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Technology, People, And Processes with Matt Posey
8 Plays1 month ago
Welcome to the first episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind The Build. Matt Posey, Senior Business Developer at Wipfli, joins our host Curtis Forbes. Matt shares his insights on company culture, employee engagement, and team dynamics as organizations embrace change and new technology.
About Matt:
Matt Posey is a seasoned professional with over 25 years in the Business Technology space. Matt has worked for small boutique firms up to some big names like Capgemini prior to his Senior Business Developer role at Wipfli. Over his career, he worked way up from a Business Analyst to a Practice Director before finding himself in a more Business Development-focused role.
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Transcript
Introduction to Fireside Chat
00:00:03
Speaker
gone Hi, everyone. Welcome to our first Fireside Chat Mustard Hub Voices Beyond the Build, where we talk with people building, backing, and running better
Matt Posey's Background
00:00:17
Speaker
workplaces. I'm your host, Curtis Forbes.
00:00:19
Speaker
My guest today is Matt Posey. He's a seasoned professional with over 25 years in the business technology space. He's worked for small boutique firms, up to some biggies like Capgemini.
00:00:30
Speaker
He's presently a senior business developer at Whipflee. Welcome, Matt.
Overview of Whipflee
00:00:35
Speaker
Thank you for having me. Yeah, I'm glad you could be here. So tell me, what is Whipfully? What kind of companies or clients do you work with there?
00:00:42
Speaker
Yeah, kudos on the pronunciation. Most people get it wrong. So thank you for nailing that. we're We're basically a top 20 advisement firm. So tax, ah accounting, audit, those kind of things, but also largely in technology, which is kind of where my background comes from.
00:00:58
Speaker
about 3,500 of us, mostly in the middle of the country, we're based out of Wisconsin, but we've got big offices here in Minneapolis where I am in Chicago. um Folks kind kind of scattered to the wind as well, but we usually work with manufacturing and distribution companies, but we do a lot with, you know,
00:01:15
Speaker
nonprofits and we do some government and some casinos and tribal accounting, things like that. So most of our company clients that we work with are about 5 million to up to about 500 million. We have some bigger ones than that, but that's probably the purple patch or the sweet spot we play in.
00:01:29
Speaker
So those are kind of the three main columns, right? We got kind of financial services, auditing, and then technology.
Matt's Career Journey
00:01:36
Speaker
you mentioned You mentioned that you came from the technology world and you have kind of an interesting path that led you into a business development role. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that.
00:01:46
Speaker
Yeah. So i kind of soup to nuts it. um Started way back when. I won't say how long ago, but many moons ago. i guess 25 ago, was business analyst. Started kind twenty five years ago i was a business analyst started with kind of requirements gathering and and working on companies we had acquired and and putting them onto it our kind of corporate stack and then worked my way up through, you know, project management, program management, engagement management, and practice management.
00:02:10
Speaker
um You know, i I really enjoyed kind of the the longer I did it, the more sort of horizontal i got because then I could help people across more than just one sort of finite space.
00:02:22
Speaker
And you know about five years ago, four years ago, i kind of enjoyed what I was doing, but I said, you know i think I think the sales side of this might be a little more fun because I can kind of talk turkey about these um these problems and and sort of solution around them during these discussions and not have to kind of engage and live through the whole project.
Client Problem-Solving Strategies
00:02:41
Speaker
So I get to help more people a little more quickly that way.
00:02:45
Speaker
Um, it's awesome. You just said something I think that really, um struck me. I mean, in business development, you're not just selling things, but you're helping companies solve problems.
00:02:58
Speaker
So, I mean, i'm I'm a little curious to hear what kind of problems are you really obsessed with solving for your clients? i mean, what kind of solutions do you typically suggest to help folks solve these, whatever they happen to be?
00:03:10
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, for for us at Whiply, what we typically see is scale, right? Hey, we've outgrown some of these technologies, or we've never had really refined processes, or we're going to acquire a company.
00:03:25
Speaker
That's probably the largest one we can help. with it's not just one piece of the puzzle usually' just not just hey we're on quickbooks and we need to replace it with this other piece of technology. Now, all of a sudden, it's usually, hey, we've got a bunch of things across the breadth and depth of our entire operation that we need to maybe tune around or or tune up to to do some things. Like a good example, we work with distribution companies that want to become manufacturers quite often.
