Matt Hansen: Engineering High-Performing Teams with EOS

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

The people who got you to a certain point will not get you to the next point, or sometimes they should just never have been there.

Matt Hansen  00:06

You got to take time to sit back and see the whole forest, not getting lost in that it's not always just about growth, but what kind of little aha moments or light bulb things have happened with the clients you've worked with you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:11

Welcome to another episode of Better Business, better life. I am Debra Chantry Taylor, and I'm your host for this podcast.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:37

I am a certified EOS implementer, an FBA accredited family business advisor and also a business owner myself with several business interests. I started the show to share my passion for creating a better life by creating a better business. And I bring guests onto the show who are prepared to share their highs and lows, but also talk about the things that have helped them to create that better life. Today's guest is really interesting. He is a type two fun addict. And if you don't know what that means, that is doing the stuff that's hard, so you you know it's not the type one fun. We just go out and enjoy yourself. Type two fun is where it's really, really hard, and the time you wonder why you're doing it, but at the end of it, you go, wow, that was amazing. He started his career in engineering, manufacturing and aerospace, and then actually left that to go and grow a business from nothing to $10 million in three years. He is based in the US, but he has been to six continents around the world, and they're going to Matt is going to share with you today some of the reasons why he became an EOS implementer, the tools that he finds really invaluable, and the sort of success that he has achieved by working with companies with EOS. So I'd like to introduce to Matt Hansen, who's a professional EOS implementer. So welcome to the show, Matt. It's always great to get fellow EOS implementers on the show, because we're all very passionate about this whole better business, better life concept. Great to have you here. Yes. Thank you very much for inviting me. Appreciate it. Yeah. So it loved it. Love the listeners to hear your story, because it's always fascinating to me. The EOS implementers come from a wide range of backgrounds, and we were just chatting before we came on the show, and you've got a background in engineering and manufacturing and aerospace, which is not what I would typically associate, you, know, with, with EOS. So tell me a bit about your journey to where you got to now.

Matt Hansen  02:20

Yeah, as a kid, I grew up in a country. My first job was actually, I was in third grade. I wasn't paid, but I was standing on the back of a waggon hay waggon helping my dad bale hay, because I grew up in the country, and so that was my first job, and but went on from there, but I was always a kid where I love, just like classical engineer looking at widgets and dreaming up ideas and all those sorts of things, and that's what I love to do. And so when I went into college, I ended up I didn't start engineering. I sort of tripped into it, but when I got in there, my grades were much better because I loved it, right? It just fit me. And so however, when I was a young engineer, I had a number of patents, and one place I was working, it had an opportunity to turn that into to a business. And so myself and a couple other guys were the core, started that, and we built that up, and it turned it into, I think we brought $10 million a year in sales. Took us three or four years to get there, or something like that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:17

I think I've got to ask, what was the product?

Matt Hansen  03:21

So it was an advanced manufacturing. It was a way to join metals without normal welding, something called friction stir welding, but which isn't so important to know what it is, but it was just kind of a new thing. Had been invented by the welding Institute in the UK a few years earlier, and so we licenced that and started developing and building things and made machines that did it and sold it to the manufacturers. So that's what I did.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  03:45

So you built up a business that had Tim and turnover. That's pretty impressive. It was great, big projects, right?

