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Matthew Powell: The Long Game is a Moral Choice
34 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Eric talks with Matthew Powell, fourth-generation steward of Century Companies, about what it means to build a business designed to last for decades rather than quarters.
Matthew shares his path from Wall Street and investment banking into a 100+ year family enterprise, and how that transition reshaped how he thinks about leadership, success, and responsibility. At the center of the conversation is stewardship: the idea that leaders are temporarily borrowing an organization from future generations, not optimizing it for a quick exit.
They explore why family businesses can think differently about people, profit, and time, and how long-term thinking changes everything from culture and governance to daily decision-making. Matthew explains Century’s operating pillars—stewardship, humanity, and compounding—and how those principles guide the company through growth, tension, and inevitable messiness.
The conversation also moves beyond business mechanics into mortality, meaning, and the role work can play as one of the last true gathering places in modern life. Matthew reflects on loss, urgency, reading as a discipline, and why building a healthy work community may be one of the most practical ways leaders can have lasting impact.
This is a thoughtful discussion for founders, CEOs, family business leaders, and anyone questioning whether success has to mean short-term wins at the expense of people and purpose.
Topics Covered
- What it means to steward a company for future generations
- Why family businesses can play a longer game than public or private-equity-owned firms
- The difference between a business as a financial instrument and a work community
- Compounding as a leadership principle, not just a financial one
- The tension between love and profit, and why both are necessary
- How reading, reflection, and “daily vitamins” shape better decision-making
- Mortality, urgency, and why work is not a dress rehearsal
- Why leaders unintentionally drift into short-term thinking
- What healthy governance looks like in multi-generation companies
Episode Links
- Century Companies: https://www.centurycompanies.com
- Matthew Powell’s website: https://www.matthewpowell.com
- Connect with Matthew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewwpowell/
- Related conversation with Greg Bergdorf: https://unfoldingthought.com/greg-bergdorf-from-guitar-riffs-to-real-estate-pitches/
For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com
Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Family Business Legacy
00:00:02
Speaker
Matthew, thank you for joining me. Where does today's recording find you? You find me in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is where I live and where I work. How do you describe yourself?
00:00:14
Speaker
in know In a work setting, I describe myself as a fourth generation steward of my family business. And for me, that's a very important word. I think that'll come out a lot in our in our conversation today, Eric.
Stewardship for Future Generations
00:00:28
Speaker
ah Because for me, to to be a part of something that is so much bigger than myself, I always try to remind myself that that I am borrowing this organization from my grandchildren.
00:00:40
Speaker
Okay, so I have read your book, Built to Flourish. And when we talked just a few weeks ago in advance of recording, I was not aware that you had written a book at that time. I probably just hadn't done my research, unfortunately, though I do my research in advance of recording. And so I saw you had written a book and and read it.
00:01:03
Speaker
And I'll tell you all about what I thought about it and all that in a minute. But I think I recall in the book that you phrase things in that way, something along the lines of borrowing the the business from your grandchildren or stewarding it for them. And you talk about other things, like as you go down through the generations of a family, that the sort of stakeholders or the people that are involved spread out a bit. You know, you get the siblings generation, then you get cousins and so on. So when you said just a minute ago, know, I think it was borrowing, if I recall correctly, the the business from your grandchildren, it actually struck me more
00:01:47
Speaker
strongly, I guess, more profoundly than actually even when I read it in the book.
Challenges in Family Business
00:01:52
Speaker
I try to do that for myself because in in family business, it there's a lot of reasons you can get upset. And I have to remind myself that the ego is the enemy. So I always try to find ways to use my language to remind myself that it's not about me.
00:02:07
Speaker
that this will relate a little bit to the book. And I know it's been a bit since you published the book, so I don't know how much you talk about it, but I, I know that it's already clear in the discussion, right? That you have some level of interest in family businesses and long-term thinking. So let me ask you about the book first.
00:02:35
Speaker
How, I've read it. I really liked it. I thought actually you have probably the strongest opening of any, I'm going to call it quote unquote, small book that I've read. You know, it's not like you're a big published author, right? And so when somebody writes a book because they just have it in them or they have a story that they want to tell or whatever,
00:02:57
Speaker
it really runs the gamut of length and quality and whatever. And so reading when when you start talking about the story or timeline of your family, and then you get up to when you come into the business and you talk about moving after working for a few years, if I recall correctly, and then you you know get into the family business,
00:03:23
Speaker
It was just a really great read, that part of the book. And then there are other aspects that speak very strongly to me. I won't keep going on, but I've read the book when, know, how do you describe the book, I guess?
Journey into Family Business
00:03:41
Speaker
It came together by happenstance. i So I was going through my family business journey. I never had any plans of joining my family business. My grandfather, second generation of the family business, Century Companies, he had six daughters and none of them joined the family business. So my mom married a doctor and that took me out to the East Coast.
00:04:05
Speaker
And that was where I was raised and that was where my roots were. And after after college, I decided I wanted to go on Wall Street. And i it happened that I was really focused on, can I make as much money as fast as possible?
00:04:21
Speaker
And I realized pretty darn quick that that wasn't for me. And it it wasn't the journey that I wanted to go on. It wasn't what I wanted to optimize for. And so that's what prompted me to give my grandfather a phone call.