00:03:48
Speaker
And a lot of that is, hey, you're going to grow into some new areas that you haven't historically had. And some of that's technology, some of that's people, some that's processes. So being able to solve those problems that are on scale is probably the biggest one we do. I'd say second is probably inefficiency. Look, we've've we've got modern technology.
00:04:06
Speaker
We know we've left a lot of money on the table with automation. We've waited too long to invest in some of these things. And we know this tool and technology can help us better, help us understand what the best piece of that is or what the sort of value realization we can get out of making the switches so trying to connect those dots.
Challenges in Technology Implementations
00:04:23
Speaker
I mean, in your work, how often do you see people challenges get in the way of progress, right? You've talked a lot about the technology factor, right? And maybe some of the systems, hard systems that the organizations might use to help scale.
00:04:38
Speaker
kind of things do you see people get in the way of? Absolutely. 100% of what we do involves people. um yeah and And some of the problems, you know, going too fast, right? A lot of times people, hey, we want to do this, want to go way too fast.
00:04:54
Speaker
And at the end of the day, some of these changes we're implementing, it's like, you you guys, this is going to be your baby, right? You're going to have to feed and water this thing. And sometimes you just want to go too fast. Or we see some folks that are just unrealistic with some of the stuff they can get, you know, hey, we we want to do this in a month. It's like, it's it's not going to happen that quickly. So trying to help them understand, you know, you're still going to day jobs as you go through some of these changes.
00:05:19
Speaker
Some things may change personnel wise, usually not somebody losing in their job. but they're getting either, hey, they're going to do more or less of something, or there's there's a particular sort of valve you guys are going to have to control that historically someone hasn't had to kind of sit there and watch as much.
Overcoming Cultural Resistance
00:05:34
Speaker
So getting kind of identifi identification around users, what they're going to do, their roles and responsibilities, and then just overall change management. I mean, just moving people's cheese is, you know, a problem we have to deal with and explain So some people are more comfortable with others or than others than when they have to change some of those things around. um Some of these people who have worked at these companies for forever, decades.
00:05:55
Speaker
And you know we've we've seen a lot of problems from you know some folks are understanding, you know hey, from the spectrum of AI, we kind of know what that is all the way down to, I still have guys that think the battery pack on their laptop is the mouse.
00:06:07
Speaker
So everything in between there, what we have to try to help you know guide them and and coach them and help them along. Well, I mean, what's a common, what would you say is is a common people-related issue that your clients maybe don't realize is connected to their tech or ops, you know, marketing sales is problem? um I think the the fear and uncertainty and doubt around change is something people – maybe don't understand, right? They may have, hey, going to have this one particular person lead us through this, or champion this technology.
00:06:42
Speaker
But getting the rest is sort of the herd to follow. That's one we see quite a bit with, because people are very timid. They've always done it one way, or they've always done it this way, right? And then also, there's cultural changes. When you start changing some of the measurement tools that these you know technologies can provide these processes can do right, the error tracking and things like that.
00:07:03
Speaker
People get real uncomfortable about that because they're used to being like the the man with the plan or, you know, the lady that was in charge of all of it. And you're kind of changing some of the keyboard they have or the things are looking at.
00:07:15
Speaker
So again, a little bit, you know, a little more fear and people can get frustrated because they're used to being the yeah the answer
Keys to Successful Teams
00:07:23
Speaker
guy or gal. And now they're they're having to rely on something else or going, i feel like I'm in the dark on some of this stuff because some of it's new or some of it's changed or some of it isn't the way I'm used to.
00:07:32
Speaker
So that cultural engagement of embracing the change and then trusting kind of the advisors to help us along, that's probably the biggest hurdle we have to climb. And that can be around anything, right? I'm kind of using a technological example, but I mean, accounting people, right? you're You're sending numbers to people you don't know. So some people are scared about that.
00:07:53
Speaker
Or just openly communicating about it. Some people think, you know, it's kind of like going the doctor, like, I'm not going to tell them everything, but there's surprises when you don't do that. And so getting that trust to to kind of get built earlier on, we often see better results when people are just open and honest with us. And that are closely held or family-owned companies.
00:08:14
Speaker
And sometimes it takes them a cycle or three before they go, okay, these guys do know what they're doing. So I am to tell about this this problem. and I think it can force a ah ah change in personal process when when there are different measurement mechanisms.
00:08:30
Speaker
ah also, right? So when you start to implement that change, right, it forces people out of that comfort zone and they have to do their own things differently because they're looking at it through that new lens. Absolutely.
