Jen Hamilton (00:31)
Okay, so my guest today is Dan Matthews. I am so excited to get into this conversation with you, Dan. I know we were talking before we started recording and we're starting to geek out already, but before we get into the topic, which I'll hold off for now, I want us to make sure we spend a little bit of time learning a little bit more about you and your superpowers. So let's start with what...
Would you say if we pulled back your superhero cape, what's something a little unexpected we learn about you?
Daniel Matthews (01:03)
Impersonal or professional?
Jen Hamilton (01:05)
Let's go professional.
Daniel Matthews (01:06)
Ooh, unexpected. That's a great question. Probably how I got to the fractional COO position. So I started out with structural engineering and kind of didn't talk with anybody and was kind of humbled in a corner working on equations all day. And then I realized that I actually like talking with people and I like getting out of the office and kind of made a transition from structural engineering to construction. And from there I discovered
business and got my first P &L and I liked learning about those things and working with people and decided to go to business school and continuous improvement. And so I've been kind of practicing on how to improve business for over nine years and recently transitioned into being a fractional COO. And so I have a lot of tools and background to help pretty much anybody in any industry.
Jen Hamilton (01:58)
That's one of my favorite things about hearing where Fractional COs got started and where they end is part of why we are in this seat is we've done so many different things and we can bring the pieces together. So it's always fun. Thanks for sharing. All right. Now I want to understand what are the type of businesses you love to work with and you're excited when they put out that call to help like, you know, putting out those Batman wings. Help, help, help.
Daniel Matthews (02:22)
Yeah, I'm excited to work with probably manufacturing at the moment. So I'm Lean Six Sigma certified and I have a lot of tools for that. And so I enjoy manufacturing, but what I'm actually doing right now is testing out and seeing which industries I want to work in. I actually met with a dog walking company last week. I've talked with marketing companies, SaaS companies, accounting firms, and really trying to dig in to see where...
I'd like to work. I've been related to construction things for a while. So, instructional engineering, vertical construction, horizontal construction. So I know a lot about that, but I've been doing it for so long that I kind of want to switch it up. And so right now, ironically, manufacturing has been attracted to me. I've had a lot of people with manufacturing reach out to me and so far it's been pretty nice. I'm open to anything, really.
Jen Hamilton (03:13)
Well, that's one thing that's nice is that, and you probably know this more as an engineer, once you understand the processes and how things work together, you can put that application to different situations and that includes different businesses.
Daniel Matthews (03:26)
Yeah, exactly. It's kind of like a carpenter. It's like they can request whatever I want to build. I want a chair. I want a sofa. It's like, I can build it for you.
Jen Hamilton (03:27)
All right, one.
Yeah, that's a great analogy. All right, one more getting to know you. What sneaky villain always tries to slow progress in a business and how do you fight back?
Daniel Matthews (03:44)
Ooh, sneaky villain. I have thinking like Marvel or DC. Sneaky villain, I'd probably say waiting. So it's one of the one of the ways of of lean and a lot of processes, a lot of things wait for other things. So usually that's either a decision or parts or anything. And if you can get rid of those, I was just talking with the client today where the process should take anywhere from
10 minutes to 20 minutes and sometimes it takes two hours to three hours to eight hours because they're waiting on information. Something up the line wasn't given and now they need to just wait on that piece of information and so the process is not going anywhere because it has a roadblock. So I think waiting, ironically, is the number one thing that slows everything down.
Jen Hamilton (04:30)
Yeah, that's a great answer. I wouldn't have expected it, but it is a villain and totally gets in their way. And yet they don't know, hey, there's another way, because it's just probably been, they've always been waiting. It's always how long it's taken.
Daniel Matthews (04:43)
Well, and it's usually the status quo. It's like, it's always been that way. Like we start asking questions like, hey, how long does this take? Well, it takes me eight hours. Actually, no, the, particular process, said, how long does it take? Well, usually we just wait seven days to just see what happens. Cause it was essentially when the project's complete and sending an invoice and the CEO said, Hey, I want to try to get that down. And so I was just talking with people and I'm like, Hey, so why?