00:04:36
Speaker
ah to see if there'd be an opportunity to join the family business after helping sell family businesses. Once I joined the family business, I realized I didn't know where to turn to get the wisdom that I wanted for what I was going through because I felt quite lost. when i When I joined my family business, it was pretty lonesome because I didn't have any peers anymore that I was joining as a family member, which you can't hide that when you join a family business.
00:05:06
Speaker
And I didn't know anyone in Wisconsin. So I i started reading and and I started journaling. And it was through that practice of journaling that I started to find myself. And over seven years of of journaling, I realized that maybe I had something that could be helpful to others that are in a similar boat.
00:05:25
Speaker
And I've become very passionate over this experience over a decade now in family business, that family business can be the greatest force for good, that it can be the ultimate unlock of ourselves, our team, and ultimately performance, which is what most people focus on.
00:05:41
Speaker
But I think if you focus on yourself and your team, you can get nonlinear returns. Can you remind me of the, i guess, evolution or the the history of the business that
Evolution of Century Companies
00:05:54
Speaker
you're running?
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah, this is our fourth name change in over 108 years. And I always remind myself that the only constant is change. And so we've changed our name from my great-grandfather. it was called Henry Bryant & Company, then Waukesha Steel Products, that Century Fence, And then now it's century companies.
00:06:13
Speaker
Does the change from century fence to century companies signal something? It does. it it it was, ah we decided we didn't want to be labeled by a product or one service. We wanted to open it up to, we're in the safety and security industry.
00:06:32
Speaker
So how can we serve that marketplace more effectively? And hence, now we have three operating companies, Century Fence, Century Traffic, and Century Security. So it okay it has helped us, I believe, very strongly in language. It helped us as a family, as a board, and as as employees and teammates to think bigger. And how can we service a marketplace that I think safety and security is a ah timeless industry to be in.
00:06:58
Speaker
And it's a good space for us to to compound and serve. So when you talk about the the three areas that you're working in or the business, if I can refer to it in the singular. Yeah.
00:07:12
Speaker
but What sort of size business are we talking about, whether it's people or revenue or however you might describe
Family Business as a Force for Good
00:07:19
Speaker
it? we're We're a nine figure business and we, we support over 300 families in the work that we do.
00:07:26
Speaker
Okay. So not a small operation. Yeah. it's It's gotten bigger and I feel very blessed that that we have just such an incredible team and we we know who we are so that we we can move forward.
00:07:39
Speaker
Tell me about family business and what you why that is such a big thing in in your opinion. So i I believe so strongly in family businesses can be the greatest force for good because we can be unreasonable in our care for our teammates. Because it's when we go to a meeting with our shareholders, we can we can keep the spirit alive and we're not focused on a five-year flip or a quarterly earnings number to benefit some 401k plan for so for some limited partner or shareholder. So we can we can come to the table to build a gathering hall.
00:08:20
Speaker
and And with time, if you are thinking in decades or even centuries, like we are at Century Companies, that allows you to unlock the superpower of compounding.
00:08:32
Speaker
i think I think humans, it's hard for us to really appreciate the function of nonlinear. And you see it in history. but When you look at John Wooden, it took him 15 years just to get his first NCAA tournament win.
00:08:48
Speaker
When you look at Sam Walton's growth, it took him two decades to start having multiple locations. Just all great things take time. And it comes from a place of compounding. And I think just family businesses, we need to remind ourselves of that.
00:09:02
Speaker
Because it's so easy to get frustrated at the Thanksgiving table or at Easter or like there's just such an opportunity for us to just win together along the way.
00:09:15
Speaker
Okay. So when you say family businesses, then it sounds to me like you, one of the criteria is that it's a privately owned business. So it's not a third generation or whatever it is, CEO who has sold some portion of the business to private equity or gone public or whatever else it is.
00:09:37
Speaker
I'm guessing, let's, let's say largely owned by the family. Yes. if it's If it's a financial instrument, I'm not passionate about talking to those types of companies because i think that loses the whole point of business.
00:09:53
Speaker
I think we're here to serve each other. You've got maybe hundreds of books behind you. Reading is clearly something that's of value to you. Did that start at some point in your life that you became a reader or was that always part of you?
Reading and Personal Growth Journey
00:10:09
Speaker
I became a reader so late in life. And i that's if I had to say that I had a regret, it'd be that I didn't start reading ah at a much younger age. I think just for me, school didn't put me in a position to thrive with reading books.
00:10:23
Speaker
So i fortunately, I learned the that it is a superpower to read at the age of 25. And so that's when i started reading. And I think it flexes the muscle of focus because...
00:10:35
Speaker
The distracted will never beat the focused. And it's just, is a a way to flex that muscle to to stay focused. I think that's a competitive advantage for for those of us willing to put in the time.
00:10:46
Speaker
It's actually interesting how you put that as well, because at the time of this recording, i released an episode just over a week ago with this gentleman, Greg Bergdorf, who was signed to, he was a founder of a band called Zebrahead. They were signed to Columbia Records and he was in that band for 20 years before he left to focus on his family. And one of the things that he talked about, and I was really interested in hearing from him, was how much was it hard work?
