mike: Yeah,
Jeremy: That’s interesting, so have you considered a sweet spot number just out of curiosity, in terms of employees?
Mike: Well, we’ve agreed to – my favourite saying is to slow down to speed up from TEC and so we’ve agreed here to – we’ve kind of taken a pause and now we’re letting everything settle and get the systems in place and see how this number feels and then decide from there you know whether we go forward or go back or stay the same, but we’ve agreed, yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy: It’s interesting because, yeah, so many people have a skewed growth orientation, especially from venture backed start‑ups where it’s just – you know we hired 400 people this year because we just have millions of dollars to spend on hiring people and we’re going to the moon. But yeah, a little bit different, right, can be very much a meat‑grinder mentality where people are just a means to get you to your personal fortunes or your investor’s fortunes versus –
Mike: Exactly.
Jeremy: – creating a sustainable entity for the impact that it’s driving the employees, that you know drive that impact and so on.
Mike: And I’d love to hear your thoughts on this too, but that’s where I’m finding the tension is the hardest, right? You know we’re a consulting firm with an overtime policy to director level. You know our competitors will be “Are you kidding me? Like why would you do that” right? [Unintelligible 00:36:49] you know charges mud, but we’re trying to maintain that progressive, you know, well, sustainable culture and family.
But the financial piece, reality makes it challenging, right? You know it’s already challenging with inflation and you know salaries going up, which I think they should but it makes it harder because you’re trying to charge – as you know, Jeremy, charge – and Peter, you both know charge a client. You’ve got to raise that and then, wait a minute, you only want to work four days a week or you want to work the 37.5 hours. I would love that. How do we make that model work here, you know?
Jeremy: It’s hard.
Mike: It’s like constant, yeah, and that’s just the billing, right? I mean you want to put the equitable and diversity programs in place, mental health, right, the environment piece, etc, you know.
Jeremy: Generous leave, amazing benefits, all the things, right? The cost per employee should be much higher than your competitors. I’m presuming it probably is, as ours is, and they want – you know I want them to have four day work weeks and how do we do that? How do we achieve this, right and still –
Mike: Exactly.
Jeremy: – remain profitable enough to stay in business? Yeah, tough tensions for sure, of kind of competing in the free market against folks with maybe less morals in business.
Mike: Yeah, and what they do – what happens, right, and maybe this – we don’t talk about this in the – or you cut this or whatever – but what happens – I don’t know if see it, Jeremy, right, is the big guys come in and they offer a ridiculous salary to a young person, attract them over and then, at least what we’ve seen –
Jeremy: Burn them out?
Mike: Burn them out and we’ve had two great –
Jeremy: And spit them back out.
Mike: Yeah, two great employees go over to a big firm, they chew them up. They’re gone within two months and now no one wins. We lost all our IP and great staff. They lost their staff and the person’s gone through two changes.
Jeremy: And how are you going to talk them out of it because they’re young and idealistic and think they’re worth it and there’s a huge bump that you can’t compete with, 100 percent.
Mike: Yeah.
Jeremy: We face the same thing. We’re moving towards employer ownership as a method of potentially just taking that off the table. If you want to walk away from true wealth generation for you, you know, and maybe a forever home which is not really a concept that young folks are having, right, so the millennial thing is kind of jumping jobs until – yeah, just jumping jobs.
But try and actually reverse that, like hey, there can be a family feel and we can create lasting wealth for everyone. So we’re trying to combat that but it’s hard because, yeah, you know we hire and train great people.
Mike: And [unintelligible 00:39:50] people.
Jeremy: Yeah.
Peter: It’s definitely worth the effort. There’s got to be a better way and we all believe in it and it’s not worth going back to. I remember my dad telling me, and I’ve slowly brought him to the dark side of tree hugging, but you know the only reason an employee exists is to drive shareholder value and believe that in his heart of hearts. It’s the way the US economy was built and tremendous wealth and you’re like how do we – how do you – I mean this is a larger discussion we won’t solve today – I’m just thinking that is a major, major shift.