Why does this take a little bit longer than it should? Well, we just wait. Sometimes things happen and we catch something and so we can put it in the next invoice. And it's like, well, why are we waiting? β it's just, that's what we've always done since the beginning of time. β okay. Well, let's not do that. Let's try that. Let's just see if we can send it. And then if a change happens, we'll send another one. So.
Jen Hamilton (05:33)
Maybe that's another sneaky villain is, well that's how we've always done it.
Daniel Matthews (05:38)
For sure. That's tribal knowledge being passed on. Actually, they could even argue that would be something to a lack of process, a lack of how it should be done. That's typically what ends up happening. Anytime I start a project, we get five to seven people in a room and we determine the root cause of why it's not working and they don't have any process or any procedure. Mike's doing it this way, Bob's doing it that way, Dan is doing it that way and...
Dan's doing it wrong. But nobody knows because it's just been passed along and there's so many people, especially with large organizations, if there's nothing written or no formal training because people are so focused on doing the work, it sometimes slips through.
Jen Hamilton (06:15)
as basically not always, but most employees have good intentions. Well, this is what I know to do. This is what I'm paid to do. I'm gonna do it. There's occasional that are maybe a little more disruptive than that, but ultimately I don't think they're intending to make things slow or make things inefficient or duplicate efforts. They're just doing what they think they're supposed to do and what they're paid for.
Daniel Matthews (06:37)
Yeah, mean people in, what's the word I'm looking for, not unequivocally, people actually want to do a good job. Like nobody even wants to show up and be like, I'm gonna really suck today. It's like, no, that's not my goal. I wanna do a good job, I wanna show up, I wanna feel like I accomplished something. So everybody has good intentions, just sometimes the company isn't there to direct them on how to do it easily.
Jen Hamilton (06:46)
Great.
Great, great. Well, so now I think it's time to get into our topic, which is something we hadn't gone into, but man, we just brought up a bunch of topics we could talk. We'll have to come back to another conversation, because there's so much juice in what you just shared. What you and I talked about, we see this, is when an owner, especially in a small and growing business, they get a new idea, or they think, β we should do this.
Daniel Matthews (07:10)
you
Jen Hamilton (07:25)
and they come in and either bring it to the team or maybe they bring it to you as that right-hand leader, that COO who's like, okay, let's make things happen. They know if I give you an idea, you'll make it happen. But sometimes they bring in these ideas when we're already all set and ready to focus and have agreed to focus on other things and this will completely derail it. So now we're gonna dig into that.
what happens when they bring those outside ideas, those curve balls into what we're already planning and what we're already doing. So tell me what you think is really going on when this happens. What is it that can be so disruptive to a team when they get these kinds of curve balls?
Daniel Matthews (08:08)
probably lack of focus really and an accomplishment. So I'm, I think it's kind of part of being an entrepreneur too is, is you have this drive, the visionary like, I wanted the next shiny object. What's the next best thing? Hey, I just, I've seen, I've seen that a thousand times. Hey, I just went to this conference. I just saw this thing. This is the best thing I've ever seen. We need to implement this tomorrow, yesterday. It's like, okay, well, and we can, but also
people can't focus on too many things at once. One of the things I'm really grateful for is with the previous company, we learned about the four disciplines of execution. And the first discipline is focus. It was like just doing one thing. They call doing everything the whirlwind. And what ends up happening is people get distracted and going over here. And I think somebody said multitasking isn't actually a thing. It's being able to switch from a single task.
over and over and so that's really the key to it is focusing on one single thing. So if somebody brings in...
even if they have good intent, multiple things, it gets distracted. And then what ends up happening is over time, you don't finish projects and then you feel bad about it. You're like, wow, how come we haven't made any progress? well, remember we did that one, but we didn't finish that one. And then we switched to project B and then we didn't finish that one either. well, that one was a terrible one. What about project C? I forgot about that one. So if a CEO or anybody brings anything in, it's really important to...
have them come back to the agreement and hopefully it was written down. That's the other thing too, is maybe like a project charter or anything like, hey, we all agreed this is what we're going to do. I mean, you could be, what do call it? You could argue the opposite too. It's like, well, what if they go see the next greatest thing and like, hey, you know what? That project A isn't as good as project B.
