Values-based leadership – Jeffrey Orr, Power Corporation

Jeffrey Orr has a simple message for business students: live your values. “I think people have the impression that there’s a different set of ethics and values that apply in business than apply in their personal lives,” he says. “That’s not the case.”

The President and CEO of Power Corporation says in his experience, successful leaders turn to personal values and instincts when faced with tough business decisions.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast, Orr discusses lessons he has learned as a business leader. Key to his philosophy is that consistent approach in his personal and professional lives. It’s an idea he’s eager to pass along to others, gently mentoring the next generation of leaders.

“Mentoring is not about doing, mentoring is about letting other people do and then coaching, guiding and sharing your own personal lessons,” he says.

Listen to the entire conversation with Goldy Hyder on the Speaking of Business podcast.

Transcript

Jeffrey Orr:

Everything I learned about business in terms of when I have a tough decision to make, I think back to what my mom told me and I go there for guidance, and it almost always works out. And the tougher the decision, the more you rely on the same basic instincts and same basic values.

Goldy Hyder:

Welcome to Speaking of Business, conversations with Canadian innovators, entrepreneurs and business leaders. I’m Goldy Hyder, president and CEO of the Business Council of Canada. I’m speaking to you from Montreal in the downtown office of Power Corporation. For nearly 100 years, this influential Canadian company has managed and guided long-term investments in Canada and around the world, and for decades it’s also been synonymous with the Desmarais family. Paul Desmarais took over running the company in 1968 and then handed responsibility to his sons André and Paul Jr. But in 2020, the brothers named Jeffrey Orr the company’s new president and CEO. What was it like for him to pick up the reigns from such a storied family business? How is Power Corp living its mission and values today? I’m just thrilled that Jeff is able to join me to talk about the company, his own journey and lessons he’s learned throughout his impressive career. Welcome to the podcast, Jeff.

Jeffrey Orr:

Thanks very much, Goldy.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, let’s start there. You had big shoes to fill when you became president and CEO of Power Corp. How did you approach your new role?

Jeffrey Orr:

I approached it with one of trying to build on what we had built over the previous decades. Fortunately, I’d been part of that both as an advisor and then working for several decades at Power Financial. So I’ve been very close to Paul and André and we had a shared joint vision as to what we wanted to do and when we have that unity and that support, it actually felt pretty natural. It just kind of went from one day to the next. It was like a Monday and came into work-

Goldy Hyder:

Plug and play.

Jeffrey Orr:

… And on Tuesday and plug and play and everything carried on.

Goldy Hyder:

Let’s educate the audience about Power Corp because I mean, first of all, I can’t think of a cooler name for a corporation than Power Corp, but its origins were really about power originally, but how did it evolve into what it’s become today and what is it today?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, so thanks for picking up on the Power Corp. It was when it started an energy company supporting the construction of power plants and electricity and hydro and dams, and it ended up getting nationalized as Hydro Quebec and Ontario Hydro and BC Hydro were formed. It ended up with a lot of cash and that cash was then reinvested and then in 1968, Paul Desmarais came along and purchased control of the business. So “power” is not about exercising power, it’s about providing energy. It had looked almost like a mutual fund when Paul Desmarais Sr. took it over. He started to concentrate the investments into smaller holdings with much more important positions, and financial services became an increasingly important part of that. All the way to where it is today, which is that we are in effect on a route to becoming a financial services holding company versus being a conglomerate, which is the way you would define it.

Goldy Hyder:

Tell us about the suite that’s within that conglomerate.

Jeffrey Orr:

We basically operate in five developed countries and then we have important investments in China. So we are in the business of helping people save and manage their financial risks. So basically that’s investments in insurance products and we do that in Canada, the United States, England, Ireland, Germany, and then we have important minority investments in China. And so we would have brands like Canada Life, Great West Life, IG Wealth Management, formerly Investors Group, to emerging companies in Canada, like Wealth Simple, McKenzie, I just named the Canadian brands.