00:11:21
Speaker
you know, being signed to a record label, a major record label label is not common, right? So you're in, i i don't know that it's exactly like this, but it's like, know, how many high school basketball players or football players or whatever it is, are there in the United States? Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands. And then you go to college,
00:11:43
Speaker
And then you go to the pros and the the number, the percentage of people that make it is just incredibly small. And so I don't know that being signed to a record label is the exact same, but it's got to be similar terms of percentages, roughly.
00:12:00
Speaker
And so I was really curious, how much was it hard work? How much was it right time, right place? And one of the things that he said is, you see it all the time. You see it everywhere. There will be an athlete who is incredibly gifted, but is lazy.
00:12:15
Speaker
And then you'll have somebody who's not quite as gifted, but they work their tail off. And that second person is going to beat the first every single time. I was just talking to my children about that yesterday. Probably talk to them too often about that.
00:12:28
Speaker
It hard work. It will. that There's no shortcuts and you got to take the stairs. And Charlie Munger said it best that wisdom is prevention. and And I just think about books is is the way to the best problem to solve is one is a problem that you don't even need to solve.
00:12:46
Speaker
Is this you know interest century-long thinking or long-term thinking and legacy and family businesses, did that develop over time? Did did it come through some of that reading? or where did that come up in your life?
00:13:03
Speaker
I would say my love of it came from... Having lived in the shortest-term thinking industry of helping sell family businesses and investment banking, it just was so short-term.
00:13:14
Speaker
And I realized I wanted the opposite of that. and and so But I think to your question of of short-term in law and long-term thinking is I'm realizing as I'm reading more about great business builders and fit in successful family businesses is that you hold polar opposites in And you embrace it with the and. Jim Collins coined the term embracing the genius of the and. And it's like being able to hold love and profit, being able to hold fear and courage long term and short term and finding a way to bridge that gap.
00:13:49
Speaker
Okay, so I think you said that you have been in family business for about 10 years. Was there a shift within the business, whether it's when, since you've been in the first seat or when you were in the second seat or whatever eat was there within your business such a long-term focus when you started there or has that changed along with you?
Vision and Values in Family Business
00:14:12
Speaker
As I've become more and more interested in, in playing a game for decades with teammates, I've, that I've been more focused on the longer term. And when I first joined the company, we were about 95 years old as a company, as a family business.
00:14:28
Speaker
And we didn't have values. We didn't have a vision in place. And that that kind of frustrated me. But I realized that it turned into the greatest opportunity to take a rich history and have a blank canvas to then take the best from the past and institutionalize it.
00:14:44
Speaker
So when we're talking about thinking long term, how does that look different from what any other business owner does? For me, when I'm thinking long term, it's you got to ask great questions, I think, to have a good life or a great life. And for me, it comes to what are you optimizing for?
00:15:07
Speaker
I think a lot of companies might say that they they want to play the long-term game, but look at your calendar, look at the way you spend your CapEx. What are you optimizing for?
00:15:18
Speaker
And for, I believe, family businesses, we have the opportunity to optimize for relationships and wisdom. it I would argue most other capital structures can't optimize for that because it's pretty unreasonable, but it's pretty amazing.
00:15:34
Speaker
It feels to me like when you say optimizing for wisdom and things along those lines, like you're suggesting that there's, it's hard to build in some like tribal knowledge or some, but the you know, century companies way of doing things when,
00:15:58
Speaker
One of the options is always just that we could sell off this line of business or that we could sell off this portion of the business. it It sounds to me like you're thinking of your business more like it really is an entity, like it's a living. It's a work community.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah. You wouldn't just sell your, i don't know, you you're in, it's a multi-generation thing that you're in. You wouldn't just sell off one group of cousins. Yes. And i I think I can make it more clear for the wisdom that seeing things for what they really are. ah So i I think a lot of organizations, I've worked in them where it's a parent-child relationship.
00:16:36
Speaker
And the expectation is from companies that or that they treat they treat people like kids, but then they expect them to act like adults where there's an opportunity to treat people like adults. But that's not for everyone. Not everyone wants to be an adult.
00:16:52
Speaker
And it's helping people to to live into that. and And that comes down to managing accountability. And it takes decades to to build a healthy work community, a gathering hall, that that you can do that. I don't know how someone could come into an organization and within three to five years, everyone's adults.
00:17:11
Speaker
and just i what When the culture is parent-child. Right. Tell me what to do. Wouldn't some business owners think, well, if I grow the biggest business and I sell it and I make a bunch of money or whatever, can't I then use that, have a positive impact?
00:17:30
Speaker
I think a lot of people separate Sunday from Monday, but we can integrate. Work-life balance is fiction. And instead of doing a transaction to then do good, why don't you just do good today?
00:17:42
Speaker
well Why don't we just build a gathering hall and and sent people home better than they arrived. I think Mother Teresa said, if you want to change the world, go home and love your family. Well, why don't we help people do that? And I feel very blessed that I've had some teammates that have shared that with me. And I guess i it has deeply impacted me to have a much stronger conviction that that's our opportunity, that that we're not promised tomorrow.
00:18:09
Speaker
And like, it's just that, that lets a leader off the hook. To say, oh, yeah, let me build this for 30 years and then a couple people can win and then good luck.
00:18:19
Speaker
Thanks for your help. You must get into situations where you're having to make decisions where so the tradeoff is sort of. How do we ensure that people continue to want to work here?