I mean, I'd throw that back to you. What if the CEO actually comes in and says, hey, this is where we need to go. This is the new vision. And you know, you're a month and a half into a project. How do you determine if that's the best course of action?
Jen Hamilton (10:11)
Well, and this is one I've seen many, many times as well, right? Either way, they're throwing it in there. And whether on the surface it looks like a good idea or not a good idea, I think they both deserve, especially for that owner, for that visionary to feel heard, to feel listened to, to feel considered, even though it's the owner. We don't want them to just come in and tell people and direct people in this new piece. We really want it to be a collaborative effort. And so,
whether on the surface it seems good or bad, I think it's worth having a discernment conversation. If you can first one-on-one with your COO, we're responsible for creating the outcomes for the whole business. So we see all the different parts and how they're connected together. So to have that valuable conversation, to say, a second, let's step back and see, this is a great idea. I could see why you would want to put this on hold.
Let's do some more analysis. So I would say it really requires understanding, backing up to what are our bigger goals. Maybe it's for the quarter, maybe it's for the year, maybe it's a three year goal. What is our bigger goals? Or what are our bigger challenges within the company? And see, will this actually move us forward towards those goals better than what we're already doing? Will this address the challenges better than we're already doing?
taking that time to unravel the idea and compare it to an honor, the work you've already done strategically to pick what you're doing. Maybe even if it wasn't like super strategic, but you did make a decision as a team to focus on this. So it deserves the time to evaluate it. last thing you should not do, definitely do not just go with it because they're the owner, because they said it.
And it's about having a collaborative conversation. So you honor their ideas and look for what's the intention behind their ideas. What's the outcome they're looking for. If they say, Hey, I heard about this at a conference. And yes, I hear that too. Or I heard it on a podcast, right? You might, this might be listening to this podcast and be like, Oh, I heard this on your other podcast. We got to do this. If they come in and say that you want to ask enough questions to understand.
Daniel Matthews (12:18)
Yeah
Jen Hamilton (12:27)
Tell me more about that. What do you see that that could do for us that this isn't? Or what is that doing for us that we're not already doing? So I see this a lot in marketing. That's where all the shiny objects live. Ooh, or now even in AI, right? Ooh, I think we should be doing this. It's like, yes, that's a great idea. And let's back up. What for? Tell me why. What is that supposed to accomplish? When you start to do more of that analysis,
Now you're both together making the decision. We use strategic questioning to help uncover their thinking and reflect and ultimately help them make that strategic decision where they feel like it's their idea. But we've helped guide them through that. And I've been convinced otherwise. I might hear something on the first side of it and I'm like, this is a hot mess and no thank you. And then as we search uncovered, I'm like, you know what? It does have some legs.
Maybe we can add it on or maybe it's for next quarter because I think what we're doing is the first step, that's the second, who knows?
Daniel Matthews (13:31)
I was gonna mention that too, that idea, you still can put it on the backlog and just say, hey, that's a great idea, just not right now. Like we need to finish priority number one, make sure we get to the finish line, make sure we celebrate that win, get everybody feel good, and then we can move on to the next one.
Jen Hamilton (13:49)
Yeah, that is a really critical partnership about that with that visionary idea generating kind of mind usually in that owner seat. But it also could be another team member too. You might have, my gosh, I'm so excited. I want to do this new way of doing products or services or new way of doing marketing or sales type of thing. You want to be able to honor.
their creativity, because the last thing you want to do is shut it down immediately, because then you're going to stop having innovation in the company. So I really appreciate what you said about having a place for that idea to live so they feel heard. But then the other side of it is you have to actually come back to it, or at least they can see that you can come back to it later. And then we can reevaluate in this current context with the way things are now, is this still relevant?
Daniel Matthews (14:17)
Yeah.