Even from us doing – we made the conscious choice of I refuse to have – we put out our manual with our policies of how we want to treat our people and how we want to be showing up and I refused to call it our employee guide. There is no way. It’s our team member guide. We talked about, Jeremy, and I started reading these articles on Forbes.
I saw one on HBR and what a different way to look at the people you’re working day by day with, as a team member versus your – air quotes for the people just listening – employees. It’s a diminutive term; like it’s just such a shift. Anyway, there are shifts at all levels.
Mike: And you’re right, Peter, you don’t want – we don’t want to – like I’ll speak for myself. I don’t want to change. I don’t want to go back. I don’t mind the heartaches and the hard lift and all that because we’re in it. Just like you guys we’re going to try to do the best we can. You’ve got – for those listening if you want to go down the path – it’s not easy. You don’t just become a B-Corp and all of a sudden the best employees are lined up and you know everything is great. It’s the same challenges everybody has.
Peter: Well, there’s a price for all their choice, right, Mike, and ours might get a slight dent in profitability but I’d argue that price of the profit motive can be a lack of fulfilment and not sleeping as well. There’s a price on both sides to that, right?
Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, yeah.
Jeremy: Again, this is where I’d come back to that ecosystem. My hope is that you know when I’m selecting vendors I am less price sensitive if it’s a sustainability‑oriented vendor versus not, because again the pie chart of that dollar, where is this going, right? This is going to help the homeless in your community. This is going towards food drives. This is going to towards –
Mike: Totally.
Jeremy: – living wages for your all your people and so, great, I feel way better about that dollar and so I’ll spend $1 with you versus 50 cents with that other person knowing that their glass door reviews are 1.9 stars or whatever, OK?
Peter: So can you talk a little bit about – so we did a little bit of homework and I’m going to thank Ann‑Catherine for helping – even though I’ve known you for several years now I found out some new things in digging into your past.
Mike: Oh, really? Wow.
Peter: So can you tell us a little bit about your climate reality project?
Mike: Yeah, that was – so that was quite a while ago. Al Gore decided he would – he put out “The Inconvenient Truth” and then he wanted to setup a charity, starting in the US called the Climate Reality Project. No, Climate – what was it called initially, it wasn’t Climate Reality Project, it was called something else; it will come to me – and I was like, oh man, I’ve got to get on that training; he was putting on these trainings.
And so a long story short, myself and 20 others got to be the first Canadians to be trained and five of us came up, like trained on “The Inconvenient Truth” presentation and five of us came back and decided we would setup the charity here, so we set it up. I was the founding chair and it was two of the hardest years of my life I think getting that charity established and up and going. But hey, it’s one of those things that’s lasted. I think there were a dozen, plus, around the world and I think there are only two or three left and Canada is one of them because –
Peter: Awesome.
Mike: – one of the – again, for learnings, right, sometimes we all know that organizations have a lifespan. You know that birth, growth and then maturity and death, and I was realizing that the only way we were going to survive was to merge the Climate Reality Project with another more established not-for-profit, so I negotiated with Peter his name was – at the time the President of the David Suzuki Foundation – and got them tied up and I still think that was one of the major reasons it continued successfully to this day. Is they could put the engine behind it that needed it and the grass root support at the time. So yeah, something I’m very proud of. Yeah, very proud of being part of. It’s an amazing group of people.
Peter: That’s awesome. So also looking into your deep, dark, mostly enlightened past – at least on the internet, that’s what I’ll say – you know you do a ton of work in youth education, whether it’s through Leading Change that we talked about or at [Shad? 00:45:33] or even through some of your talks with TEC. For those in the US TEC is the Canadian version of Vistage, which is a peer network of CEOs and leaders with the growth mindset trying to do great things, so Mike is out there on the train trying to educate I guess all of us, of all ages.
