FULL TRANSCRIPT

Gordon Sheppard: Are you ready to learn from an inspired leader who has literally raised hundreds of millions of dollars to benefit thousands of people around the world? Well then stick around because we’re interviewing Mike House, CEO of the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Are you a professional who wants to become a more effective leader? Then get ready for practical tips from the coach with the experience and inspiration to help you succeed in any leadership situation. Your listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast with Gordon Sheppard.

Welcome to another episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast. My name is Gordon Sheppard. I just want to say thank you for being here. Thank you for being the type of person who really wants to take a moment to pick up another skill, another tip, another strategy, something they can take out to become a stronger leader and learn how to run outstanding meetings. It’s really, really good to have you here. And if you and your team really want to take your meetings up to the next level, we’ll then consider checking out the sponsor for today’s show, that is the Meeting Leadership Academy. Now there you’re going to find some really solid options for online training. And there’s really good options for live training as well. That’s when we bring in an instructor, we come in to work with you and your team and sort of a half day or a full day setting.

And we really give a spark to make sure that your meetings start to get the things that they need, the details that they need and the inspiration and we make sure that every meeting that you do is connected directly to your strategy, so that every meeting after that training can have the highest impact possible, not only on you and your team, but also on your organization and it will flow through to the level of service that you can bring to your customers and your community. And you can check that out by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/academy. And now I am really proud to introduce today’s episode, it’s titled, how fundraising leaders can grow their skills and it’s with Mike House, the CEO of the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Now, not only has Mike helped to raise hundreds of millions of dollars with multiple organizations over 25 years, he’s also picked up a few letters along the way.

He’s a certified fundraising executive and he’s got his MBA and that’s where I had a chance to make contact with Mike, become a friend and colleague and really enjoy the conversations that we’ve had over the years, including the one that’s coming up, which includes real highlights, like how leaders can really challenge their own limiting beliefs and overcome them, the value of coaching, the return on investment from when you invest those dollars in real coaches that move your leadership along. And you’re also going to hear from Mike about his firsthand experience about three types of meetings that they run at the Stollery to make sure that each meeting is truly effective. This is a blockbuster interview, you’re going to get a lot from it and not only in details, but really from the inspiration to take your leadership up to the next level. And with that in mind, here’s the terrific interview with Mike.

Mike House. Welcome to the show.

Mike House: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Gordon Sheppard: Well, it is so lucky to have the president and CEO of the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation, somebody who literally, I’m going to say this out loud, you can substantiate this for me, who has helped to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to have such enormous social impact in Alberta across Canada that maybe even around the world in terms of how far those dollars have gone. You’ve been on the button, you’ve been a leader, sort of building your skills throughout your career. You’re at this real pinnacle moment there for leading the organization that you lead now. I mean it’s just thrilling to have you there. I count you as a solid friend since I did my MBA and I feel that is also a gift, but we could talk for a long time about that, but many people who don’t know you. If you had a chance sort of at a cocktail party, how would you introduce yourself?

Mike House: Hi, I’m Mike and that would normally be enough, but to give people a bit of a background, I am the president and CEO of the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation. Our foundation is committed to funding excellence at the Stollery Children’s Hospital and children’s health priorities across the province. We wake up every day and we want to try to give kids the best chance at a long and healthy life and we’re very fortunate to have over 100,000 Albertans and Canadians every year that give to our cause and ultimately raising the bar for excellence for children’s health. We’ve been lucky enough to raise a little over $170 million towards children’s health over the last seven years and every day I wake up and I just feel blessed to do it. Maybe on a personal side, I love storytelling, which is a good fit for my job. And been in the nonprofit sector for over 25 years and probably the big thing that I’ve done over the last year and I’m super proud of is I had an opportunity to raise funds towards the Stollery by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa in October.

Gordon Sheppard: And Mike, you’re the third guest on the show who’s climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. I think if you want to be a leader, you’ve got to go climb. What was that experience like for you?

It was sort of like signing up for something without reading the fine print and then seeing it’s too late to back out. It was a really great experience. Above and beyond being able to climb the mountain, I think for me just testing my abilities and being able to demonstrate to myself that there’s nothing that can hold me back if I put my mind to it.

That’s just digging into an immediate leadership lesson right there. There’s sort of that before and after and as sort of folks like yourself put in year after year and your experience grows, this ability to actually reach out and challenge yourself. I mean you could have said no to that. What made you say yes to that type of challenge?

Part of it was being asked and I was honored to do that, but part of it was always having a burning desire to keep stretching and keep growing and keep learning. And sometimes you do that by reading books or by going to conferences and sometimes you do that by challenging yourself physically. And I felt like this was a real challenge and it definitely was.