And also validating too, when they bring it in, you got to be emotionally intelligent enough to be like, that's a terrible idea. Don't do that. No, thank you. Thank you for bringing that idea. This is, I'm glad we have a visionary like you that can bring in these ideas. Let's take a look at that and see what we can do to move it through. And usually what ends up happening too is with your backlog and prioritizing the most important thing usually comes up. You just got to make sure you stick on track and not get distracted too much.
Jen Hamilton (15:27)
Sian, you bring up such a great point around emotional intelligence. Let's talk about this as ACOO. Oftentimes people think, you're all about the processes and things, but so much of our work is around emotional intelligence. It's interesting, you coming from structural engineering, if I may, me coming from accounting, we're not two professions known for emotional intelligence.
Daniel Matthews (15:49)
Not in the slightest.
Jen Hamilton (15:51)
So I'd love to hear a little bit of how you built that muscle and see, well, we'll get into how that builds into it, but what did you do to get better at that? Because clearly you have it in order to handle these kinds of situations.
Daniel Matthews (15:59)
Yeah.
Well, it's growing every day too. I actually went through my library of books over here and I was just reviewing all the things that I've gone through and there's courses like Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability. Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. That's a great one. There's another book called The Anatomy of Peace, which is really, really good. There's so many different factors. I mean, I know people would teach this all day, every day. And so...
How I learned about it and my path is actually kind of ironic. Coming from engineering is, I joked with people I left engineering because engineers are weird, but I like them. I love them. I am one and maybe I'm a bad engineer because I have this other thing that I can do. But I started developing it after getting out of engineering and I started working in asphalt and I started talking with people and I became a manager and that was a huge
huge hurdle. I was really young. I was maybe 24, 25-ish. And I remember just so many different things. I remember we got a new system and I came in and I was trying to help them. I was like, hey, here's the procedures on how to run this thing. And instead of like, oh, damn, thank you so much for helping me. I was like, how dare you tell me how to do my job? I was like, oh, that's not where I was. Okay, yeah, okay.
We gotta get people involved. so I've had lots of just experience of what not to do, ironically. Getting that specific situation is getting people involved early on. So not doing things in the shadows and then bringing it to them. If you can get people, I think you mentioned this before, is having it be their idea. There's really kind of an art to that. Like, hey, what do you think? Even if you have something
Jen Hamilton (17:45)
Yeah. It is.
Daniel Matthews (17:50)
in your mind of what you'd like to do. There was another situation where management, came together and we came up with a goal of what we wanted. I think it was 50 % quality or something like that. And instead of going and saying, hey, we're going to do 50 % quality, we went out into the employees like, okay, we want to be the best in the state. How do we do that? Or what metric do you think? And they came back and said 75%. We're like, the highest we've ever been is 15.
Like, okay, sure. Let's see. I think we ended up being like 57, 60. So we even surpassed the goal that we had that we thought was unattainable. back to your question, I think emotional intelligence is such a vast array of knowledge. There's so many different things you can talk about. Anatomy of peace is keeping your heart at peace. The five dysfunctions of a team is about trust. If you don't have trust within your team,
You can't have crucial conversations. I think part of it is experience and education. And it's ever evolving too. I feel like there's new things coming out all the time. What does it work for you in learning about emotional intelligence?
Jen Hamilton (18:57)
The trial and error has definitely helped and like you, the education being really intentional. I've many different leadership books and all this in a podcast around it as well. But I've done a lot of courses and very intense leadership development courses, emotional intelligence always starts with you. So me understanding me, my quirks, what triggers me, what makes me happy and
allowing me then to connect with that other human being, realizing at the surface there's just a handful of things we all want in our lives. We were talking about in this conversation earlier is we want to do a good job. Well, what's at the heart of that is we want to be recognized. We want to see it's being important. We want to see that we belong. We want to see that our work matters. All of that is really universal. It doesn't come out that way when they're upset.