Matt Hansen  03:49

Everything, million dollar projects. Didn't take a lot of those to do a lot of custom things, but it created was a niche, right? It was a newer technology at the time, less than 10 years old, probably 1015 years old, and it's flat lagged right within that time frame. And so I decided I wanted to see what I could do in the corporate world. So I left and I went and just climbed corporate ladder for a while. That's how I got into aerospace, and at one point, I was responsible for a couple 100 million dollars a year in sales, and got exposed to a lot of different technologies, a lot of different roles. Went from engineering to lots of different things, a generalist in the business sense I was as part of aerospace, right? Lots of big companies get gobbled up by big other big companies. And at a certain point I was like, kind of tired of that. Wanted to see what was it like in little businesses again, I kind of missed that, right, that freewheeling, moving fast, all that kind of thing. And so I went, and I left, and I ran a small business was about 5060, people for an order, and we did something very different. So if you've ever seen vidEOS of cars getting slammed into walls like that, crash testing, that's what we made. So very unique, niche business. Yeah. But super fun. You know, it scratched all those engineering itches that I that I still have, even though I haven't been an engineer for a long time, but I did that it, but it was, it was a challenge, right? Challenge, because I'd learned how to be a good leader, a good manager in big, multi billion dollar companies, and I knew what I wanted to do, and I worked hard with the the leader, the owner, to understand his vision, but it was a challenge, because all those things didn't port very well, right? So it was a challenge. It was a struggle to work through those things, but through that, ultimately, I'd always wanted to own my own business. I hadn't been an owner of that little business a long time ago. I was a part of a founder, but I always wanted to own my own business. So I started to explore maybe buying a business, or explored, you know, other sorts of, maybe being a fractional executive, all sorts of different things. Because at that time, I was probably 52 and I was trying to understand, you know, what do I want to do for us my career? And ultimately, I realised I wanted to go help people. That's what I really wanted to do. That's what I always did when I was volunteering or something else. I was always trying to teach and coach and things like that. And as I sort of explored things, I learned more and more about EOS, and just each door kept opening, and it made sense for me. While I I don't have an experience of working in an EOS company. Before I started doing this, 20 years ago, I was trained as a leading practitioner, and so I'd been leading leading Kaizen events and strategy events and leading sessions. And the company I worked for had an operating system that they had developed, and it was similar to us, but different. And so it all made sense to me, like it all clicked, and I could see how the big company and the little company and all my experience of leading sessions and it all just came together, and that's how I ended up when I'm doing today.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:46

Awesome. I have a similar story. I also hadn't worked in a company running on EOS, but I'd run big businesses, just to be really clear, big business in New Zealand is probably a small business in them, in the US, but nevertheless, couple of 100 staff, and what I've loved about EOS was all the things I had been doing or trying to do came together in a framework in EOS. And so it was, for me, it was like a light bulb moment of, okay, this is actually what I have been doing kind of naturally, but here's a framework to actually bring it to life. So I love that about it, yeah, yeah. It just makes sense, right? I mean, we always say it's simple. It's not necessarily easy, but it's definitely simple. Yeah, cool. So that was back in February 2024, right? That you became an EOS implementer?

Matt Hansen  07:23

Yeah, I went through boot camp. It was great, and I'd heard a lot about the community, and it was almost overwhelming, because when I went through boot camp, it was at the annual, right, there's 800 people, or 800 implementers are all there, and we're our little team of I think what it was 1816, of us, maybe, I think that went through boot camp together, our little bitty group and our little room for two or three days ahead of and I remember when we walked out of the room and there's, like, whole of these people. Is almost overwhelming, but it was, it was great. It's such a welcoming community. It was, it was wonderful experience.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  07:56

Yeah, it's something described as a cult, and I think that's a little bit cruel, but it is definitely. It's a shared passion, right? I know that every one of us, 846 of us now. And you know, when you get into the room with that many EOS implementers who are all driven by the passion to help people, it's phenomenal. I mean, it blew my mind when I came to Dallas and spent time over there in the Dallas one in APAC, we're a little bit smaller. We've only got 46 implementers in the APAC region. And in my boot camp there was two of us, three of us, though, a much smaller kind of scale, but still, I knew I'd found my tribe. So tell me about what it is about EOS that you love, what are the things that really attracted you to it?