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, no, I think that’s helpful for our listeners to know. Want to talk to you about the fact that you’re now in some ways acting as a mentor to the next generation of Desmarais. What can you tell us about how you’re going about doing that?

Jeffrey Orr:

Mentoring is not about doing, mentoring is about letting other people do and then trying to help coach and guide and share your own personal lessons, and sometimes putting some boundaries around where people can go. So it’s a very subtle coaching role I would say. And so each of Paul III and Olivier have got parts of the business that they’re responsible for. Doing a really good job building those businesses and I’m there to kind of be there as a background coach as well. As I said, providing some guidelines.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s going to be different though, right? I mean you’re going from a father who gave it to two sons and two sons who are now giving it to their sons. So they’re cousins. How are you approaching sort of making sure that the long-term succession for this company is in good hands?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, I think by doing what was done in the previous generation, which is that Paul and André were well coached, they had lots of experience and then they were given responsibility and were well surrounded. And I think that’s what we’re doing and how the future of that plays out is still very much an unwritten story and not one that is for the next few years, but at some point in the future there’ll be decisions made.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s a story of many Canadian businesses, irrespective of size and scale and longevity is succession planning in the next generation and getting it right. So you’ve got a big job there, but I heard you speak to university students on the subject of leadership more broadly. One of the things you said in there is you succeed by doing what’s right. What do you mean by that?

Jeffrey Orr:

I think people have the impression, particularly when they’re new in their careers, that there’s a different set of ethics and values that apply in business than apply in their personal lives. And I think that’s not the case. I think in fact, people succeed by bringing the same values that they have and that they’re taught by their parents and taught in their family life and how they would treat their friends. Those same values apply in business equally. And I think people that exhibit those values overwhelmingly are helped by that. And people that exhibit poor values, if they do succeed, it’s in spite of those poor values. So I tell everyone everything I learned about business in terms of when I have a tough decision to make, I think back to what my mom told me and I go there for guidance, and it almost always works out. And the tougher the decision, the more you rely on the same basic instincts and same basic values.

Goldy Hyder:

Our audience didn’t see how I smiled at you when you said that because when I do television, what I’m often thinking about is what would my mom say if I said this to this person now? And that’s great advice. I mean, it’s about core values and basic principles. Having said that, business is in a lot of limelight these days around the world and it’s getting a bad rap from many. And I know you’ve talked about the fact that there are turkeys amongst all society, but what does business need to do to sort of reestablish its role as a force for good in our society?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, that’s a really tough question. I wish I had an answer to that question and I don’t Goldy. I wish I had pearls …

Goldy Hyder:

It might be doing what you said, doing what’s right.

Jeffrey Orr:

I think it is doing what’s right. I think it is also I guess being more visible in what we do. In this way a lot of talk about ESG. Is ESG a good thing or is it a bad thing? I think in good companies have been doing well for society for a long time. They’ve been creating jobs. If they don’t serve their clients, they don’t stay in business very long. So good businesses are in effect about providing value to their communities and their societies. I think maybe with ESG today we’re being all held accountable to keeping score and tracking it, which is probably a good thing. But whether that’s enough to have citizens of the country view business as a force for good or not, I don’t know, I hope it is. I suspect it won’t be.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, part of leadership of course also requires what you described as luck. Tell me anything in your life that sort of amounted to a role of luck for you that turned out well.

Jeffrey Orr:

I view luck as a big part of everything. The luck for me was having people who believed in me, and having met some people who looked at me and said, “Jeff, you can make it. You’re working hard, you’re honest, you’re doing all the right things. Do you realize how good you are?” And you bump into two or three of those people across a career and you go, “Am I ever lucky that I met them.” Because they helped me hugely by, in fact, increasing my own self-belief.

Goldy Hyder:

Did they validate what you believed or did they instill that in you?