Well, and the nice thing about climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is it’s just easy, right? And there’s not much to talk about. What was the big lesson that you learned from, from that experience?

Take care of your feet. We all, as human beings are self-limiting. We have inner critics that put boundaries on ourselves about how good we can be, how generous we can be, how kind we can be, how loving we can be, how much we can accomplish. And when you go through an experience like that, for me, it removed some of those barriers that I put on myself. I don’t think other people put them on me. I think I put them on myself. And being able to remove some of that gives you this feeling like you got a superpower. What else could I do? Then you start asking yourself, imagine if? And that’s important when you’re talking about leadership and creating vision for the future for an organization or for your family or for yourself.

We could probably do the whole episode on your climb on Mount Kilimanjaro, but we’re here today to really draw from your leadership growth as a fundraiser and I think that’s something that my audience can really learn from, because other mountains to climb, there’s probably a moment where you sit down with your board at the beginning of any given year and you put a number up on the board, right? I don’t know, whatever that mountain is to climb, it could be in the tens of millions of dollars and like you said, you raise the 170 over the seven years. That is its own mountain and there could be some limiting self beliefs that come along with that. When you are thinking about your fundraising leadership sort of development, there’s a moment sort of, I’m going to say whatever it is a couple of decades ago when you’re getting started, what’s the difference in your leadership abilities say then, when you’re starting out to work for KCI, you’re raising whatever it is, the fives and tens of millions of dollars there. What’s the difference in your leadership approach with that internal voice then versus now?

Mike House: I think probably the one of the biggest differences is that I know myself a lot better. And when I say I know myself, I mean I know my weaknesses and the areas that I need to improve and I want to improve as well as my strengths. And I don’t take my strengths for granted and I don’t self deprecate as much as I used to because I know that they are strengths and I leverage that, but I also know where I’m not very strong or I need to improve. And I work on that and I’m lucky enough to surround myself with people who see my blind spots or see my areas where I can improve and they help me get better as well. So that’s a team sport about getting better. I think before when I was younger I felt like it was just sort of all on my shoulders and I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t maybe recognize some of the help I needed. And I think that that’s a big step is just knowing yourself better and therefore being able to execute better on that.

Gordon Sheppard: Well I like the tone that you’re bringing in when you say leveraged strengths, because there’s a moment where when you’re doing bold things like you’re doing, which is to raise large amounts of money in your case to benefit these kids, being a good Canadian too much so is not really going to help you to do that.

Mike House: Yeah, we’ll figure it this way, if I don’t believe it can happen, no one else will believe it to happen. And even if I have doubts in my mind, part of my job is to get past that. And so how do you get past those doubts? Well, one of the ways you do that is you have some confidence in saying, “Yeah, we can achieve it.” It’s not this hubris, it’s fact-based, it’s research, it’s knowing your job and knowing what the obstacles are, but then appreciating the fact that you are good at what you do and you need to move forward, and you need to convince others to also see themselves in that path and come along with you on that journey that stretches. And the funny thing is Gordon, is if you do that, it actually inspires people to lift up their own sort of interests and abilities and dreams. And I think a lot of people are looking for that. We see this in our leadership in politics. We want our politicians to lift us up and to stretch us and to dream bigger. And so often we get caught up in the petty part of it rather than the what if part. And that to me is part of my job is to dream big and to include others and to see if we collectively can move forward.

Gordon Sheppard: You would just spend a lot of time meeting a bunch of different folks, because you’re in that seeking donor world. You’re in this sort of, I’m going to say servicing of donor world, to make sure that you get those things to go together. How often are you walking into rooms with folks that have, I’m going to say medium to significant wealth, and what are the things again that you are doing as a leader that we can learn from? Before you walk into a room, I’m going to say around the mental preparation, and what’s happening as you’re walking into a room? Because there’s going to be a handshake, an exchange, a something, a first moment. What are you doing leadership wise to get ready for those big moments?

Mike House: I try to do this, even when I was walking in the office today, I stop before I go into the room and I just take a breath and then I enter into the room confidently. And I know that sounds sort of silly, but it supercharges the moment. It allows you to set the pace for what the conversation will be, what your first impression is, and people feed on that confidence. They feed on that enthusiasm and it gets the ball moving forward. If you burst into a room and you were distracted or you’re thinking about something else and then you say hello, people sense that they pick up on that. Even if you didn’t say anything, those nonverbal cues will give people a sense like, where are we on this? So the way that I enter into a room, I also try to respect people’s time and being prepared is really important too. So I try to focus on those three things. I don’t try to focus on too much else, because if you focus on too many things, it’s like golf, you’ll swing, you’ll go crazy, you just keep your eye on the ball kind of thing.