And even going back to this conversation, when an owner has a new idea, this is part of their expression of what's, how can I be important? How can we as a company be important? Where can I make my mark? Where can I feel like what I'm doing is important and it's contributing? We'll say that it's profitability, we'll say it's money, but once you meet your bills and you don't have that scarcity mindset, then we want more.
We want to feel like we're part of a team. We want to feel like what we're doing makes sense, that we're recognized for our expertise. We are getting to do what we feel we're just naturally gifted at. If we can get people into that space, that's where emotional intelligence really shines is understanding. That's what you want to do. And that's probably what you're complaining about. And once you can get to that point, you're like, all right, I can work with this because I can relate to it.
Daniel Matthews (20:38)
weren't that
Well, and that's the other thing too, is emotional intelligence. All these companies aren't companies without people. really everything we do is people. That's who we deal with, making sure they're heard and understood and accounted for. it's... I think somebody was saying it's almost like a...
Babysitting like 55 year olds, but that's that's rude. You can't say that but that's kind of it. You have to take care of everybody I mean, especially the lives that they live. I mean, there's so many different things I one of our clients he came in and had a cancer screening and it came back positive and he's going through that and somebody else is going through family troubles and you really are have to be like not not just a manager, but just like
Jen Hamilton (21:02)
Thank
Yeah.
Daniel Matthews (21:26)
an emotionally intelligent human being, to be able to listen to people and take care of them. And that's one of the things with Continuous Improvement that I loved is employees need leaders and leaders need employees. Like leaders can't do everything and employees can't do the work without leaders getting rid of the roadblocks. So you need to be able to have people come in and create a psychologically safe area. I, and I think, I think I've created that a lot. I've had a lot of people
feel absolutely free to say whatever they want to me, which I have some stories about that, but it's really nice because I would rather have that than somebody walk out of the room and be like, well that was a terrible idea. I'm definitely not gonna do that. It's like, no, please tell me so we can fix it and make the company better. So it's all about people.
Jen Hamilton (22:12)
It is. Well, let's take it to that level of, β so let's say we've done this conversation with the CEO or owner and you are on board. You agree. Yeah, you know what? You're right. We need to take this new idea or this new direction. How do you as an emotionally intelligent leader, how do you get the team on board?
Daniel Matthews (22:32)
I guess you bring it to them, really, and get them involved early. That's one of the things that's kind of crucial. Back to my story is, hey, we're gonna go and buy this system and it's gonna be the best system ever. if you don't get the people involved, the people who are actually doing the work early on, you're gonna fight an uphill battle. And so even if you bring them in and say, hey, this is where we're going, what do you think? Do you like this?
and have everybody give their voice, their opinion, that creates buy-in so much easier. And so I think that would probably be the number one thing is getting them involved early and hearing any roadblocks, any concerns, because then everybody's rowing in the same direction. If you have somebody dumping an anchor off the back of your boat, it's going to be really hard to move forward. So make sure everybody's moving and shaking in the right direction.
Jen Hamilton (23:21)
owner listening. I don't know that I, the instincts, you may be even emotionally intelligent, but you might say to yourself, I don't really care what they think or what they want or what their concerns are. I want to make it happen. So how do we, how do we thread that needle between?
Daniel Matthews (23:36)
You just gotta do some negotiating and try and make sure the people are involved. If that stance is there and they really don't want, they don't care, this is what we're doing, well then just keep them informed. At the very least. People hate being kept in the dark and being blindsided. So there's, I think there's three types of leadership. I want to say this comes from Jocko Willnick's book, I want to say.
It's command, consult, and consensus. Yeah, so consensus like, is everybody on the same page? Kumbaya, we're all in agreement. And command is the exact opposite. This is what we're doing. I don't care what you're doing. This is the way we're moving. And both of those technically are not as good as the, I just said it. What was it called? β Consulting.
Jen Hamilton (24:22)
I think it's in salt.
Yeah.
Daniel Matthews (24:25)
So essentially you consult with people and make sure that you've gotten their opinion and then you make the choice. Because now people have at least been heard and they can say, hey, I don't agree with that. Thank you for your opinion and your knowledge, but that's not what we're going with. And so that at least helps instead of just the command where nobody gets consulted and you're going to have a hard time people have a hard time getting people to follow you in my opinion.