Jeffrey Orr:

A little bit of both. A couple of those … Well, actually maybe all of them. I can think of a person who prior to me going to university said to me, “You should go to the Western Business School.” And I said, “Where’s that? Is that out on the West coast or something?” I had no idea. And they said, “No, it’s the best business school in the country and you could do really well.” So there was that. And then a couple of people in business who believed in me but also coached me as well. So that is the luckiest thing. I mean, I can go through all kinds of things that this worked, that didn’t work.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s the people you meet along the way.

Jeffrey Orr:

It’s the people you meet along the way.

Goldy Hyder:

Now through that you’ve established your own sort of leadership approach, your leadership style. I enjoyed a couple of things I read about your approach to leadership. One is you had indicated that, look, there’s a perception that leaders operate at 50,000 feet and that they don’t get into the weeds and that you have said, in fact leadership is the capacity to know when to be at 50,000 feet, when to get into the weeds and how quickly to pull back up. Tell us more about how do you go about balancing that?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, it’s very hard, but I would say you oscillate between 50,000 feet and going right down into the grass and then going back up again. And you just do it in order to be able to have your team and the people around you ensure that they’re looking through the details and that they are in fact paying attention to all that they need to to make good decisions. But if you linger too long, you’re going to end up not making the proper decisions and not focusing on the right things. So it’s a bit of a discipline. We talk about it a lot in our group, it’s kind of the leadership being able to not just be so high that they have no idea what’s really going on. You make bad decisions that way, but when you get down into the details you don’t stay there for too long.

Goldy Hyder:

Yeah, it’s difficult to find the right balance though. You’ve got competent, capable people running these other companies. At what point do you might feel like, am I micromanaging?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, so there’s so many times in my career and I think both when I was with BMO Nesbitt Burns as I was kind of growing up there in business and also here at Power Corp where I walked into situations where I thought I knew everything and I didn’t. I’ll tell you one story where Robert Gratton, who was the CEO of Power Financial when I was the CEO of Investors Group. And I called him up and I said, “I’d like to come down and Robert, I wonder if you had a few hours for me, I’d like to talk about the distribution strategy of Investors Group.” And he said, “No, I don’t.” And I said, “Well, Robert, that’s crazy.” I mean-

Jeffrey Orr:

Can’t spend a couple of hours? He said, “I’ll give you eight hours or two days if you’d like, but I’m not going to give you two hours. That’s not a real discussion. We won’t even get into it.” And then I said, “Okay great, and then I’d like to bring this individual with me.” And he said, “No, I’d like you to come alone.” I said, “But Robert, the person is responsible for the strategy it’s their area, it is their strategy.” And he said, “Exactly, when you’re prepared to come and speak to me for a day or two days by yourself, I’ll know it’s your strategy.” And he was teaching me a lesson to go in deep and own it myself. And yes, we’re going to be having a high level discussion but you have to own it. And so whether that’s right or that’s wrong as a business approach, that is the philosophy we’ve had here.

Goldy Hyder:

Good lesson. The other thing that I wanted to just cap off the discussion on leadership on is something I’ve experienced personally as well is the perception that leadership is about being decisive and that if you take too long, you’re indecisive. And I read that you had said, in fact, more often than not, leadership is about slowing that process down. And I know when I’ve done that people think I’m indecisive, but there’s a reason we do it. How is it that you’re thinking about that?

Jeffrey Orr:

That’s one of the hardest things about leadership I find because everyone wants to have a direction and they want to get energized by a decisive leader. And yet on the more difficult questions, you actually need to take time and do more homework and you need to energize people about what we need to learn and what we need to go and do and come back in a week once that work has been done to be able to have another discussion around it. And I think it’s a really difficult part. Often say at the end of a meeting when we’ve gone around it and there’s consensus, I would go, “Okay great, everybody go home and have a sleep and we’ll have a conversation in the morning and see if we still feel the same way.” It gives perspective as well.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s a critical lesson of leadership and I know from experience that sometimes just that patience, that time creates a moment to think about something else where the group think didn’t allow for it and it might change the trajectory, maybe only once out of 20 times, but it could be pivotal.