When you’re talking and doing these education pieces and talking to our youth what gives you the most hope in that? What energizes you coming out of these or what is your main takeaway?
Mike: Yeah, I mean you know these are always reciprocal. Like I have a number of young people I mentor and one said that – today we talked about it – it has to be reciprocal, right, and what I get out of it is not only learning a new perspective, but I get such positive energy, right, because let’s be honest, right? In your 20s you’re not jaded yet, you know, and –
Peter: Like me, underrated?
Mike: Yeah, exactly, so I love that piece because there is so much energy, positive energy that they can do this. They can solve this. We can change the way we think about things. We can innovate, right, and so I love – yeah, I love engaging younger people for just that inspiration and positive and hopefulness that they all have. Then I also like to be able to share some of the failures and pitfalls and things we’ve been through and hopefully it helps them along their journey, you know?
Jeremy: Again, sorry, I’m very curious about this, particularly the mentorship piece. So I too am involved in kind of a lot of – well, more men’s work through Mankind Project and a lot of interest around kind of boys to men and this rite of passage and mentorship in general being something that’s largely been lost in role models; largely been lost. And so curious if the – so Leading Change sounds amazing, I’m going to find out more about it – do you have something internally within Delphi around mentorship? What does that look like?
Mike: Yeah, so a couple of things. One is we have a buddy system in Delphi, so when you join you join with a buddy who becomes a bit of a mentor. It could be the same age, older, younger, it doesn’t matter, but you have a buddy system. Number two, is all the partners in particular have an open door policy and so for example my business parter, Bruce, who is a few years from retirement, he is starting to spend more time with young – the younger people in the office; well, virtually, to mentor them.
Number two is I tend to try to call all the staff every year. During the pandemic, more importantly, as we get back together I hold meetings virtually or in‑person with groups and I always am like very transparent about the strategy, but then what’s working, what’s not? Let’s talk about life. What do you want to know, right, so there is that type of informal process.
Then we have the more formal stuff which is around our performance management. So there we actively work with the individual to develop training development programs that fit for them. The executives, however, all of them have coaching. I mean it’s not mandated but it’s something that I have pushed because of the success at TEC and the coaching I had before. So we have these different levels of mentoring and coaching, sort of informal and formally but it’s definitely – yeah, it’s definitely a key aspect, absolutely.
Jeremy: That’s inspiring. Yeah, that’s very apt, such a missing piece. I’m also just kind of – lightning strike, your constellation, where is the green money? Where the venture capital to fund these leaders? Where is Joel Solomon and you know his funds to come in and help make this a reality? Is that part of the future?
Mike: It could be. It’s funny; I mean again I’ll just be transparent. That’s one area where we’ve not had a lot of strength, is in the finance side and we’ve just hired a young gentleman who has got some great background there and we’re working with one of the partners, as I mentioned, about potential adding them to the constellation who would have that kind of backing, absolutely. Again, where we get caught – and I’ll throw this back to you guys if you find – is you guys say, oh my gosh, four entities, but you think of a big company with four big divisions or whatever. It’s the same.
Jeremy: Totally.
Mike: But on saying, we have done several sort of focused and then diverse focused and diverse, you’ve got to careful, especially as it’s so competitive now, where do we focus, right? Where can we have the biggest impact? So this is part of that pause where we say, OK, you know do we continue these initiatives or do we not, you know? Should we put effort in them?
So again, Jeremy, Peter, over here we do all kinds of fun stuff on the side; like we did – our climate and sport initiative which we linked the engagement of people, particularly sports fans, moms, with the health impacts of climate change on sports and we started with hockey. So loved this idea, got it going but two years it didn’t get a lot of uptake, right? So you know you’ve got to make the hard decision, even though it’s a passion play, we’ve got to pass it one.
We’ve got to find a not-for-profit who will take it and do something with it because it becomes too much of a distraction and then the business suffers, right, and you stretch people. So that’s always the – again, I guess an entrepreneur’s learning as we all know, we’ve got to watch the shiny, new objects and the passion plays sometimes.
