#71: Brian Langis; Brookfield Asset Management; Why The Modern Shareholder Activist Is Inferior To Cultural Activism

Wednesday Oct 30, 2019

Show Summary

Happy day before Halloween! This is a very special episode of The Intelligent Investing Podcast. I bring Brian Langis back on the show to discuss Brookfield Asset Management which we have discussed before. We go into some of the slides from Brookfield Investor Day 2019 on both Brookfield Asset Management and also some of their subs such as Brookfield Business Partners. We discuss larger trends, low and negative interest rates, valuations, and culture.

Cultural Activism

We spend quite a while on the cultural activism going on at Brookfield Business Partners led by their COO, Denis Turcotte. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Brookfield Investor Day and noticed he wasn't just giving lip service to culture but actually doing it and knew he didn't learn this from business school. Many of you don't know this but I have a 10 year background in transformational coaching and a 7 year background specifically on organizational culture- not just understanding it but actually empowering organizations to elevate it. Brookfield Business Partners is actually working with businesses to elevate culture not just talk about it and no surprise, profits go up!

Better Culture Equals Greater Profits

One of the things I have discussed with my colleagues John King and Scott Forgey is that greater culture equates to greater profits. John King is the inventor of Tribal Leadership which is the most cutting edge and leading cultural transformation technology on the planet. Scott Forgey is working with me on empowering organizations to elevate their culture, except we are focusing on public companies. When an organization goes from what is known as Stage 2 to Stage 4, profits go up by an average of 300% - 500%.