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, I think it’s more than once out of 20 times. I think when you take a little bit more time and get the decision right, you avoid a lot of mistakes and that’s important.

Goldy Hyder:

All right, let’s switch journey here a little bit about your own journey, where you come from, what you’ve been doing and so forth. You had a young family I guess when you first started out, they’re now three adult children. I’m wondering thinking back, life was very different, environment was very different, socially and otherwise. If you could do it differently, would you do it differently or do you like the way you did it?

Jeffrey Orr:

I think that I at one point made a decision to work in another city. The family was in Toronto when I was working in Winnipeg and a friend of mine said, “Hey, I’ve been asked to be a CEO in a western company and I’m going to stay in Toronto, and you did it and I think I’m going to do that.” And I immediately said, “No, don’t do that.” And I realized at that moment that that was maybe as close as I’d come to admitting to myself that wasn’t the right thing to do. Just because there were a few years where I was away from the kids more than I would’ve liked to have been.

But generally speaking, I look at where my children have turned out and what my wife Susie and I have done together. She certainly with more hours, but I feel like I’ve put a lot of energy and time into them. I mean, we took an attitude that we were going to work and then when we weren’t working, we were going to be with our family. So Saturday nights, Friday night invitations, a dinner invitation, oh, are the kids invited? Are you doing this as a family? And I can’t tell you how many times if it was not with the family we were saying, “We’re going to stay home.” And so we didn’t have a lot of room outside of work and family, but it’s worked out really well.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s a different era in which we’re speaking of course. Post-COVID there’s much discussion taking place about an issue you and I have talked about before, which is the so-called return to office. What are your thoughts on this issue? How do we find the right balance?

Jeffrey Orr:

I have no doubt that people working together in physical proximity, seeing each other, having the spontaneous conversations, the creativity, the learning is essential for people’s own personal developments, for teams to develop for culture. Does that need to be five days a week, Monday to Friday? No, of course it doesn’t. Technology will continue to play a role, but we’ve got to get people in a place where they’re spending a lot of their time working together. So I don’t have the exact formula. Technology is going to change how that works as well. I could not have imagined pre-COVID with Teams and Zoom and that that we could have even been doing what we’re doing now. And I think it’s great that we are,

Goldy Hyder:

You can have a board meeting now, an AGM I think on Zoom.

Jeffrey Orr:

We do all of that and having people spending a day or two and being more flexible and being able to be at home or being able to be somewhere else where they’re working, it’s all great, but I think that getting people into physical locations working is the goal, and how that works is going to be different for every company.

Goldy Hyder:

I’ve got young children as well, I mean, young … they’re young adults and we’re talking a lot about this issue and trying to find some common ground. It’s been difficult to be honest. What’s the role of employers though in creating the conditions that not just speak to the reasons but provide the opportunities for these? Because there’s many employers, and I know government in particular, my daughter goes to work with a computer that’s just unplugged every day and bring back the charger and they go there to log on to Microsoft Teams. Are employers really the ones that are going to have to pull this back into some kind of a new normal where there is that collaboration, that co-creation, that integration?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah. I think we have to create environments where people are happy to come to work, where it’s easy, where it’s more productive, where people realize the benefits of being there and then my hope and it’s only the hope is that you get people back together working together. They’re going to realize the benefits and they’re going to want to be part of it. So employers have to do everything they can to make the environment great and to facilitate that.

And then also I think be respectful that different groups of employees are in different circumstances. So people who are working in certain jobs where they can be remote, some people that are not earning the same income as others, depending on what roles they’re in, who were spending three hours commuting and lots of their paycheque and disposable income to get to and from work. I think we should be a lot more flexible. So it’s also not one size fits all even within an organization. Now you’ve got to be … I think there’s a lot of thinking and a lot of good that’s going to come out of this by the way. I think it will improve the quality of life of people overall that they can work more remotely using technology. How do we do it where we don’t give up all the creativity, the mentoring, the learning, that’s the art here.