Gordon Sheppard: I’ve got the same sort of slice that I’ve had for, it’s very consistent over time. This self awareness piece that you mentioned that you’ve picked up and now you’re bringing it to this very moment, I like this idea of setting the pace, because what you’re doing then as a leader is you’re focusing up the situation. Now you’re in the room and you’re with somebody where this is where a lot of your business gets done I assume, which is this idea of you’re with somebody. What are some of the things, I’m going to say again leadership wise as the conversation, a typical conversation would start with someone that might be in a position to donate to your cause. What are the sort of the leadership things that are happening in an exchange moment then?

Mike House: I’m always curious about trying to build that relationship deeper. And for me the way you build relationships is by trust and respect. So looking for commonalities, understanding where their position is, trying to put myself in their spot and really trying to find out what inspires them. Now sometimes when you’re asking people for support, it’s like courtship. So before you ask anybody for anything, you have to get to know whether there’s an interest there or whether there’s some linkage there. And so a lot of it is about fishing for that and then trying to build an uncommon bridge between what your cause is representing and what it hopes to accomplish and where their interests lie. And if you can do that, if you can find that uncommon bridge, then you’ll be more successful than just making some assumptions and going in and straight asking. So I really try to build that relationship through trust and respect first and then let it happen naturally.

Gordon Sheppard: What do you mean by uncommon bridge?

Mike House: For example, if I was to say to you, “Gordon, on a Saturday morning, what is the thing that you like to do most?” And you were to say to me, “Well, I like to sleep in.” Then I would try to figure out a way where sleeping in is in alignment with something that I’ve either been interested in or doing or something related to things that might even be at the hospital. Like, I don’t know if you know this like, “We have a sleep lab for children and sleep is super important, especially when you’re developing. And so it sounds to me like you really invested in that because you work hard all week and sleeping is obviously a thing that is important to you. Tell me more about that?” And then the conversation goes. So you wouldn’t think that sleep labs and what you do on a Saturday morning might connect, but I’ve been able to do that now. Maybe I’m less successful or more successful and then I’ll try again. But I’ve got it in my mind to be intentional about trying to make those linkages and connections back to you so that you’re interested in the topic and not just, I’m telling you things that I’m interested in.

Gordon Sheppard: Wow, I don’t know what you’re slugging percentages. Do you know what I mean? In terms of how many meetings you need to take to achieve the big dollar raising goals that you do. But there will be times when someone says no, or there isn’t an alignment, or there isn’t this uncommon bridge that you’re able to build. Again, leadership wise, what are you doing in that moment? So you’ve had this conversation, let’s say, and then you know in person, somebody turns you down. What’s the leadership things that happen for you in that moment?

Mike House: First of all, respect the answer. Not everything resonates with everybody and I completely appreciate and understand that. And appreciate the time that somebody has taken to give you that answer. I usually probe to find out a little bit more about whether or not the connection isn’t because they’re not interested or because there are other circumstances. Sometimes it’s a timing issue. Sometimes it’s a knowledge issue. Sometimes I’ve completely missed the mark, but I think most good fundraisers will also give people some time to digest, but then come back at a later date when it’s appropriate and not horribly in pressure to connect back with that person.

Sometimes it’s about me. We try very hard to hire a diverse group of fundraisers that have different skill sets, different styles. We try to match those styles with the donor too, because there are some donors that are very assertive and want to get to the point and there are others that sort of want to bounce around the conversation and different skill sets match up better with different people. So it could be me and I’m not the right fit. So I will evaluate that as well. But the most important thing in any kind of fundraising activity is that we’re donor centric and we have to respect that the donors giving their support freely without encumbrance to make a difference in the world and if their difference in the world is not something that we’re aligning with and it’s okay to walk away and to say we appreciate the time and move on, because there’s always somebody else to ask too. Right?

Gordon Sheppard: You say these things effortlessly. My guess is young Mike wouldn’t have said it with this amount of wisdom. Is that a fair thing to say?

Mike House: Yeah, practice is a big part of this and it’s actually probably so one of my gaps in terms of my leadership style is I know what I’m doing and I know how to do it, I need to work on how to teach it better. Because to your point, it becomes so natural and second nature to you, but to explain how it’s going and what you’re doing and whatnot is difficult for me because it’s mostly practice and failure and trying and retrying and learning from your mistakes and going through different things that didn’t go so well. But that’s an area that I wish I could do a better job of is passing on what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.

Gordon Sheppard:Have you ever been in a mentorship situation yourself where you’re either the mentor or being mentored?