00:08:41
Speaker
So that makes ah that makes a lot of sense. Now, um you know, had a curiosity, as you help people, as you help find solutions to problems like this.
00:08:52
Speaker
i mean, what have you typically observed about how teams succeed or struggle when they're finally implementing these things, right? So there's that fear before it happens.
00:09:03
Speaker
Now the change is there.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. How much time? having the good one how did How did the good ones do it? it's It's interesting, right? And I would say there's some variables. One is trying to have as many people in the sales site because you don't have to have everyone, but that continuous sort of engagement with with people from the earlier point in the process before they start the project can help bridge that gap, right? That
Small vs Large Organizations in Change Management
00:09:32
Speaker
comfort comes faster.
00:09:33
Speaker
Not always something you can do. So to use your example, hey, we're kind of in in the midst of this. we're we're We're starting. Everyone's still a little bit kind of stand office cause just don't know what this or they weren't involved in the sales cycle. So like who's this Mac guy? Who's this you know this other guy that's coming with him? um Building trust and rapport early and often is is usually what ends up helping our side of it, right?
00:09:56
Speaker
And then having the opposite be true on sort of the client side is be as honest and transparent as you guys can be, even if you did this a certain way. or you think that's the only way you can do it.
00:10:08
Speaker
We do this all day, every day. And if you give us something, we may have a more contextualized understanding and be able to solve a way better. Because what a lot of these happen is where the the element of surprises, right? It's easier to change and adapt. to changes earlier on as you go through and get further, those surprises can become very frustrating. and And sometimes you have to go back to not exactly square one, but maybe square two or three and and kind of re-implement. Say, hey, if we had known this or if we had talked about this earlier or if you'd explain this more clearly, we could have could have done a little bit of easier steering.
00:10:43
Speaker
um That also changes the team because the team dynamic on the client side, right? These people work together a long time. That culture of, I hate to say accountability because sounds like, hey, we're just all measuring each other. It's not quite accountability, but there is a there is a inflection or pivot point as you go through these projects where they start to engage more.
00:11:03
Speaker
And that's where the earlier that happens, the clients tend to be more successful because it's it's our system, it's our team, it's our, you know, sort of project now. It's not just, Hey, we're just checking boxes and turning this on and let us know when you're done with it.
00:11:16
Speaker
That's a, that's interesting. yeah And it kind of answers my next question and you can kind of see that subtle culture layer that, um you know, that sort of separates the high performing teams or maybe even some of those organizations that, you know, that you,
00:11:35
Speaker
might admire how they went about making some of those changes.
Importance of Leadership Engagement
00:11:40
Speaker
You've worked with a really wide range of sizes of organizations, right? Of sizes of companies.
00:11:48
Speaker
um I'm curious, do you see any major differences between some of the smaller organizations companies versus some of the bigger ones and how they go about doing that and maybe how some of them, you know, on that spectrum can consistently execute compared to those that maybe, you know, flounder. is Is there a big difference or is it, is, you know, are those, is the recipe the same?
00:12:13
Speaker
It's, i'll I'll explain it this way. The concepts are the same, right? The concepts are the same, meaning a small company or a large company, they have the same fears, concerns, and and things like that.
00:12:26
Speaker
They may be different fears and concerns for a smaller company versus a large company, meaning, hey, we've had someone at a larger company that's done one of these before. four But my concern this time is this, this you know change or this concern, right?
00:12:39
Speaker
The smaller companies have those same concerns, but they may have a more holistic concern over, hey, we've never done one of these before. So not only have we kind of stepped into deeper water than we're used to, but now we've got the change component like against it, right?
00:12:53
Speaker
There's commonality in where these things fall apart, right? And and a lot of them fail when people just aren't you know clear and concise with requirements. That's one area, right? Another is you know there's there's not engagement. So they're just, yes, we're we're, yeah, that's good enough. And then when you get to testing or sort of the data validation, data cleansing, you start to run into problems because it's like, hey, you know if this is a surprise or this is something we didn't talk about.
00:13:18
Speaker
That that earlier pivot inflection point where that trust and that sort of trusted advisor status is earlier. And that's both ways, right? Trusted advisor status isn't just us coming in. It's who's a trusted advisor on their side.
00:13:31
Speaker
And if we can trust each other, we can get more miles and smiles out of that. to Talk to me more about what you mean when you say engagement. Are these organizations and leadership within that company working with Whipfully or is it their organization as a whole leadership, you know, and on down and how they communicate with each other to implement these changes? Or is it both?
