This October, I had an opportunity to head out to Vancouver and meet our west coast clients. Taking a step back and learning from our users is an important part of our culture of continuous improvement. Our team spends time in the weeds – poring over the little things and trying to perfect the software platform. Getting to meet users, especially in-person, is a great reminder of the impact we hope to make.

As part of our trip, we sat down with Rhea Halfnight LeFlufy from Ascot Resources. This was our first-time meeting in person, which made us extra excited. Rhea works closely with Nisg̲a’a Nation as part of the Premier Gold Mine project with Ascot. Rhea uses the NetBenefit platform to document meetings, contacts, and commitments. For her, staying on top of required actions and keeping information organized ensures important things don’t fall through the cracks.

Rhea spoke about the importance of building meaningful relationships. Not simply creating a transactional relationship that just checks the boxes, but a true, genuine partnership. “Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. We are on treaty lands and long-lasting relationships are mutually beneficial”, Rhea says.

Genuine relationships are built over time by listening, learning, and fostering trust. Of course, there’s much more than that. “It’s important to have integrity and be meaningful with how you engage”, she continues. “It’s about being the real you. You need to want to listen, want to hear new perspectives, and want to learn about what people care about.”

Rhea works with others, internally and externally, to maintain strong relationships and ensure that commitments are being fulfilled. To be successful, an organization must commit from top to bottom. “This takes a lot of education internally. It’s about repetition and breaking through old habits”, Rhea added. “It’s important to remember this ‘buy-in’ doesn’t just happen once. It is a continuous choice and requires ongoing actions.”

Having this conversation with Rhea and similar conversations with other users is inspiring. Ascot is a company with a history of strong, responsible development and takes engagement with rightsholders seriously. The Premier Gold Mine project is profiled and used as an example of great engagement in the recently released, Weaving Two Worlds, a novel by Christie Smith and Mike McPhie. Seeing Ascot leverage technology to improve their processes further is a testament to their leadership in the space.

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To learn more about how Ascot Resources is using the NetBenefit Platform, check out our case study.

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