Mike House: Yeah, I’ve been in both. I really believe in professional coaching and I’ve had three different professional coaches that have helped me out in different circumstances in my career. Early on in my curiosity, the coach that I had was very much about self-awareness, trying to understand my strengths and weaknesses. I’ve also had coaches when I first joined the Stollery as a CEO and helping me coach through some of that component of leadership and understanding the board better and understanding sort of the environment of the ecosystem better. I think coaches, there’s like professional hockey players have coaches. They’re professionals, but why do we have coaches then? And it’s because you want to incrementally get better. On the other hand, I do mentor lots of people, I guess you would say informally, but most of the time when I’m doing that, I’m listening and really trying to provide perspective rather than instruct because I think a lot of times people know the answers to their own questions, they just need some confidence to be able to hear it get back and reflect it back and then they can make their own decisions. So I don’t know if that is good mentorship or not, but that’s the style that I like to use when I’m talking to other people.

Gordon Sheppard: Well, and I know you’re very well respected in the community and so many people have benefited from the approach that you’re talking about. I need to dial it back to this coaching thing for a second. Did it cost money to hire these coaches?

Mike House: Yes. Full stock.

Gordon Sheppard: What I’m curious about, because there’s always sensitivity around how funds get spent in your area, so a lot of pressure on dollar comes in, get those dollars out to the end user. In a sense I’ve seen that certainly as a trend in nonprofit, but this is a moment where if you as a leader in fundraising are empowered through this type of investment. My curiosity around being a big fan of it is, how would you measure the return? Is there some sense without having a real dollar value, but let’s say you spent, I’m going to say thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on coaches, is it like a 2X return? Is it a life changing return? How would you describe the return on investment for spending the money and then going through a process with really a qualified coach?

Mike House: Well, first of all, we have a culture here at the Stollery that is very much based on learning and development. And the reason why we focus on that is because it’s a retention strategy. When people are engaged in a job and not just doing it day to day, but actually growing as people, growing their skillset, they’ll stay and there’s a cost associated with turnover. And so by reducing turnover, by investing in learning and development, that’s an important factor in our costs. I would also say that when you improve someone’s skillset or improve their abilities, you also get more productivity out of each of the individuals that are growing. It’s why we invest in conferences, it’s why we invest them lunch and learns. It’s why we do all kinds of different things, including supporting some of our staff to go back to school and learn different skill sets that are important to their jobs.

And I’m happy to say that we spend less on recruitment than many of our nonprofit partners. And it costs not just money, but it also costs time. So if we have a gap in our team, you can pretty much estimate that it will take 12 weeks to have that person replaced in whatever shape or form that is in terms of recruitment, getting up to speed. And then there’s a time after they’ve come on that they need to get up to speed on their job, so that could be another three to six months. They’re spending a few thousand dollars on inspiring somebody to get better at their job while they’re doing their job and improving not just their productivity but also saving costs on retention. That’s an easy return on investment in our books.

Gordon Sheppard: Wow. This is another thing that I can hear in terms of maturity of leadership is knowing when to invest and what you get for it, getting a sense of how those dollars are going around. The second part in these interviews that we like to sort of dig into, because I would guess you lead a few meetings is, what are some of your best tips for leaders in fundraising when they are actually leading a meeting?

Mike House: Fundraisers are supposed to be out there talking to people and they’re supposed to be engaging others, but meetings are important. Most of the meetings that we have are to describe strategy, to overcome challenges, are to design methods in order to encourage people to give, so those kinds of conversations you need to be very prepared ahead of time and probably the best kinds of meetings are when you’ve provided people with some information ahead of time, they’ve read that information and they’re prepared to comment on it. Our conversations, for example at the board are no longer reports back on activity or progress that’s been made. We really focus in on three things. Are we asking for advice? Are we making a decision? Are we providing some information that people need in order to get to that first two. And anything else, people read and we obviously ask if there are questions that people have around the material that’s been read, but otherwise we move forward. And that way we really tend to focus on the strategy conversation rather than on the tactics conversation, because that’s the best use of people’s time.

Gordon Sheppard: Was this something that was there when you got there with this board or did it evolve?

Mike House: It has evolved over seven years. It will continue to evolve, I’m sure. But it has expedited the time that we spend in meetings and it has allowed us to, I would say if there’s eight hours in a day to work and we’re spending four hours in meetings, now you’re spending three hours in meetings. It speeds things up. It makes you more nimble. It gives people confidence that they’re engaged in the process. So there’s positivity in doing that. Now the challenge is, is being consistent from meeting to meeting. And so this is something that I think for us, we’re working on now, is how do we continuously improve to be more consistent in the approach that we have? So we have the infrastructure, we have the framework, people understand it, but like anything else, there are times when the gym is busier in the year and there are times when no one shows up at the gym. So it’s a constant battle. It doesn’t mean that people don’t want to be healthy. It’s like anything else, it’s a work in progress.