Goldy Hyder:

And many companies, our colleagues around the Business Council that I’ve spoken with, first of all I’ve never heard anybody say it’s because they don’t trust my employees or that they’re not working. I’ve not heard single one say that. What they’re all really believing in is the need for what you’ve described, which is really culture and the importance that every one of our companies thinks that they have the secret sauce and it’s their culture. That culture in some ways now’s going to have to evolve, isn’t it? It’s going to have to be some employees who never come to your office.

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, it’s culture but it’s also creativity and learning and spontaneity. When you meet with people in person, you have 10 conversations that you didn’t have when you’re on a Teams call in those little three or four minutes while you’re waiting for the last person to join and that’s the social aspect of a Teams call and then you’re onto the business. When you’re meeting in person, you’re having five conversations in the hallway, in and out of the meeting, after the meeting.

Goldy Hyder:

… washroom, parking lot, the reception …

Jeffrey Orr:

Meeting’s over, two people stay and have a conversation for 15 minutes. That’s the way relationships are formed, ideas are exchanged and I think, I don’t know how you replace that, I really don’t.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, just wrapping up this section, combining what we were just talking about, one of the things I’d also read I wanted to allude to earlier is you said a lot of time people are focused what they want to be as opposed to who they should be and who they want to be. Tell me more why you feel that way.

Jeffrey Orr:

Because I believe that that’s how you progress through your career and your life. I actually never had dreams of being a CEO. I didn’t. I just was so … I was pleased where I was working and I wanted to advance for sure. I’m not saying I wasn’t ambitious, I worked really, really hard, but I just tried to do the best that I could and contribute more. Again, it goes back to my mother, give more than you take back, and you take that attitude at work or on a job or you’re working with your colleagues and you take that attitude and great things happen. And so that comes down to aspire to be a good person, aspire to be a contributing member of a team, aspire to do your best. All of those things, you do them and then good things happen. And whether you end up in this role or that role, at that point, it almost doesn’t matter. People work hard, put a lot of smarts and energy in and they’re going to do well and have a good career. I really believe that.

Goldy Hyder:

Let’s talk a little bit about the global environment in which we’re operating. In C-Suites, everywhere I go, there’s a lot of focus on what might be an inflection point in our history. That things are changing, democracies are really being challenged, less of them today than there were just a couple of decades ago. You navigate through businesses that are looking long-term, and long-term horizons. We’re witnessing the turning inward of many countries. We’re seeing some argue the creation of two worlds in some ways. How are you as an investor thinking about the long term and what are shifting quicksand literally these days?

Jeffrey Orr:

I think that I, on the one hand, see more opportunity than I’ve ever seen, and that technology continues to provide opportunities to change business models and advance business models for the betterment of everyone. I think that’s the great opportunity. I’ve never witnessed the message being so diffuse so that so many different groups of people have completely different perspectives about what the truth is. And that’s resulting in a splintering of politics and a splintering of opinions and I don’t know how to pull that together at this point. Political leadership, business leadership, we’ve got a great opportunity out there in the world. Technology is the friend of society, it’s actually the friend of progress, I believe, in terms of making more people participate, and I think history has shown that.

And yet it’s also resulted right now, whereas maybe if you go back 10 years ago, people had two or three versions of the truth depending on what network you were watching or what media you were following. And now there’s a million versions of the truth and I worry about society not being pulled together and being able to act in a cohesive fashion. Again, I wish I had an answer to that question, but I live in hope. I’m an optimist and I live in hope that at some point people will get tired of the disruptiveness and the negativity that’s going on in politics and someone or some people will come out and have a vision that assembles people around some middle view of the world. And I live in hope that the fatigue of what we’re going through right now will allow some leaders to emerge that do that.

Goldy Hyder:

What can we do though? What can the business community do to give people that hope at a time where, as you’ve said, people are kind of going to their own corners?