00:13:55
Speaker
It's ah easy answers both, right? And and there's there's kind of microcosms because you have two teams and you have leadership and engagement on both sides. You know, the client engagement sort of side with an executive or, you know, engagement manager, whatever role you want. to call it the earlier that happens and the deeper they get, the better these things tend to to go, right?
00:14:17
Speaker
There's some things because yeah my boss is doing it, so most people care about what their boss cares about. And that that gets that early engagement and some buy-in earlier. um And you avoid sort of the seagull effect where they you know they can fly in and you know do do some damage because they haven't been involved at
Data Management Challenges
00:14:34
Speaker
tactile level. So steering committees, you know constant communication around status and things like doesn't have to be necessarily weekly. We try to do weekly on ours just because we move fast.
00:14:43
Speaker
But longer engagement, sometimes you those sponsorship sort of stakeholder-y sort of discussions you know every of other week or once a month, depending on the size or or sort of the the sort of focus on on speed.
00:14:56
Speaker
I'd love to touch a little bit on the the tech and people systems and specifically some of this workforce, you know, technology. Are you seeing any kind of interesting changes in how companies now are using software to support their people?
00:15:11
Speaker
um but you know, or or I guess, or ops, especially with all the changes that, I mean, have happened in the last, I mean, 18 to 24 months. It's like night and day. Yeah, it's it's interesting. I see quite a lot of change around just people management. And I don't just mean from an HR system perspective, but a lot of the concerns that we get brought to us are around data and not just how do we get data, but how do i communicate this data across, right?
00:15:37
Speaker
There's a lot of distraction. There's a lot of bells and whistles you can turn on and all these systems to email you and call you and text you. and All these things can happen. And so trying to come up with a concise communication management plan on top of some of this technology is a big change for people. I mean, you know that's that's something we're constantly battling is how do I get this to my people? And I may have field service folks that are out you know and not being able to be in front of a keyboard and a computer all the time to, I'm an executive and I don't really need to live in the system, but I need to be able to get data that I can make decisions with and then communicate with as well. So that engagement is always something we're having to to figure out and and realize, um you know, AI the big hot button right now. Everybody's talking about AI, but a lot of our clients are like, hey, we we understand what that is. And we kind of know what what it does.
00:16:29
Speaker
We're not there yet We're still here. And we're still trying to figure out, hey, we have, you know, we're going from like no employee sort of handbook kind of stuff. We're tracking some of these compliance needs now. And how do I communicate, hey, your your certificate on this is now expiring?
00:16:43
Speaker
You know, so it's it's quite a gamut. It's quite a gamut. you you you made a comment about data that i want to I want to kind of go back to and just lean into a little bit. When it comes to the data, there's a lot of noise out there and there are a lot of companies, there is a lot of AI out there that, um you know, that that and are frankly, right, um you know, big data
AI and Data Quality
00:17:09
Speaker
systems. and And I'm curious if you see a gap between
00:17:15
Speaker
what's actually measured and really what matters.
00:17:22
Speaker
Huge gap. Huge gap. what the fun coffee you bring One problem is if you want to use AI, you've got to have good data, right? So that's just, that's one problem we're solving with a lot of, like walk us through your data.
00:17:36
Speaker
You can't even really, this thing's going to hallucinate. It's going to give you all these weird answers because it's only got this data to to work from. And if it's bad data, guess what? You'll get bad answers, right? So that's one piece of it. Two is trying to figure out to your point, like, hey, we're we're making what we measure, but what do we need to measure?
00:17:54
Speaker
And then, or are we doing that right? Are we not doing that right? Sometimes there is some pride of ownership with that because this is what I've always tracked and this always it out, but you go and you know you benchmark against you know some of the clients we have.
00:18:07
Speaker
We can go in and do benchmark data and say, hey, this is where you score against your peers. right We have $30 billion dollars worth of production data that we can go and plug you in against and say, this is this is kind of where the KPIs for what you guys do, and this is what makes the needle move the most.
00:18:21
Speaker
and Some of that's easily consumable because they're kind of ready, and some of it's like we have to kind of you know hold some hands and help them with it because To your point, data's data is data. What does that mean?
00:18:32
Speaker
And for different industries, different companies, that can mean a bunch of different stuff, right? Okay. So if you had a magic dashboard and you that could show you one people signal inside of a company, what would you want to see?
00:18:50
Speaker
That is a great question. um I don't know if I could get it down to one. I would love to have one. You're allowed to do two. It's, boy, and and my mind's going in billion different ways because we do so many different kinds of companies.