Jeremy: Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Any advice for folks that are getting into this space?
Mike: Any advice? Wow. One is, you know, make sure you hire people who are smarter than you. You hear that often and it is so true, and that they have different perspectives. Number two is and I’m going to playback – one of the young women who I mentor talked about imposter syndrome and asked me if I ever that and I said, oh my God, I have it every day, right? Don’t think that you’re alone, that you think you can’t do this because I have a feeling pretty much everybody feels that at some point during the week, right, Jeremy?
Jeremy: Today, yeah. I literally opened up about somebody and I was like, actually, I have such imposter syndrome today.
Mike: Yeah. Three is, you know you’ve got to – you’ve got to know it’s hard, right? Like entrepreneurship, running a business is not easy, period. You know if you’re not up for the 60 hours a week or getting on planes if you have to or rolling up your sleeve, then maybe think twice about a different career path because you know balance is nice. Balance for me is over a year not on a week to week basis because there is no way. It’s not possible in –
Peter: What? You’re not doing a consistent 37.5, Mike?
Mike: No.
Peter: Due to all –
Jeremy: I’ve found the most rewarding things in life were hard.
Peter: Yeah, it’s true.
Mike: Yeah, great piece, yeah.
Peter: So I want to talk about making like tangible ways people can apply – and you talked about the B-Corp where you’re measuring yourself against reality a little bit, so is there any one policy that you would put in as part – as part of the B-Corp process or since that you were really proud of and you think even if you don’t become a B-Corp or you are a B-Corp and you don’t have this policy, every company should have this in place?
Mike: So no, which aspect? Like environment or social or –
Peter: You pick. No, no, you pick. It’s dealer’s choice here, Mike, you get to pick which angle because there is a starting point, and I remember you telling me about you know your blind interviewing process and you have – I mean you’re an inspiration to me personally on what you guys have in place but there needs to be a starting point because the B-Corp application process is a frigging lot of work. It’s daunting. Not everybody is going to go there tomorrow, but everybody can change one policy for the betterment. You can pick an environment and then if people want to pick one, you name it.
Mike: You know what I’m going to do actually, because you just reminded me about our conversation with your team, right, and what you did and what I – well, what we encourage our clients and what I encourage everybody to do is there is not one policy that –
Peter: Silver bullet?
Mike: – as you said; it’s what is most important to you, right? So you know, for me when I took over Delphi giving back was the most important so I convinced the board that we’re going to give 1 percent of our gross sales to charity and made that happen, right, and I’m proud of that because of how much we’ve given back.
It could be making – passing a policy that you’re not going to pay anybody five times more than the lowest paid person or three times more, right, or you’re going to put in an overtime policy or you’re going to put a mental health channel in and support system. Whatever it is, to me you want to align it with the values and what’s most important in the organization.
And to be honest, at the beginning that’s often the leader, right? People are looking to you as the leader for that, so what is of most importance to you and then tackle that piece and get a couple of wins, and then broaden it. When you broaden it that’s when you definitely engage all aspects, all your team members in that you know, and get them involved because then great stuff comes out which you never thought about and you can start to tackle, but definitely start small and think big, you know?
Peter: So you had to give a nuanced answer; you couldn’t have just given me the black and white right answer, all right.
Mike: Yeah
Peter: So then my second one out of my three, so I’m going to come back to your roots on saving the planet, if you had to put a challenge out to every organization, they could do one thing in that specific direction that is a non‑starter. Everybody should be doing this. This is a given you know? Something that is achievable and doable, what would be your challenge to all organizations out there?
Mike: Yeah. Everybody needs to be looking at their – when I say greenhouse gas footprint, the energy they use you know?
Peter: OK.
Mike: Whether it’s through travel, car, train, plane, whether it’s heating the office, whatever it is, even paper, procurement and that, how do you reduce that? How can you reduce that? Pick one thing at least. If you can pick more go for it but we have to figure this out and we all have to start individually and in our companies to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses going into the atmosphere because that is our biggest challenge by far.