00:18:34
Speaker
but also that we don't sacrifice the viability of the business. but That is so important to always highlight. And i I like to speak to the love, but you also have to speak to the profit and profit because you need the oxygen.
00:18:49
Speaker
Like a life well lived, you're breathing oxygen. So you always need that economic engine to be flourishing alongside the people. And I will say, like, I don't have it all figured out by any means. And and actually, I had a ah meeting last week with a teammate that is an A player, and he put in his notice because he wasn't
Building a Flourishing Work Community
00:19:10
Speaker
flourishing.
00:19:10
Speaker
and And, you know, and I take that personally because I want it to be a work community, especially where A players want to be there. And I want to make sure that it's a place where people can see that they can play the game for decades with us.
00:19:25
Speaker
And so it's just front and center that I have those moments and there's things to learn from so that we're better for tomorrow. Now that you've said that, I forget if it was in your book or if it was someone else's book that I read, but I recall this story.
00:19:41
Speaker
So tell me if it was your book of someone saying that they when they had first started sort of managing people, that they took it personally when people would leave.
00:19:53
Speaker
And then they started to think about it in terms of, well, is the person going on to do sort of bigger and better? You know, so this was the launching pad or are they more or less just doing the same thing? So maybe it's a signal that they're just trying to get out of here. I forget if that was your book or not, but it feels to me like you're speaking a bit to that sort of thinking.
00:20:16
Speaker
i I am. It reminded me, I had a board member say to me that if someone isn't a good fit, it helped them go be awesome wherever, wherever they can.
00:20:26
Speaker
There's a lot of ways to take that. ah Yeah, right, right. Yeah. But life life is too short for for anyone to be miserable where where they're working. And I take that very personally.
00:20:38
Speaker
and And I've had life experiences with with death and and very closely to to my heart. And it's been the greatest teacher to have a sense of urgency that we only get 4,000 weeks You've probably seen the graphic of, you know, it's like a bunch of check marks or a bunch of little simple simple icons of people or whatever. And it shows you, well, if you're 50 years old, here's how much time you've spent spent and how much you have left or whatever. And, but I think I recall coming across a similar idea from, is his name Timothy Urban?
00:21:17
Speaker
Yes, yes. An even sort of narrower example that I remember from him was he said something like, by the time you graduate from high school and move out, because most of us move out around about that time, you spent something like 95% of the days that you will ever spend with your parents.
00:21:39
Speaker
And I, and so it's not just life. Like when you're 18, 19, whatever it is, you have so much of your life ahead of you. But also that, that takes me to your 10 years in at your business.
00:21:55
Speaker
And I don't know what your future looks like with, you know, your family business, your family and your relationship with them in business, you know, but it makes me think I had not thought about this before. It also makes me think that if you're going to have an impact, you don't have the rest of your life to be able to have the same kind of impact that you can have within the business.
00:22:22
Speaker
Because I don't know, Matthew 5, 10, 20 years, whenever it is, at some point, you'll be moving on to other things. Yes. I think work-life balance is fiction and it's how do you, how do you integrate and and and how, how do we, how can, how can we build relationships in such a way that it's all sustainable?
00:22:42
Speaker
um I guess I've, I've been in enough peer groups where I've seen people turn into burnt volcanoes, just like just tired volcanoes, just, just exhausted. And it's like, But like people are retiring when they they might be at their most powerful and influential part of their career. Like what if if if we are taking care of ourselves better for another five, 10 year run?
00:23:04
Speaker
I'm curious about your perspective on, you know, what what a family business that can think in terms of decades or centuries can accomplish better than something like a publicly owned business.
00:23:22
Speaker
It takes time to get great at a skill. It takes time to get great at managing people. Leadership is a long-term game. And i I just think playing a long-term game with long-term people is is a very rich journey.
00:23:36
Speaker
And it's hard to play that when you have to make decisions for the short-term in such a way that it might compromise the long-term of the people in the organization.
00:23:49
Speaker
Do you think that that puts a limit on the size of the the you know the size that a family business can reach? That's a great question. That's something I look forward to learning more about in in my decades to come.
00:24:03
Speaker
Just because as you grow, it gets harder and harder to keep things sustainable. So I'm i'm aware of that and i need to learn about that. I know that we haven't reached our...
00:24:15
Speaker
our zenith for for sustainable growth. But I know there are family businesses that are quietly compounding that are many, many zeros bigger than ours. So I definitely have hope and optimism that that we can create a structure to continue to transcend generations. But I'm definitely acutely aware.
00:24:33
Speaker
Evolution doesn't suggest that the bigger you get, ah you can stick around. You said compounding. Again, you said nonlinear a couple of times.
00:24:45
Speaker
I do not recall if this was in your book or it was in your email newsletter or somewhere else. But I think I remember finding somewhere that your values, let's say, are humanity, stewardship, and compounding.
00:25:03
Speaker
And hopefully I'm remembering that correctly. And if I am, I'm, I'm wondering about where did, how did you settle on those? ah Those are, so those are our pillars. That's like our operating system at Century.
00:25:18
Speaker
So we're building for centuries. And so, so I, we came to those because there I believe, three timeless principles. Stewardship is, is an inside job and you have to take your daily vitamins. Like you have to heal your heart.