Jeffrey Orr:

Continue to do the right thing, continue to build businesses that provide value, continue to try and be a positive force in society. I do want to say, Goldy, the dichotomy between business leaders and the image that we have in the public and what I actually see amongst my colleagues that are running businesses is huge. Whenever there’s an issue that the Business Council talks about, across the board the CEOs are there trying to do the right thing for the country.

They really care about how do we advance the country, how do we advance the agenda, how do we make Canadians lives better? And yet of course in a backdrop that we’re all running businesses, but that’s what they care about. But as spokespeople ourselves, we stand up and it’s, you’re immediately thrown under the bus for being a business leader. I think we just have to continue to act well, do the right thing, build good businesses and try and work with other groups in society increasingly so that it’s not just coming from our voice, but we’re working with other groups that see that we’re building a common front. That’s probably the answer. And you’ve done some great work on facilitating that yourself, by the way.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, I mean, look, I think the credit goes to Canadians. I’ve always believed that you should never underestimate the collective wisdom of the Canadian people and too many of them are silent today and they need to speak up and we need to create the forums for them to do that. You mentioned the role of businesses is just beyond running your business. There’s an expectation in society, there’s at least a very significant transition underway right now where leadership is required, and that is the energy transition, the climate change agenda. Where are we with that in your mind, and are we having the right discussions in terms of how we’re going to get to where we need to get to?

Jeffrey Orr:

I think that the public dialogue is not realistic as to how we’re going to get there. First, let me say, I think that the global climate challenge, global warming, that is amongst the very, very highest priorities we have as a people to solve. But getting a solution has got to be one that actually works. And having an unrealistic dialogue that we’re going to cut ourselves off from fossil fuels in a short period of time and just take the capital away from all the energy companies is not a solution, that’s going to hit a brick wall. And so I think we should be providing capital to companies that are in the energy business. Why are we punishing the suppliers of energy when all the rest of us who are using it are getting away without any real repercussions? I would be having a much more realistic debate, provide capital to energy companies, help them provide cleaner energy, get there on a realistic route and not an unrealistic route. And I think a lot of the public dialogue and expectations are not realistic.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, the role of innovation is certainly paramount to this.

Jeffrey Orr:

And innovation needs people and money, and so the mantra is for all global and leading investors to cut off the taps and just freeze out the energy companies from capital and we’re somehow going to solve this issue. It’s the opposite. I mean, we’ve got to help companies become cleaner and cleaner and cleaner and eventually wean ourselves from fossil fuel. That’s probably where it goes to, but we’re not going to get there on the route we are following right now.

Goldy Hyder:

One of the places that doesn’t go over very well is in the province we’re sitting in right now, and obviously they’re heavily reliant on hydro, but how do we make that case that we’re kind of all in this together when it comes to that sector? It’s 10% of our GDP.

Jeffrey Orr:

It’s what I talked about earlier. I don’t have an answer to that question. That’s where everyone’s version of the truth ends up being different. In this province, you couldn’t have a pipeline that was basically already there that could have transported oil of all places. And so we’re still transporting oil by rail and we’ve seen how disastrous that can be here in Quebec and yet you still didn’t have the public support. So decision making is difficult when you have everyone’s different views of the facts. It’s a tough one, but again, maybe it’s working more closely together between government, private sector and other parts of society to try and make more informed decisions.

Goldy Hyder:

I raised Quebec because I do want to ask you for the benefit of our listeners and the rest of the country, how is this province doing? What’s going on? The reporting sometimes isn’t always the same outside of Quebec than it is inside Quebec. Are the minds and issues that Quebecers are dealing with the same as the rest of us or are you focused on other things here?

Jeffrey Orr:

They are the same and I think that Quebec is actually doing pretty well right now. So first of all, just looking at Montreal itself, there’s a technology boom going on here and a job growth boom. And I’ve been in and out of Quebec for the last 40 odd years, and at times it hasn’t felt very vibrant and there are more young people walking around the streets and more jobs being created here in technology.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s an AI hub.

Jeffrey Orr:

It’s an AI hub, but it’s more than that. It’s been a software hub.

Goldy Hyder:

Gaming.