Jen Hamilton (24:52)
appreciate you bringing up both spectrums too because it is challenging on both sides. If you try to get everyone a vote, you're never going to move forward. If you just tell them what to do, you're going to get people who quietly quit or just leave or show up for the paycheck but don't do what you want to do. It's that sweet spot in the middle that is critical. I think part of it too is I believe that with every project or every idea that you're bringing out, there's some part of it that everyone can have a say in.
Daniel Matthews (24:59)
Yes.
Jen Hamilton (25:19)
There's some part that if they play a part in it, they can have some say in it. And a lot of times it's how you had mentioned it before. Here's the idea. This is the outcome we want. How do we get there? So even your we were thinking the outcome we want is 50 percent. But even instead of saying that, it's like, well, the real outcome we want is to be this great and have this kind of quality. What do you think it is? So, again, they had
It's still the same outcome, but they had to say on what that KPI is wherever we can give a little bit of ownership and to your point, building that buy-in by having them be able to co-create, even if it's just the tiniest part. Yeah, for sure. For sure. So if someone wanted to take a step towards trying to make sure they can handle all of the new ideas that are being thrown at them, what might be the first step they could start to do something
Daniel Matthews (25:59)
Yeah, even just a minute, a little bit.
Jen Hamilton (26:16)
Maybe we shared already as like, okay, you get this new idea from an owner or you are the owner and somebody else has brought you an idea. What do you do you think is a first step to start to maybe handle this a little bit better next time?
Daniel Matthews (26:30)
Probably strategy. Maybe review where you're headed. Because that's probably the biggest thing. If somebody wants to take off-ramp 305, it's like, why are we getting off here? We're going down to Arizona. Like, that's 305 takes us to San Diego. That's not even close to where we want to go. So I'd probably say review strategy and make sure that everybody's on the same page because the strategy should have been developed with the CEO, you would hope.
Jen Hamilton (26:32)
Hmm.
Yes.
Daniel Matthews (26:57)
And so that's where everybody wants to go. So if any project or any initiative thought is in line with that strategy and you're tending your vision where you want to go, that should be pretty easy conversation then as long as it's in the same direction as the other. Cause we're talking about taking over other projects, right? Or other initiatives like, we're, we're focused on A, A is going to get us to Arizona. I don't know why we're going there. Maybe it's hotter. There's no snow in Utah. So
I don't know if that we need to go anywhere, but yeah, if we're heading down a path and this initiative is on that path, that's probably the first step. And if it's not, if it's going to take us to San Diego, Florida, Canada, that's an easy discussion. We're like, no, that's not where we're going. We all agreed that this is where we're headed. So let's not get distracted.
Jen Hamilton (27:43)
Yeah. And then get, like you said before, give it its home. But I think that's so important is oftentimes it's very tempting just to dive in and solve. We hear an idea we want to like tackle it. No, that's good. Or this is how we would do it. I love your saying step back and think about the why and where. Why are we doing this and where are going? That's really powerful. Yes. And to your point too.
Daniel Matthews (28:00)
Yeah.
Yeah, keep everybody aligned.
Jen Hamilton (28:07)
This is extremely expensive if they're not all focused on the same things. It's unproductive, completely unproductive.
Daniel Matthews (28:13)
Yeah.
Very much so. Yeah, you cannot multitask. You can only focus on one at a time.
Jen Hamilton (28:21)
Yeah, even as a
company and as a team, you really want to make sure that you're all rowing in the same direction. If you're all in a canoe with many different paddles going in different ways, you're just probably getting tucked in circles. You're never going to get there. And your arms are going to hurt.
Daniel Matthews (28:33)
Exactly.
You
can't run against your fellow teammate. You're not gonna win.
Jen Hamilton (28:41)
β it's
not good. Let's flip the mic. Now it's your time. You get to ask me anything I've asked you. A lot of questions. You've been very generous with sharing.