00:19:05
Speaker
um manufacturing perspective, I think it's gonna be just turn and burn style KPI. Like, hey, who's who's doing the most? Who's doing the least? How do we get the least to do more like the most?
00:19:18
Speaker
How do we track that production? Cause you live and die by your production floor, right? So that'd probably be the one I said, hey, that's the big one for me. I have some very smart manufacturing people like, that's a dumb one, Matt. Here's a way better one.
00:19:29
Speaker
But from my perspective, and usually the problems we've drilled into once they've kind of adapted some of this technology, That's the one you just continually chase. So, and I'm guessing Whitfley could really build any of those things, yeah?
00:19:42
Speaker
We do. I mean, a lot of off the shelf can help you do that. It's the interpretation of that, that we that's where the advisement comes from, right? You can turn this thing on and vacuum as much data as you want, but the interpretation of that, or how do I know that's good or bad?
00:19:55
Speaker
That's where the kind of the magic is.
Case Study: Internal Communication Failure
00:19:58
Speaker
I love that you're helping these organizations kind of understand their needs, understand how to get there get their teams engaged so that everybody can be on the same page to implement some of these things, help understand how to measure the progress, right?
00:20:17
Speaker
Tell me a story about a team or a client, don't have to use their name, or you can if you want, ah that you've worked with that has had a major people breakthrough breakdown.
00:20:30
Speaker
break down but let joke Yeah, I've got a breakdown one for It's a great one. I'll try to keep it short because there's a very long timeline on this thing. There's a company out in Spokane. I won't say their name, but they made rugged laptops.
00:20:44
Speaker
And this is early 2000s. I was flying from Atlanta to Seattle every week, which is 12 hours, door to door. It took me 12 hours to get there. and i I was gone there eight, nine months, right?
00:20:57
Speaker
It's millions of dollars worth of work. They had a team of us, I don't know, this is not a Wiffley example, but I'm just going to give you an example from my past that I is applicable. I just want to make sure. They were like, oh, Wiffley did that? No, is this is not ah a Wiffley example, but it was a good, bad examples are good examples.
00:21:13
Speaker
So all this travel, months, millions of dollars, team, I think we had a baker's dozen of us, 13, 14 people, went through this whole thing, got it all ready. The week before we were supposed to go live, they got a new CTO and a new CFO.
00:21:28
Speaker
The week before we were supposed to go live. And the first day we came in, the week before, that Monday, we all get in there. And that the CFO came and was like, yep we're not going to do this thing. We're shutting it all down.
00:21:38
Speaker
And we're we're moving everything to to Florida. and We're not going to use any this stuff. And yeah the v my mind instantly went through what kind of conversations did they have? Because I mean, this was a big you know monthly bill they were writing checks for.
00:21:55
Speaker
And the the real challenge, and I i you know asked you know a couple conversations before we kind of all went home, like, how how did you guys get to this? Or what what happened? What changed?
00:22:06
Speaker
And it was literally they had no conversations at all about it. So the me project team that was kind of siloed that was working on this thing, didn't the the new incoming CFO, I don't think there was any culture handoff. I don't know if they had like, what are we trying to build? What's the philosophy around this? what What growth are we trying to get?
00:22:26
Speaker
And they just came and said, yeah, we're just not going to use it. and I mean, going back to what you were saying, you know, and regardless of size, the trust, the communication, the alignment, you know, those important pieces of the engagement to move, you know, to move mountains, to move these kind of things forward when you don't have any of that.
00:22:44
Speaker
This is kind of what happens. it I mean, it was a super disappointing time. it It broke my heart because we spent so much time. And I mean, at that, you know, we don't do it quite to this way today, but it was basic one-to-one. You had like, I had my client side peer and he and I were in rooms right writing stuff and whiteboarding and testing.
00:23:06
Speaker
I mean, it was heartbreaking to watch it just kind of just get turned off because he spent, I mean, a year of his career at this company building this thing that they're just like, yeah we're not going to do
Building Trust with Clients
00:23:16
Speaker
Wow. Wow. Well, maybe this ah maybe that that's an answer to to this, which is something that's sort of been on my mind. I'm curious if you have a lesson that that you've learned that maybe has nothing to do with tools or strategy, just human behavior related. Yeah.
00:23:32
Speaker
It's for me, the the secret is the the helping. The secret is focus on the problems, right? Coming in and trying to sell widgets or or feature fighters say this this system can do these things.