Matt Hansen  08:30

Yeah, I think there's a few different things. One on the first is its simplicity. It just fits. It clicks, like you mentioned earlier. It's a simple thing. Doesn't mean it's easy, but it's simple. And there's a tool for pretty much everything, right? 100% of everything, but you don't need 100% of everything. And so the simplicity is one of the things that I really love. The other thing that I like is the tools are great and super helpful, but the other thing that I find just really transformative. The real power of EOS comes from right we talk about vision, traction and healthy I think the most transformative part is the healthy part of actually getting people to really talk, work through hard issues, be on the same page, really be a healthy team. And I'm sure your experience is probably similar to mine. Everybody in the beginning, everybody in the beginning says, Yeah, we're a healthy team. And then they get into and they realise, well, maybe not as much as we thought. And I think that's the real beauty of EOS. I think it is interesting.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:30

Is it? Because when you start working with a client, you're right, they all say, Yes, we're very healthy. We have all the difficult conversations in the first couple of sessions. You can see that they're all all happy and all agreeing with each other. You kind of think there must be a little bit more underneath this, and by the time you get to three and by the time you get a third or fourth session, it starts, they start to realise that actually, this is a great, safe environment to have these conversations and to really start challenging some of the things are going on. And I, I love it's like a light bulb moment when you finally get that first little bit of conflict in a good way, you know? So it's positive for the environment. Okay, so was, is there? Particular tool that you love in EOS? Is there a favour? I know. I mean, you said there's a tool for everything, and absolutely is. And I think this is something that people sometimes don't understand. We've got the five foundational tools, which is what you start with, but there's a whole lot more additional tools in the background. So when you've got an issue with X or Y, then it can actually help with that. But I guess is there a favourite tool that you have seen to be the most transformative.

Matt Hansen  10:22

You know, the one that I think is very transformative, and I like is the quarterly conversations. Because everybody thinks, right? We all have when we're supervisor or manager, conversations with employees, right? Maybe not as much, but we have the idea. But what's so great about the quarterly conversations is it's focus. It's not a performance review, right? It's that really building the relationship and on a one on one level, being really, really clear with each other about what's working, what's not working, and ultimately trying. How do we go forward from there? I think that is a really powerful tool. Unfortunately, I think it's one that sometimes it takes a while for people to really understand. Right? When we we talk about, you gotta hear things seven times. In my experience, my clients kind of have to hear it over and over again to be like, Oh, I get it now. It makes sense. Oh, yeah, I'm using it takes a little bit of time, but it's an amazing tool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:21

Yeah, it's interesting. We did a deep dive into it in our tea group just last week, and it's a tool that I have used in my own businesses now, but also I've been teaching for a while. And what we kind of realised in discussing it, it's actually the linchpin for all of the EOS tools, because it brings in the accountability chart, the structure, the roles, the functions. It brings in the rots that they're kind of focusing on. It brings in their core values, fitter and the people analyse the GWC, and really, it brings all of that stuff together in an environment that encourages you to, as you said, to get to know the person that is sitting in front of you, and to make sure that and delegate none of it as well. That tool becomes part of that as well as that, and making sure they're working in that zone of genius, their unique ability, the things that they can really help with. And I think it is underestimated. It is such a powerful tool. Yeah, I agree completely. So you've been working with a number of businesses now, what do you see as the main benefits of a business taking on board EOS into their business?

Matt Hansen  12:13

Yeah, it's really the clarity, the focus. Everybody loves to do lots of things, and when it really starts to click with people, and they start to focus on the important, on the strategic, what's really important, and the other stuff, they start to not ignore, but let go in terms right the right time. I think that's the thing, because I there's so often when I'm talking to people when, you know, I've had a client that used the term like, we're drowning. That's the nice thing, when it and it takes a while, right? It's not natural for you to the first session. People are like, Oh, okay, I'll just Nope. It's journey. But I think that's the thing, because that's also, for me, the most gratifying. It's great to have a client that maybe is growing really fast or whatever. But what's really gratifying is when somebody feels like they can breathe, that they they're in control again, that the human is really benefiting, not just the business.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  13:10