Daniel Matthews (28:50)
Yeah, how did you get into fractional COO work? What is your, you said you started out in accounting. That's a pretty big jump.
Jen Hamilton (28:55)
Yeah,
it is, right? Those of us who are much more analytical, there's obviously parts to COO work that are processed and data side of it, but there's a big part which we already talked about is the people side. So when I was in accounting, I really did love that I can look at financial statements and numbers and start to understand the story of what's working, what's not working in the business that numbers tell the story.
And then we would get into the processes and see what's working and what's not. I really enjoyed the way we can get a business to run faster and better. I loved that part of it. As I started to be in management positions and leading other people, I realized because I had been doing some of those leadership trainings before when I wasn't so great at being with people, as I learned more skills, I saw people really appreciate learning from me.
and how they lit up or when a light bulb moment when they really understood something they hadn't understood and then I helped cause their ideas to be put into place or to be understanding of something that was challenging them. I got a big hit out of that. was like, yes, I want more of it. So as I evolved out of accounting, I went more into the people side and was really understanding the human nature side. I was in education consulting for a while.
working with how do you get students and teachers to hold people accountable and get them to do their assignments? Well, the same thing happens in work as we need them to show up, do their work, do their assignments. Luckily in work they're paid. Students aren't paid. But I really started to pull together these two desires to bring these together. And when I went out 15 years ago on my own to do operations consulting and leadership and management,
it really is a good definition of what we do as COOs. It's about how do we have each member of the team, each team department and the overall business really have great processes so that people can do their best work and have great people so they can run those great processes. To me, when those two things come together, it's really exciting. So it just evolved as many of us do.
getting into, gosh man, I really like the game of business. You had said it before, I really get excited to make a business work. And to an extent, that's what we do. A term I've been liking lately is changing it from Chief Operating Officer to Chief Outcome Officer. When the day is done, we want the business, we want the team, and we want the individuals to create incredible outcomes. And when we do, that's when we get to win our game of business of making
great things happen easier and faster.
Daniel Matthews (31:35)
Yeah, absolutely.
There's a book by Clayton Christensen called How Will You Measure Your Life? And in there he says being a manager is one of the most rewarding jobs in the world because there's no other job in the world because it applies everywhere to where you have such an effect on other people's lives. And people don't quit jobs, they quit people.
and quit bosses. And so, yeah, I definitely get that side. Well, we started this off talking about projects and initiatives. So with four disciplines of execution, they say focus on one. One wig, one b-hag. And that is, I feel like, sometimes very difficult. And so when you have, when you're working with clients, do you focus on one thing for the year, one wig? And then kind of...
they have subwigs, essentially those three, to support that wig. But how does that look like for you usually?
Jen Hamilton (32:26)
There's great question. There's a couple ways that we look at it. I like to have overall goals for the year. We look at them in the context of the bigger goals, like you had said. What do I want to do in next three years or 10 years? What's that bigger vision? To make sure they all align. To your point, we want to make sure we're headed to Phoenix if we all decided we're heading to Phoenix and don't end up on a different road. From that.
Daniel Matthews (32:48)
Yeah.
Jen Hamilton (32:50)
I also look at not just where do we want to go, but where are their big problems and challenges and obstacles essentially that are in our way from it could be as much as being profitable, being sustainable, not just getting to the goal. So what I'm looking for is what are some of the risks that are happening? And between the two of them, it's really what is the business need? And that's where we...
put a filter through our goals and what we're focused on. I try not to have too many more than three to five goals for a company, but then that might be that within a department, they're owning part of those goals because it might be a marketing goal versus a finance goal versus like a process goal that we need to put those things in place. So it's still making sure that as you had mentioned before, their strategy, there's connection between
Daniel Matthews (33:23)
Okay.
Jen Hamilton (33:44)
where we wanna go and what is maybe holding us back from getting there and considering all those things, it becomes a little bit more obvious of what we need to work on. And as long as we're moving the train, even if it feels like a slow movement, you'll start to build momentum each quarter as you work more and more towards getting rid of the things that are holding you back and moving towards the things that really are where the business wants to grow.