00:23:46
Speaker
It's really what problems are you having? Walk me through what you've tried before. What do you what do you think this will look like if you solve it? Those are the ones that really move the needle and make the most difference, not only from a tools technology process perspective, but from a trust and sort of rapport perspective, right?
00:24:07
Speaker
I want to help you solve this stuff. Help me help you. That to me, and it took me a while to get there because like, I work for these companies with greatest technology. It's great. It doesn't matter if it doesn't solve the problem. And even if you you can kind of solve the problem you know you can, they have to trust that you can do that.
00:24:23
Speaker
right Just saying it, yeah, great. Everyone's going to say what they can do. But getting that trust early because I care about you and I want to help you solve this problem, that to me has been the biggest you know secret sauce component that ah that kind of light bulb went on.
00:24:37
Speaker
And I want to tell you how late in my career that kicked on because it took me a while. I'm a slow learner. I'm complete learner. I'm slow learner. But once that kind of kicked in and i i you know people get nervous about these things or They're concerned we're changing too much. you've had Once you can kind of get back to that and focus back on that, it it tends to make everybody feel a lot better. They they feel partnership. They feel you care about them.
00:25:00
Speaker
Do you feel that consistency through the organizations that you worked with before Whipfully and also, I mean, you've been at Whipfully about nine months now or so. You feel that consistency really kind of throughout um you know the organizations that you've that you've worked with throughout your career?
00:25:17
Speaker
Here, yes. Other organizations, no. and And that was one of the differences I noticed, right? Having worked at some that were very, very warm, I guess is a good good term, that were you know we're essentially ah extensions of the client team, which everybody says they are.
00:25:35
Speaker
but yeah that proof is in the pudding. And watching some of the companies I did work at, and it wasn't always just company-wide, but some of the teams that got put together, it's a very different you know philosophy. And if it's not there, if it's missing, boy, is that a rough road.
00:25:50
Speaker
you know That's a rough road. And and there's you know variables on top of that, where the project team, that core, like the previous example, was going Spokane, that project team had it, but I don't think it had bled over to the engagement or executive side of that company and that's why I think they're like, yeah, we're fine.
00:26:07
Speaker
I don't think anybody said, how long have you spent on this? How do you feel about it? Do you think this will work? Do you think it's not going to work? I don't think any of that happened. yeah ah you know Shame on them for not doing that. But that that certainly, that's a core DNA. It's not coachable, that focus on client helping and rapport and and really caring about companies.
Future Leadership Priorities
00:26:29
Speaker
that And clients, that's DNA. and that's culture and that's you know that's when they say it's culture can eat strategies that is the difference from what I've seen. I know there's a bunch of different other strategies and cultures and things that exist in there.
00:26:43
Speaker
But when I feel that missing or start to notice that getting smaller in the organization, that's when most of the problems come. That's when we see a lot of these things go off the track. What do you think, speak speaking directly to that topic,
00:27:00
Speaker
What do you think this next generation of leaders needs to understand about people and culture that maybe today's leaders don't? it's It's interesting. i was just at a conference this this week for emerging leaders and this association we're a member of.
00:27:16
Speaker
And ai of course, was spoken about. But the communication strategy, the curation of having the right people in the right chair or being able to coach, we spent a lot of time talking about that, which is interesting. I mean, you're talking technology side to people side. I mean, almost like how do we not necessarily manage people How do we communicate to some of these people? Right.
00:27:41
Speaker
And I got real excited because I'm one of the older guys in the room. I'm not afraid to say it because it was it was like emerging. i'm I'm a little past my my spring chicken emerging phase. But to hear some of these companies and they've they've owned them. These are third or fourth generation company owners. Right. My dad owned a grandpa that.
00:27:59
Speaker
Hearing them talk through that, and and some of these are you know warehouse level, not sophisticated jobs, all the way up to, hey, we have these these technology company folks that we're using.
00:28:11
Speaker
Hearing them how they're concerned and how they're trying to communicate and and work through, i think that's going to become way more important because the tools are the tools, right? AI is going to be AI.
00:28:23
Speaker
Tech's going be the tech. All that's going to get improved and get better over time. But the way way you manage people and communicate with people, that's where I think a lot of companies are gonna struggle if they don't get it right i think they're going to retaining people's going to be hard finding new people's going to be hard you know continuing to grow, which everybody business wants to do, I think is go be harder unless you know how to kind of build that culture of exchange and not just, hey, we we just go by the data purely and nothing else.