00:25:31
Speaker
You have to, galvanize your mindset. you have to fortify your health and you have to elevate your soul. Like that, that is, that's the stewardship piece because I think most people are children in an adult body and, and like really maturing as stewards and leaders is a constant, it's a lifelong journey.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then the second, the humanity, that's the gathering hall. that's That's the unlocking our team so that we can be the best versions of ourselves. And then the compounding is unlocking performance, where I think most people spend their
Pillars of Century Companies
00:26:03
Speaker
time.
00:26:03
Speaker
But it's like at the expense of our teams and at the expense of the development of ourselves as humans. When you and i talked a couple of weeks ago, I told you that I believe that with the sort of general loss of authority or loss of trust in many of the institutions or long-term sort of foundational elements of society, at least in the West or at least in the United States, you know, with people having less trust in society,
00:26:40
Speaker
Congress or church or whatever it is that if more and more people are able to just decide what's true for them, that people are able to say, well, it's no longer a sort of social ideal or cultural ideal that good people, quote unquote, go to church.
00:27:06
Speaker
And I'm not saying that I'm not trying to advocate that good people do one thing or another, as much as to say in the 1950s, you know, in the United States, it really was sort of a cultural ideal that if you wanted to be seen as a quote unquote good person,
00:27:24
Speaker
You probably went to church or synagogue or something of that nature. And there was a high level of trust in politicians and the media and so on. And I believe that as a lot of those foundational elements of society have been worn away and as people have been able to choose that You know, I don't need to go out to a local coffee shop or bar because I have an espresso machine on my counter. I can make my own coffee and i can, you know, buy whatever beer I want and I can just drink at home.
00:28:00
Speaker
And so people aren't running into others in their community. They're not spending time around people that are really different from them in really substantive ways that the one place that you cannot avoid running into people and having to deal with people who you wouldn't choose to spend time with normally.
00:28:23
Speaker
is work. and that And I don't mean you wouldn't choose to spend time with them as in they're bad or they're different in a in a negative sense. It's just that there are plenty of people, i'm you know, Matthew, for you, it's maybe different from a lot of people because you sit at the center or top or however we want to put it of a big organization and the CEO or president or whatever is going to deal with a lot of different people.
00:28:48
Speaker
But even if you work in accounting, There's probably somebody at the desk right next to you who you would not choose to otherwise sit next to or spend time with. And because you do that repeatedly, you come to realize that some of those things that make you different, their accent, there scal their skin color, whatever it is, aren't important.
00:29:11
Speaker
And when you realize that they're not important, sometimes you realize people who are different than me can share similar values and they can be a part of something. We can be a part of something together.
00:29:23
Speaker
I believe that work is one of the few places moving forward where because you run into people who are different from you and you have to do it repeatedly, that that's one of the few places in the future where maybe we can heal some of these divisions in society. So I...
Work as Community Building
00:29:43
Speaker
have recapped too much here perhaps, but I mentioned this to you and it sounds to me like this is one of the things that you're talking about when you talk about community or a gathering table and even maybe stewardship.
00:30:01
Speaker
Yes. ah You are hitting the nail on the head. And I think when you asked, well, what ah what if, why don't you sell your business and then and go do good? It's the opportunity to, to spend time with people. People go to church for an hour a week if they, if they go to church, but then they spend 40 to maybe 70 hours a week.
00:30:20
Speaker
at work. So you get 40 to 70 times more influence on the individual that has chosen to work with you. And I just, i think that's the point that we get to, we talk about at Century Companies that we get to, we're walking each other home. That's actually what we're doing at work.
00:30:38
Speaker
Do you believe that there's an impact on the communities that your employees live in? Do you believe that there's an impact on their families or something else that's positive as a result of the culture you try and build at work or the leadership that you try and exercise? have seen it and i have received affirmation from spouses that don't work at the company, but I see them at holiday parties and then they tell me that that their spouse is is a better version of themselves. and And that just affirms for me that we need to keep compounding this. We need to keep
00:31:15
Speaker
showing up and and doing those types of things? Because I can't even fathom, there's so many invisible things that are probably happening at home for their kids. And then how does that ripple for generations to come?
00:31:28
Speaker
one One of the things we measure, Eric, at our at Century is how many families are in the family business. And like for for me, that signals if you are willing to invite your precious child to come join this business, that means it's a pretty good place to work.
00:31:43
Speaker
And a lot of people would say, whoa, why would you do that? That's nepotism. Well, if we're treating each other like adults and there's a real issue, we we'll handle it and and we'll keep moving forward.
00:31:55
Speaker
When you said that, you made me think about, or what what came to mind is that If you watch an animated movie, very often in the credits, they will say something about all of the babies that were born during the production. I remember seeing an interview with somebody, I don't know who, was probably somebody from Pixar or whatever, and they were saying, it takes years to make these animated movies. So people will meet and get married and sometimes have children.
00:32:24
Speaker
From the time the movie starts to when it finally is in theaters. It's playing a long-term game with long-term people. like To make that animated movie, they are investing significant time.
00:32:35
Speaker
ah Because we're in the information age and and the people aren't just labor anymore. They they are they are the most important aspect and ingredient to an organization to flourish in this new era that we're in.
00:32:51
Speaker
What does your day-to-day look like? You know, when you're, when you're trying to think in terms of centuries, you're also, you have, you have day-to-day decisions you have to make. Maybe some of those are, maybe you have a great leadership team. I don't know.