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, it’s gaming, but it’s all the software and it’s still got its roots in engineering and all that came up, the history of this city who had a great engineering background. So I think that’s a Montreal view. I think actually Quebec is doing well. I think that the politics always get tough, and the laws around immigration, some of the laws around languages continue to make it a difficult environment and one from the outside that always looks like it’s being extreme. I think anyone who’s going to be in a political leadership position here is going to be sensitive to the language issues and that results in all kinds of-

Goldy Hyder:

Totally understandable.

Jeffrey Orr:

All kinds of political decisions. Sometimes they’re smart, sometimes they’re not smart. From within Quebec it feels better than when I’m traveling outside of Quebec and hearing people talk about what’s happening in the province.

Goldy Hyder:

You feel good about the federation overall?

Jeffrey Orr:

I am worried that we are getting the same fractured leadership that we’ve had in the U.S. It’s not as extreme, but I think populism is-

Goldy Hyder:

Knows no boundaries.

Jeffrey Orr:

It’s pretty prevalent in Canadian political debates and I don’t hear a lot of discussions around the real issues, and that worries me a lot about where we’re headed. But we have a great country going here and we still have fundamentally great things happening and great values. Someday somebody’s going to stand up here and try and pull everyone together into the centre and lead us to where I think we can be, because very uniquely positioned in Canada, I think.

Goldy Hyder:

Now you’re also of course very active in the United States and I’m wondering in your experience now, how concerned are you about what’s going on down there?

Jeffrey Orr:

Well, you have to be concerned as a citizen of Canada and a citizen of the world, but I would never bet against the United States. I think the United States has got ultimately fantastic …

Goldy Hyder:

When it wants to do something …

Jeffrey Orr:

… people get things done. I mean, if we want to contrast, it’s often very difficult to get something done in Canada, making a major decision. People and my colleagues say, “Why would I put a lot of capital to invest in Canada because it’s just hard to get things done?” In the United States, you get things done and they get on with making changes and the business environment is the same. So we have put a lot of our capital into the United States in the last several years we’ve built up, now we’re the second largest retirement group, retirement provider after Fidelity with our subsidiary Empower. We have 18 million Americans that we look after their savings at work. And so we’re building a great business there and we’ve done that over a very short 25 years, I’d say.

Goldy Hyder:

Quite the achievement.

Jeffrey Orr:

It’s a fantastic place to do business and I wouldn’t bet against the United States ultimately pulling their act together here politically as well. I certainly hope they do.

Goldy Hyder:

How do you feel about the U.S.-Canada relationship and where we are in our history with them?

Jeffrey Orr:

We have to continue to do things to remind them of how important the relationship is. I had lots of jokes in the last few weeks about sending smoke down their way just to remind them who we were and that we could cause some trouble once in a while. No, but I think the relationship is still fundamentally healthy. I think we just need to be vigilant in reminding our American friends that we have a great relationship with Canada and they benefit from it hugely. We do as well. And not to forget it, not to take it for granted.

Goldy Hyder:

Big picture, obviously there’s a lot going on in terms of realignment of the world, if you will. How concerned are you, I raised this earlier, about just the challenges that democracies are presenting in society, citizens including business.

Jeffrey Orr:

Again, concerned. So if you go back over history, history has ebbed and flowed in periods where people are globalizing. And the United States itself goes through periods where it’s thinking globally and then it gets very myopic and thinks internally. We’ve gone through post-World War II, 45 years of globalization and reaching out in the world, getting closer together, and we’ve been on a tack now for five or 10 years where it’s feels like it’s moving in the other direction. You can’t help but be concerned that that doesn’t get out of whack and we don’t get into more military conflicts.

That would ultimately be an awful thing for all of us in every dimension. And so I’m worried about it, but I think what can people do and what can business do? I actually think when relationships get tense between countries, the politicians need to be and are often the ones leading the beating up of the other country. But there are lots of other relations that exist between countries internationally, and there are personal and family relations, there are sports and cultural ties, there are business relations and I think those other parts of the relationships between countries need to continue to operate well, and need to keep the lines of communication open even when our political leaders are in a position where they need to be browbeating the other side.