00:28:51
Speaker
Yes, you want data is important, but that that leadership style and open communication and sort of, I don't let say servant leadership, I don't wanna label whatever the future is gonna be, but yeah that approach seems to be what everyone's going towards. Cause we're like, hey,
00:29:06
Speaker
I was losing people or people who were getting burnt out and I really need to understand why. And those sort of conversations need to happen for them to, to make changes. It's not just a data specific sort of spitting out numbers sort of thing.
00:29:19
Speaker
I think that, um, well, I mean, first of all, that makes perfect sense, you know, and, and you know Certainly the way that that work life has evolved, I think, over the last 50 to 70 years, you know today's today's world and and a lot of the younger generation really want their work to to be meaningful, um to feel that it's meaningful um and that it and it moves people or if it's appreciated. And a lot of times,
00:29:50
Speaker
You're not gonna know without somebody telling them, right? Or getting that kind of feedback. And feedback isn't necessarily always, you know, an individual telling you, right? There's a lot of ways that we can get feedback, you know, but unless we're getting that feedback, um you know, oftentimes then, you know, might not feel it's as meaningful as it could be. And we might then wanna go seek out something that's more meaningful.
Client Engagement and Empathy
00:30:13
Speaker
um I'm curious though, as you see your work, evolving as companies get more intention intent intentional, excuse me, how do you see your work evolving as companies get more intentional about their people?
00:30:28
Speaker
it's It's a great question. It's changed a lot because it's not just, um'm I'm the representation of a tool anymore. Now it's, how is this going to provide me value for not just myself and the company, but for the users of this?
00:30:45
Speaker
How do I get them to adopt this better? Have you seen us struggle around areas you've seen other clients struggle around? So its it's i hate it's kind of almost therapy-like because it's like, tell me your problems. Let me understand what it is. You're not alone.
00:31:00
Speaker
We've seen this before. Here's kind of how we solve that. But that that part of it, i don't think was as prevalent, i don't know, five, six years ago. Maybe maybe COVID was the the change. on that or or and and maybe was just kind of going that way and code it just happened to be kind of coincidental sort of happening. But that's kind of where I feel like I started to bring that more to the table because it was more important to people. It was like, yeah, we can use Excel or whatever for this thing, but walk us through the the customer experience on this. And then not only from a use perspective, but from a people managed is going to make their lives better.
00:31:40
Speaker
A lot of this, people are very scared they just going lose their job. They're like, oh, consultants are coming in they're going to change some technology. I have yet to see a project lose anyone's job that I've worked on. It usually just changes and say, hey, instead of doing two locations, now I can do four because I have more efficiency with this tool.
00:31:57
Speaker
But that's always a concern we have to get around. and so That sort of hand-holding or rapport-building or expectation management, that's way more important than it used to be.
00:32:09
Speaker
and And everyone seems to be doing that. There's a company here, or three, where they don't care, but I'd say 99% of the companies I speak with about anything we do, that's a component
Misconceptions in Technology and Culture
00:32:19
Speaker
to what it is. And that's something they make sure we we talk about.
00:32:23
Speaker
What is a misconception that business owners or executives you think still have about people dynamics? Oh, boy, people aren't coin operated just because just because you put coins on them or or feed them something.
00:32:37
Speaker
it It doesn't it doesn't make them better. um yeah You know, I hate to pull back to technology, but a lot of this is like it's a tool. It's not going to magically fix everything. and It's not going to train all your people, make them better.
00:32:48
Speaker
You still need to invest the time in the people like late 2000s. Everybody's just going hard on technology. Just. plugging everything in turning everything on and then a lot of the biggies and even some of the you know fortune 5500 they kind of turn around like this didn't really get us what we wanted and and in a lot of ways it's kind of worse than we thought because now we've plugged all this stuff outside of our people and we're missing some of the the tribal knowledge or you know we're our dna our secret sauce so i think that kind of started to come back into focus with people like it's got to be a balance. It has to be people and whatever we're changing together.
00:33:24
Speaker
And we need to make sure we retain that people component in zero and zero in on the people to make sure we're not completely screwing them off. But just trying to plug people with CoinOperated turn up the tap just to make them go faster, I think that's still a business miscommunic misconception for a lot of people.
00:33:41
Speaker
work if you If you could give some advice, one piece, if I'm a business leader and you could give me a piece of advice and I'm trying to really get it right with my people, what would you tell me?
00:33:55
Speaker
What would be that thing?