00:33:05
Speaker
Does your day look much different or do you think much differently from any other CEO? You would not want to see my day-to-day. It's a, it, it probably be like, what is he doing? Like the pop flies hit me right in the face. Like what, what?
00:33:21
Speaker
But I would say at at the highest level, I'm trying to spend time with our frontline team. And then I'm trying to create space to sit in my seat and either learn from the greats who have been so generous in writing books or listen to a thoughtful podcast. Because I believe my my job is to make decisions and I need to be making decisions in with clarity of thought and just in the right head space and the right heart space. But also I need to be on the front line so that I can be with the team and hear the real feedback because the plumbing of an organization can get clogged pretty easily. And I don't want people to tell me what I want to hear.
00:34:07
Speaker
I want to hear the real stuff because that's what yeah Jim Collins talks about it. The the brutal facts, you know, You need to know the reality. as As someone who likes to be a visionary, I need to be very rational and also just clarity and be humble that what we're building isn't perfect.
00:34:27
Speaker
and But we're certainly aspiring to be better. How much of that you know spending time on the front lines or... improving upon your ability to make good decisions, you know, the things that bubble up and and only the CEO can address that issue or whatever. How much of that is specific to family business versus, you know, your skill set or
Complexities and Trust in Family Business
00:34:58
Speaker
interests?
00:34:58
Speaker
In a family business, the complexity comes from... Operationally, I think a business can look pretty similar from a public company to a private equity company to a to a family business or privately held.
00:35:13
Speaker
Operationally, it might look similar, but it's what happens behind the scenes for for the governance of of the company, for the the the shareholders of the company.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:40
Speaker
but it's also could be the greatest weakness because if a family isn't if there isn't trust with the family the whole thing breaks So I think operationally it can be somewhat similar, but a board and the owners can really change the culture and the capital flow of a company to be more short-term or more long-term.
00:35:58
Speaker
Where do you see that a leader that wants to think long-term unintentionally slips into short-term thinking or, yeah, I guess unintentionally so ships slips into short-term thinking when maybe they believe that they're still thinking about the long-term? Yeah.
00:36:18
Speaker
The biggest challenges, I face it, is is when there are obstacles. yeah And are you going to lean on your values of your organization? And it's messy. Like, yeah I'm not perfect.
00:36:31
Speaker
There's going to be moments where you step over the mess, but you need to be willing to address the mess. Oftentimes, it it it usually is going to be around people because we live in a fallen world. So it's it's just, it's going to be messy and you have to understand the gray. And that's where seeking virtue and seeking wisdom, you get to, you have the opportunity because nothing's black and white to pick your, pick your moments and pick where you're, where you're going to draw your line.
00:37:00
Speaker
With things being messy, I'll key off of that.
Constant Challenges in Business
00:37:06
Speaker
businesses, i don't know how many people will say this, but I read it recently that that businesses are loosely held disasters.
00:37:13
Speaker
but If we're being honest, so it's just there's always something. And if anyone says they got it all figured out, they certainly don't. an idea that that evokes for me is, know, you can certainly interpret something like that in a cynical, pessimistic, whatever it is sense.
00:37:30
Speaker
it You know, like, oh, well, every business or whatever is just screwed up and they're barely holding it together. That's just one that hasn't fallen apart. But for me, when you say that, I think immediately of sort of maybe how I think of entrepreneurship.
00:37:48
Speaker
which is go and find a problem and solve the problem. Now, you might solve a problem short-term, you might solve a problem that nobody cares to pay to have solved for them. I'm not saying that every solution, problem solution set is going to be a viable business, but there are, yeah i remember seeing an interview with Elon Musk once and it was at Stanford or something like that.
00:38:18
Speaker
and one of the students asked him, would you recommend that the students here go and start a business or something to that effect? And he said no.
00:38:30
Speaker
And I don't remember if there was a why or if he just started talking, but I remember very clearly, he says, When you're startup or otherwise, in most businesses, the way that things work, should work, is that you have one level of people who are asked to solve certain types of problems.
00:38:47
Speaker
And when they can't solve a problem, if things are functioning properly, then the problem moves up to their manager effectively. And when they can't solve the problem, then the problem moves up.
00:38:58
Speaker
And so when you're the CEO, especially when you're in a startup where things are moving quickly and you haven't established yourself or whatever else, the your desk is just full of the worst possible problems that you could think of in your business and that's what you have to deal with 80 or 100 hours a week and yeah again you can think cynically about this and i i'm sure you can get burnt out right like we can all get burnt out just thinking i'm just constantly putting out fires but when you say that i really do think about
00:39:31
Speaker
that if you believe you're going to the right place, however you want to define that vision or whatever else, then long-term goals, who knows what, then it makes it so much easier to work on that. I forget the phrasing loosely held disasters or or something of of that nature.
00:39:50
Speaker
It gives the pain purpose. If you read any biography of any great business builder or or a coach, I just finished a book on John Wooden and it was a massive book.
00:40:02
Speaker
And I thought that I always admired, he's one of the greatest coaches of all time, won 14 championships, many, many seasons undefeated. Well, as I was reading this book,
00:40:14
Speaker
In like 1970, like the team was a hot mess. Like there would be games where some of the players wouldn't come out for the second half because they were so pissed about their playing time.