Peter: Totally, and we can all pick something there. So my last one, and I know you’ve got a lot of runway ahead of you with more organizations and mentorship and a lot to give with your heart which I know well, if you were to look back on this career do you have a proudest moment? Something that you’re like you know this will ultimately be my legacy? Is there something that stands out to you? I know you’ve done a ton of shit, Mike, all over the place and I hope you’re bloody proud. I know a lot of people around you are but is there something that stands out to you?
Mike: You know someone asked this to me and I use the story there that you’ve heard me tell about having a collapse, and it goes back to you need to go into the abyss sometimes to come out and find the light. The proudest moment I had is when you know I had – and it’s a long story so I won’t go into it – but for the audience, basically I was on that treadmill of success and I was on a plane and I was working 60, 80, 100 hours a week to drive growth in the company when I first took over.
That amazing TEC speaker, again long story short, his basic message was be careful what you wish for and it hit me between the eyes because I realized that I had mortgaged my family’s life for half a dozen years and paid the price physically and mentally and that, and collapsed.
My business partners picked me up. I got help. Took a month off and then got together with my partner and said, “Right, we’re not doing that again” and that’s when we totally shifted back to the culture of what we’re about, which is treating everybody with dignity and respect. Sticking to a balance – again, a year but a balanced approach focusing on what’s important which is family, friends, you know mental health, physical health, spiritual health, right, and the rest will come, and it has.
Peter: Totally.
Mike: Am I retired and a millionaire now? No. Do I care? No, I don’t because it’s the journey, right?
Peter: Yeah.
Mike: You’re not happy once you retire, you’re happy as you traverse along this journey of life, which has a lot of ups and downs, and so I’m most proud that we’ve stuck to that and will stick to it until I’m gone, and then it’s up to the next generation of leaders that take over the company, but we will try to do everything we can to make the time that people spend at Delphi special, and that we treat all our clients and partners and everybody with dignity and respect and the best we can, rather than going after some money thing.
Peter: I happened to know a lot of those people at your place and so I’m pretty sure they feel that way. Actually, I know that. Jeremy, any last thoughts before we close it up?
Jeremy: I think that was a beautiful way to wrap and hopefully we can all treat each other with dignity and respect. Yeah, Mike, amazing talking with you. Your fingerprints are all over positive change for decades and that’s quite the legacy, so thank you for doing it, and doing before it was cool.
Mike: Well, thank you, and before it was cool. Nice, yeah.
Jeremy: No, it’s true.
Mike: And I have to say, right, this isn’t about me, right? This is just an amazing group of people that I’ve got the opportunity to work with. Back to early in our conversation we can only do this together so, yeah, Jeremy, I hope we get the chance to work together and if you can’t bring your company up here maybe I can bring Leading Change down there.
Jeremy: That would be good. I’d love to see that. Yeah, appreciate the conversation.
Mike: Yeah, me too, guys.
Peter: Mike, as we wrap up where is the best place people can find you or reach out or learn more?
Mike: Yeah, they can always reach out through LinkedIn. Go to the website. You’ll see my email there. I’m open as anything but please reach out if you have any questions. Love talking to folks and if there are any young people that want an information interview I’m always open to that as well, so don’t hesitate to contact me.
Peter: Great. Mike, it has been an absolute pleasure to have you. As your friend it’s funny to interview you as well, but I have to tell you I remain inspired you know, and so proud to call you a friend. None of us are perfect but really there is a lot that you’re doing and I’ll say that to you too, Jeremy. Both of you guys have like really inspired me to raise my bar. Raise the bar of KarmaDharma and so I’m really proud to have both of you in my life.
Mike: Thanks, Peter, me too. Right back at you and I’m so proud to see you doing – changing the way you’re doing things and taking it to heart, so we’ll give you a big hug next time I see you.