Gordon Sheppard: Well it sounds like it’s gone from one stage to the next stage. And the way you’re talking about it are with this incremental improvement and tolerance. It sounds like it’s going to get even better going forward. Wow. Thank you so much for those insights. And the last question that we’d like to ask in these interviews is one of my favorites, and it’s this one, what inspires you?

Mike House: Something that people don’t know about me is that I was a child that had a lifesaving surgery when I was four months old. And when you have those kinds of things happen to you, you kind of feel like you’re born under a lucky star and you want to make the most of the time you have on this world. And so that has been ingrained in me from a very early age. And as a result of that, I went into the nonprofit sector. So I was enough to see a lot of different things that inspire me, that I’m interested in to make the world a better place. At the end of the day, the thing that I love the most is helping kids realize their potential. Now, sometimes at the Stollery we have children who only live for a day, but they make an indelible mark on their families and for years to come as well.

Sometimes they have chronic conditions and they never get to a place where they’re fully healthy, but they still make that difference happen in their families and their communities and in their lives. And they inspire us to overcome our own mountains, whatever they look like. But I am living proof that if you invest in kids, anything can happen because I was the one in 10 that was able to overcome. And so what inspires me every day is helping kids give the best chance of a long and healthy life and knowing that every day my effort incrementally makes a little bit more impact on that.

Gordon Sheppard: Thank you. I mean almost no words to come after that in terms of how eloquently you’ve described it. And you being living proof, that’s the first time certainly that I’ve heard that story as well and I hope a lot of people hear it. I know that with the Stallary that you could describe, I’m going to say dozens and dozens of high impact turnarounds and profound things that occur there all the time and I can hear that you’re really, again, it was a real motivator for you to go to work hard every day and make a difference. Wow, that’s just outstanding. Mike, if people need to get in touch with you or they want to support the Stallary, what’s the best way to do that?

Mike House: Please send me an email. I answer everything because we’re a nonprofit, so we have a pretty flat system here. My email is mike.house@stollerykids.com. I would welcome an email from anybody if they have questions about what we’re doing or if they want to get more involved or engaged. They obviously want to support us in some way. That’s terrific, but we’re a pretty transparent organization and we’d love to hear from you.

Gordon Sheppard: Well that’s just outstanding and I think for me, I’m massively motivated in leadership capacity building and this interview today is going to be one of those ones that people are going to hear and they’re going to gain from it, whether they’re sort of a younger fundraiser who’s looking to learn, somebody who wants to reach out to you to support what you’re doing. Mike, thank you so much for being on the show.

Mike House: Thank you for the opportunity. It was great to talk.

Gordon Sheppard: Now I am pretty sure that you ran out of notepaper for all the good things that you heard in that interview. So many wonderful concepts and the big one that I’m going to take away, believe when nobody else does. This is the leadership ability that Mike has honed. It’s something that you can do as well because when the chips are down, whether you doubt it or whether you believe it or not, you really have to be in a position to lead to achieve your goals and the organization’s goals overall. And if you’re looking for even more inspiration then check out these episodes on the Meeting Leadership Podcast. Episode 62 is called how to inspire others as a leader in meetings and you can get that episode by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/62. And then on episode 147, it’s called how inspired branding can grow your organization.

And that is with an outstanding guest. His name is James Morrissey and he’ll really take you into the fact that branding can really, when it’s done well, not only be external, but be internal as well and move your entire organization forward. And you can get that episode by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/147. And if you’re looking for a fast and efficient way to make your meetings more effective, then check out episode three on the Meeting Leadership Podcast, it’s called how to make a great point during a meeting. And there we use the word point itself as a simple acronym that will get you and your team on track to be really effective whenever it’s your turn to speak during a meeting.

And you can get that episode by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/3. And I also want to remind you that this episode of the Meeting Leadership Podcast is brought to you by the Meeting Leadership Academy. Now there you’re going to get some great online training options and live training options as well and you can check all of that out by going to meetingleadershipinc.com/academy. And for everyone who is already a subscriber, thank you so much and if you haven’t done it yet, hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss another episode. And as always, thank you so much for listening and we’ll see you next time on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.

Thanks for listening to the Meeting Leadership Podcast. Be sure to subscribe for more strategies that help you become an outstanding leader. And don’t forget to rate and review so we can bring you even more great content. We’ll see you next time, right here on the Meeting Leadership Podcast.