00:40:25
Speaker
So it's like they they were just trying to keep it together and they seemed, they were literally perfect. on the outside with things being messy, you know, and, and, and I'm not saying that in a, in a bad way. It's just that you, we all should be dealing with challenges. We all should be solving problems. And a lot of times the most interesting ones are the ones where there's not an existing solution, you know? So I'm, I, that's sort of what I'm thinking about when I say back to you, the word messy, Eric, I i have two little kids at home and everything's, and everything's messy and it's the greatest gift. I know exactly what you mean.
00:41:02
Speaker
How do you stay clear-headed or aligned with your long-term vision or grounded? So that you can deal with those challenges or that messiness. Is it reading? Is it is it my mindfulness meditation? Is it something else?
00:41:19
Speaker
My answer would have been different five years ago and 10 years ago, i would have had no clue. um So when my mom passed away in 2017, literally just changed my life, put everything upside down.
00:41:33
Speaker
And it took me down a path of of really reading, really, ah what am I optimizing for? Because i don't know if I'm going to be around for 4,000 weeks. So it made me be much more intentional in every aspect of my life. And so I have i have a personal vision statement, a five-year vision statement.
00:41:51
Speaker
The company has a five-year vision statement. And then I have daily, I call them daily vitamins that I try to do every single morning. It's not perfect, but i try to hit on what Robin Sharma calls the four empires with our hearts, our minds, our soul, and our body and our health.
00:42:08
Speaker
So I try to hit those also with the sky of of where we're going. And I share the vision with the organization. And my wife and I, we have our personal five-year vision. So like, we're just always checking in.
00:42:22
Speaker
Are the habits, are the routines, does our calendar, does, do our actions express our priorities to meet the vision? And is time on our side? That's, those are kind of the sky to dirt. That's how I try to live my life and in our organization as well to make sure we're we're heading in true north.
00:42:42
Speaker
So you read a lot and you have captured a lot of ideas from the reading that you do. You mentioned even potentially listening to podcasts, so you probably have plenty of other sources.
00:42:56
Speaker
But does, all things being equal, you know, or on average perhaps, does reading a biography of John Wooden help you explore the way that you're thinking or your worldview? Does it help you confirm that, you know, it like do that, stay clear headed and stay grounded? Does reading give you something else?
00:43:24
Speaker
ah For me, it grounds me that in just learning the timeless lessons, andm I'm starting to see themes that
Importance of Reading and Knowledge Management
00:43:32
Speaker
in the books that I'm reading. And it's just reminding me.
00:43:34
Speaker
i think like I go to church every week and it's more for reminding. It's the rituals of being reminded of what, what I value. And I think that's what books are for me too. it's It's taking me to church and it's reminding me of what are those timeless principles for the operating system that I seek to live in.
00:43:52
Speaker
Do you take notes? Do you highlight? Do you write in your books? All the above. i I highlight in the books. I write in the books. I've got post-it notes always. I've got them all throughout the house. I drive my wife nuts. But everywhere I sit, I've got sticky notes ready and in pens.
00:44:08
Speaker
and then i will And then I also have ah a note-taking system after I read a book. i I I've started using notion. I call it my second brain. So I take the the biggest highlights and I put them into quotes, concepts, stories, or questions just to try to create that, that brain trust for, for it to, I'm, I'm just such a huge believer in compounding. I try to figure out how can I compound the things that I care about.
00:44:34
Speaker
When you say second brain, are you a Tiago Forte fan? I don't know who that is. Sounds like I need to. So Tiago Forte wrote a book called, I think it's called Building a Second Brain.
00:44:45
Speaker
And he has these two systems, Pera and Code. And I forget the forget what each of them stands for, but Pera, if I recall correctly, is very similar to and ah sort of a an information management system that I use as well, which is basically...
00:45:06
Speaker
How do you get out of your head the thoughts or the notes or the action items and ensure that you don't end up with just a big undifferentiated list of things that were interesting from a book, for example.
00:45:20
Speaker
And so how do you get them out of your head? And then how do you ensure that they go to the right places without it becoming yet another task? And so you said second brain, he wrote a book called, I think it's building a second brain, but I really like his stuff and it seems to align with what you're talking about.
00:45:37
Speaker
Oh, great. Thank you for that recommendation. I know that I'm going to have to ask you some closing questions soon, but before I do, if someone...
00:45:51
Speaker
yeah a business leader, you know, family business or however they might classify themselves today, if they want to start thinking long-term, if they think that there's something greater in terms of happiness, fulfillment, flourishing for their employees or their community, but maybe they feel a lot of short-term pressure,
00:46:14
Speaker
is there some small change? Is there a book that they could read? Is there something that they could try that you would say, this this is the first step that I recommend you take?
00:46:25
Speaker
I think finding a way to appreciate the brevity of life will create a sense of urgency. To take actions that are more fruitful than pretending like this is a dress rehearsal for the the real act that you'll do later on in life.
Appreciating Life's Brevity
00:46:41
Speaker
Whatever that tool would be. a great book that that I've gone to is When Breath Becomes Air. that That's a fantastic book around brevity and in and in a doctor who was was dying.