Goldy Hyder:

It’s long been said that capital is mobile and talent is mobile. Am I wrong in saying that that just seems even more so the case today?

Jeffrey Orr:

You bet. Most companies are able, certainly, most large companies are able to invest their capital, make decisions as to where they’re going to put it and where they’re not going to put it.

Goldy Hyder:

Where do they put it? Tell me why they choose to put it somewhere else than here.

Jeffrey Orr:

It’s always about opportunity and where you see an opportunity to increase a business, to build something that’s more successful and more meaningful, and where you can do that in a way that you have confidence that you’re going to get it done. And as much as I say we love Canada and we have big positions here, at net, we’ve put a lot more of our capital in the United States in the last several years than we have in Canada. And that’s because the opportunities for growth are better there.

Goldy Hyder:

How do we control our own destiny here? How do we shape the future of this country so that it is one of prosperity and inclusive growth for all? How do we get to that place?

Jeffrey Orr:

So we’ve got a lot of things going for us having said that. We have a democracy, we have an educated country, we have got great resources, we’ve got a great quality of life. We are tolerant of other societies, pro-immigration. We don’t always help the people when they do get here, they don’t get accreditations. We make it difficult on them, but in fact we’re welcoming. So we have all of those advantages, but we need to couple that with an environment where business feels that they can invest, not just business, small business, medium business, big business, that they can get things done, they can get decisions made. We need to continue to invest in technology and productivity.

Ultimately, if our standard of living falls too far behind other countries, this is not going to be the great place that people want to work. We need better policy. I guess we need better policymaking at the top.

Because decisions matter and we need to have a policy-based leadership in Canada. And I feel we’ve gotten away from that.

Goldy Hyder:

It allows me to make a point I heard from Suzanne Clark, who is the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is the largest business organization in the world. They did an analysis using AI on the S&P 500 and what is the most increase in risks for boards to manage as we look forward. The highest ranking increase at a jump of 26% was public policy. You mentioned capital seems to be an issue for a lot of corporations. What I’m actually hearing from them is they would invest the capital it’s the regulatory predictability that they’re looking for.

Jeffrey Orr:

You bet. You bet, absolutely. But again, I want to come back to perhaps we’ve got to do it a different way. So in your questions here, I’ve complained that when business stands up, we don’t have a voice because we’re immediately viewed as being “you’re in it for your own good here.” So getting more ability to get different parts of society together, spending time together and to kind of come to a common understanding that we actually have to do the right thing together as a way of getting broader support for key policy initiatives has got to be part of the answer.

Goldy Hyder:

Just a final thought, again, because you operate in both U.S. and Canada, is there culturally just a difference where we kind of settle?

Jeffrey Orr:

Yeah, I think there is an element of aggressiveness and decisiveness in the U.S. that is a notch above what exists in Canada. Like I said earlier, I think there’s pros and cons to making decisions in a more thoughtful way. I don’t sell Canada short either. I guess to me it comes down to making the right policy decisions and I think Canadians built a pretty good country here and can hold their own anywhere. So I don’t hold the Canadian psyche as a disadvantage against the American psyche. They’re different for sure.

Goldy Hyder:

Well, you’ve proven it at Power, you’ve proven it through your leadership and I know that those who listened have certainly learned a lot from you. I want to thank you for doing this.

Jeffrey Orr:

Goldy, thank you. And thanks for all the great work you do at the Business Council.

Goldy Hyder:

Jeffrey Orr is the president and CEO of Power Corporation. If you’d like to hear more insights from Canada’s leading employers, I encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, look for Speaking of Business wherever you get your podcasts, or go to our website at thebusinesscouncil.ca. That’s the business council.ca. And if you like what you hear, please give us a review and even if you don’t give us one anyways. Until next time, I’m Goldy Hyder. Thanks for joining us.