Daniel Matthews (34:08)
So when you're talking about projects and initiatives, do you keep it one per company or one per department? So like you mentioned a marketing initiative, but say you got a marketing initiative and an operations initiative, do you push both of those or do you say, you know what, let's pause this one because this one's so big, this is what we're focused on. How do you take care of that?
Jen Hamilton (34:29)
The biggest thing that can help determine that is the size of the team. Do we have the capacity? If there's connection between the two, maybe they can work collaboratively together and we see, okay, I need this before I get this, so then they can circle around the same initiative. If they're totally siloed, but it's pulling the same few people, then we're probably gonna need to pick, right? So to me, it depends on the team and the connectedness of the.
of the initiatives and the projects.
Daniel Matthews (34:57)
Yeah,
that makes sense. Well, and also, I think you mentioned capacity. If you only have 15 people at the company and six are working on seven projects, like, that's probably a little bit too much. So.
Jen Hamilton (35:01)
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, and then the other thing too is they have their day to day work. extra projects, extra initiatives are important. So we move forward. I've decided that sometimes slow movement is better than no movement. So even if we have to pick one and boy is that hard, we want to do it all. We want to have it all. If we really have to pick one because of capacity, we'll feel so good that that one got to the finish line. Even if it takes six months instead of a quarter.
Even if it means the other ones couldn't get done, but just knowing we can trust ourselves. You had mentioned something this before. You need to trust ourselves that we can get things done. And if we constantly aren't completing things, then you start giving up on making commitments as a team or picking projects or setting goals. Cause you're like, well, Steve Joe, I know we're not going to get it done. We never finished anything. It feels so much better to finish, even if it's one little win, getting that momentum and.
Daniel Matthews (35:57)
Yeah, that's a terrible feeling.
Yeah.
Jen Hamilton (36:03)
that high that, we did it, we completed something.
Daniel Matthews (36:06)
That was something that it took me maybe a couple years to learn with Continuous Aggrooment is we would we would do projects, short projects, and they're like, OK, we got to do the next one. And then it took us maybe nine months, a year and a half. Like, β we're exhausted. This feels terrible. Why does this feel so bad? And because we never stopped and celebrated as like, guys, we've completed six projects. Like this is where we were. This is where are now. Like, let's go out and have sushi and like enjoy. This is this is why we're successful.
Jen Hamilton (36:24)
Yes.
Daniel Matthews (36:35)
And so yeah, is very important to slow down and celebrate because otherwise it's a constant, constant stream of just...
Jen Hamilton (36:42)
And then you can, like you said, continuous improvement, you can learn what works so we can keep building on the momentum of the success we've had.
Daniel Matthews (36:49)
Mm-hmm, absolutely.
Jen Hamilton (36:50)
Well, Dan, this has been incredible. I love learning from you. I love learning your origin story and how you have been working with different clients and dealing with these different things. I love that we got to do a dive into that emotional intelligence because it is a part of having things happen. It is a part of dealing with what people get excited about, but yet maybe it's not the right time. It really weaves into everything we're doing. If someone wanted to find out about working with you and they want to find you, I know
Here at Hamilton's UO is we can connect you with all kinds of people, but if they say, gosh, you know what? I really want, I connected with Dan. I wanna know how to work with him. What's the best way they can find you?
Daniel Matthews (37:29)
Yeah, I think the best way is probably to go to my website, mathewsops.com. So M-A-T-T-H-E-W-S-O-P-S dot com. And you can book a call with me. It's free. I make time for people. And also on LinkedIn, I'm sure there's another million Dan Matthews out there, but there's only one that looks like this. So I'd be happy to connect. Yeah, yeah.
Jen Hamilton (37:49)
I have a similar problem with Jen Hamilton's.
Thank you so much for being here, Dan. You're going to have to have you back because obviously we have way more that we can discuss and uncover together. I appreciate learning from you. I know our listeners learned a lot from you today too. Thanks for being here.
Daniel Matthews (38:06)
Yeah, thank you Jen.