00:46:54
Speaker
And he actually died before he finished the book and his wife finishes the book on his behalf. And it' just it's very sobering. So this is not the central point here of, you know, sort of that question or, or line of discussion. But you also reminded me, might've been in your book. i I forget where it was, but it was in a book recently. I've, I've heard a similar sentiment, plenty of other places, but somebody said something like,
00:47:23
Speaker
Everybody's waiting to be picked. You know, it actually, this reminds me of something that my dad said to me and ah my dad listens to this. So hi, dad.
00:47:35
Speaker
my, my my father-in-law passed away suddenly. He was, as far as we knew, he was in perfect health.
00:47:46
Speaker
And so it was really ah shock and he was pretty young. And it was around about that time that I remember having a conversation with my dad. And for one reason or another, we were talking about having kids. I didn't have kids yet. My wife and I didn't have kids yet.
00:48:01
Speaker
And I had had very common delays, I'm going to say, around having children. Like, oh, we need to be financially stable or spend some time together or whatever else.
00:48:13
Speaker
And I remember my dad saying, as we were talking about this, if you want to have kids, just have kids. You know, like, why is it that there has to be one right time? It's one of the very few things in your life that no one can tell you no.
00:48:29
Speaker
If you want to get a job, someone has to say yes. If you want to buy a house, someone has to say yes. Now, this involves, you know, your wife, she's got to say yes.
00:48:40
Speaker
But to put it very simply, no one can tell you no. And i I share that because whatever it was that I was reading, you know, this person was saying, everybody's just waiting to be picked.
00:48:54
Speaker
And that's one of the big reasons that people don't become entrepreneurs is because they're waiting for someone to say, oh now you have the right idea or now you have enough money or whatever else. And i think the reality of it is that you have to pick yourself.
00:49:15
Speaker
And you have to take responsibility for, am I making the best use of my time?
Intentional Time Management
00:49:20
Speaker
If I don't make the best use of my time, how do i how do i deal with that so that tomorrow I will make the best use of my time?
00:49:30
Speaker
And I, I'm guessing that one of the things that's floating around what you're talking about, that, that, that the brief time that we're here, you know, is that you can make a choice, you know, CEO of a family business or employee who might start something or, you know, spouse, just to be a good spouse or parent.
00:49:52
Speaker
There's, what are you waiting for? You know, the days are only getting shorter. The door to happiness opens outward. That's Viktor Frankl shared that. that's what That's what stewardship is, is it's connecting yourself to something bigger than yourself. And that's what kids do for us. They force us to to get outside of ourselves and our own ego.
00:50:11
Speaker
You've written a book that talks about, you know, I think the subtitle is leading your family business into the next generation.
Resources for Further Learning
00:50:18
Speaker
you have you You care a lot about family businesses. where should I go or what should I do if I want to learn ah about, i'm going to ask you about a lot of things, family business, about you, about your upcoming projects. Where would you direct me?
00:50:34
Speaker
Go to MatthewPowell.com and join my, my stewards journal. I write a weekly note every Monday morning as you're starting your work week. to just try to put you in the right frame of of mind, in the right heart set to make a difference in the work community that you're building.
00:50:52
Speaker
Family business. It's an art. It's not a science because it's not a one size fits all. When you've seen one family business, you've seen one family business. It's a weekly conversation of things that I'm learning to help us figure out how do we get from a fourth generation business to a sixth generation business in the next five decades.
00:51:12
Speaker
When somebody signs up for your newsletter, you send them a PDF that I think is 10 books that you recommend And you maybe maybe you don't can't speak to all 10, but is there a book that really stands out for you? Or are there things that you, like is there a book that changed the way that you thought or was really eye-opening?
00:51:42
Speaker
And maybe it's on that list. it It is. It's called It's Not About the Coffee by Howard Behar. He was the former president of Starbucks. And he gets at the essence of humanity, which I think is just such an important thing for ah for a leader to to really just grasp is because It's Not About the Coffee shows that they went from 18 locations to 16,000 locations under his leadership.
00:52:08
Speaker
Yeah. And it just is a very imp impactful book with a lot of competency. And he's got a lot of clout backing him on his bold assertions. So I would start there of all the of all the books that that i've I have on that list.
00:52:22
Speaker
In all the things that we've talked about, is there anything that you would underscore? Or if we haven't talked about it, is there anything like final words of wisdom or things that you would want me to be thinking about after this conversation?
Leadership with Peace and Authenticity
00:52:34
Speaker
It's a piece of advice or or a quote that I always try to remind myself in. It's from Anthony DeMello and it it's, don't change, don't change. I love you just the way you are.
00:52:46
Speaker
think there's so much pressure on us as leaders to do certain things or act a certain way. But if we're just, if we're comfortable in our own skin, we we can do amazing things and we can we could lead with peace.
00:53:00
Speaker
And that that's something that I think this world needs are are more peaceful leaders. I like that. Well, Matthew, thank you for joining me. I've really been looking forward to this since.
00:53:11
Speaker
You know we got connected thanks to former colleague and a good friend of mine, Jeremy Nulik. And then we chatted a couple of weeks ago. So I appreciate you making the time. And think you have a new addition to the family. So congratulations. And I hope that all of that has gone well.
00:53:26
Speaker
Thank you, Eric. It's been a privilege talking with you. Thank you.