00:33:59
Speaker
It's open and honesty, right? Be open and honest and make sure everyone gets to see the big picture, right? When you've got this stuff siloed, there's so many people that are so smart, but if you keep them in the silo, you're going to have problems. If you let them see the bigger picture, they may come up with a, hey, you know, I actually, this is a better way to do this. Or if I had known I needed that piece of this, I would have done it this different way.
00:34:23
Speaker
And it oftentimes, unfortunately, it doesn't happen that we start getting engaged in projects that we do, where those kinds of conversations start to come out. You don't have to wait for a project for that to come out. You can sit down and say, hey guys, let's talk through this. Do you understand what the next steps of this process are when you do this? And most people no, just do this.
00:34:41
Speaker
So getting that larger, contextual, open, transparent communication like That's probably the biggest factor I see. And I try to preach about that as much as I can.
00:34:51
Speaker
Even if you guys don't do this problem, even if you don't go with us, make sure you guys have those conversations, please, because it's going to make a lot of this different. Because some companies come and say hey, you want to change the system? And you sit down go, guys, technology is not going to fix this.
00:35:04
Speaker
You've got this particular people problem, or you just aren't talking about stuff. and And even if we gave you the greatest tool on earth and you aren't taught, it's going to work. Yeah. How would you tailor that same kind of, i mean, you work with companies that are doing millions, tens of millions, you know, potentially hundreds of millions a year.
Fostering Openness and Innovation
00:35:23
Speaker
Would you tailor that advice differently if you were talking to a small business of 10 people, 20 people, you know, with teams that small? it's It's just the amount of times you do it with a company that's 12, 10 people, maybe one conversation with a company that's 500 million, 700 million.
00:35:40
Speaker
You may have to have that conversation as you go up the organizational chart, right? But the concept's the same, that that same concept of, hey, when you're doing this, make sure you understand the larger picture or they have the context of it because they're going to come up with better ideas because they're actually see it They're going come back and say, hey, I was thinking about this. I noticed this. Now that I know we do this operation thing outside of the output of what I do, i think I can do this better.
00:36:06
Speaker
Yeah. Have there been anything or has there been anything in your personal life that has really affected ah your work and your perception of of work and people and all of that, you know, kind of contextually?
00:36:23
Speaker
oh boy A lot. A lot. um For me personally, um the the ah big light bulb for me was just being myself with a lot of this stuff. For a long time, you're trying to run you know scared or have of a client and you're just trying to...
00:36:41
Speaker
you know Make them feel good. Just be honest and say, guys, this is an area i'm I know this or I know that. I'm trying to bridge the gap on understanding it. Tell me a little bit more about it instead of like, yeah, we can do this. And then you try to go figure out and come back and like, man, I should asked some questions or I didn't really fully understand that.
00:36:59
Speaker
That's a biggie for me. because that that's when that that rapport and trust just went through the roof. Before, it was like, yeah, we like Matt. He's a good guy. He's got a pretty okay beard. He can help us figure this out. Off we go. It might take us three or four times.
00:37:10
Speaker
But when I just stopped and took that hat off, was like, it's I'm a human being. They're a human being. They're probably worried about this or tell me what you're concerned about or what what have you always had at this organization that you wish you had and we haven't asked you about.
00:37:24
Speaker
Those kind of things happen that's what makes it more complete for me. So that's probably the biggest one. I mean, there's a bunch of other personal learnings and shortcomings in there. I don't have time to get into today, but that that's the biggie I think is being myself and just being open and honest with, with the problems they're trying to solve.
00:37:43
Speaker
Well, I'm fairly certain that that beard has to be responsible for at least one or two promotions. So no no, no doubt about that. But yeah,
00:37:54
Speaker
Matt, I really appreciate i appreciate it today. i appreciate you joining us. i appreciate all the insight you know and all the expertise you know and all just like the general warm, meaningful, and an honest conversation. um It's super insightful.
00:38:11
Speaker
Well, glad you let me talk at you for a while and and spit out my sort of interpretation of all this from my perspective. So thanks for giving me the time. Yeah, of course. I just want to say, ah you know, to everybody listening, thanks for tuning in to Mustard Hub Voices Behind the Build.
00:38:29
Speaker
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Conclusion and Call to Action
00:38:33
Speaker
teammate. Check out mustardhub.com to see how we help companies become destinations for workplace happiness and can turn culture into a competitive edge. Until next time.
00:38:44
Speaker
Thank you.