It's true we say less is more or less, but obsesses. My sort of go to line because it happens a lot. And I'm not entrepreneur myself. I have run multiple businesses, and I do tend to get a bit distracted by bright, shiny objects, and I have 43 ideas before breakfast, and it's for as a tool for me in my own business, it's actually helped me as the visionary, to become much, much more laser, sharp, focused, and to use the tools to recognise when I'm getting distracted by other things and go is this actually leading me towards my 10 year target, my three year picture, my one year plan, if not, probably shouldn't be focusing on it. So great. What do you call it? A focus tool to bring you in to get real clear on what is important.

Matt Hansen  13:51

It takes the discipline, though, for sure. Yeah, I had the same thing for my own VTO, for my annual plan, and a quarterly rocket. I had some stuff on there just in my EOS practice, and then I got into the quarter, a month or two, and I'm like, wait, we're all right. Red ruling there. It's a distraction. Get it out of there. It's not gonna help me.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:09

Yeah. It's like, that's you have to build the muscle, don't? You have to keep working on it all the time. And I have to say, I share this kind of quite openly, quite vulnerably, but I think we also try and do too much. And entrepreneurs are classic for this, right? So for the first two years of my EOS and business action practice, I basically had seven or eight rocks for myself every single quarter. And every single quarter I'd get two or three done, but I'd always justify it with, oh, yeah, but that was because it's like, actually, no, I had to. It forced me eventually. It took a while, slow learner. I eventually had to go, I can't do seven or eight rocks. I'm not able to do that. And once I cut it down to two or three, then guess what? Those those two or three would actually get done, and they'd get done well, as opposed to trying to spread myself in amongst seven or eight different things and get distracted. And I think that is the power of it is, you know, you really need to focus on those things that will really move the needle, the things that will really take you towards where you want to go. And. Of us take a bit longer to learn than others, but we get there in the end. So have you got any sort of success stories from the clients that you've been working with in terms of because success, as you said, it's not always just about growth. Growth is great, and most of us want that. But what kind of little aha moments or light bulb things have happened with the clients you've worked with?

Matt Hansen  15:18

Yeah, I think it's, yeah, it's usually been around the people things right? So in terms of clients, right? Have clients has had a lot of great success and things like that. But for me, the things that stand out are when people start to be clear. So for example, I had an owner who recently, there was somebody he had on the leadership team, and it finally it became clear, like, oh, it's wrong person. He'd been there since the beginning, since the company had been founded. And it's kind of like, yeah, no, this isn't, this isn't working. And I think that's to me, you know, those are always the stories that really jump out. It's the person that ended up firing the family member, you know, those kinds that's always like, everybody's like, but I'm sure you've seen it a million times too.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:05

Yeah, it just transforms. And it's always at least, I mean, I do a lot of family business work, and this is why I love EOS, because I think the EOS tools take all the emotion out of it, and they start to bring you back to what's really important. And it takes away the relationships, the family stuff, and just kind of go, actually, do we have the right structure to execute on our plan, and then do we have the right people in the right seats? And sometimes the people who've got you to a certain point will not get you to the next point, or sometimes they should just never have been there, and that's the reality and and we and it's hard. You know, you've seen it with your clients. It's hard for them to let to let that person go, especially if they've been around for a long time, or they're part of the family. But when they do it, that sense of relief and the the change is sometimes immediate, like the relief from the entire team and what happens when you put the right person in that seat can be pretty, pretty quick to happen.

Matt Hansen  16:53

I think also that sometimes the individual being clear on if they're the right person the right seat. I've got a client, one of the owners, co owners, and he was in the integrator seat. And he was the reason he was the integrator of the CEO right before he knew about the Earth, was because, like, there was nobody else, so he did it and then, but he was miserable, and through, we're about a year into the process now, and through that, he's slowly right. He had a rock to figure out how to get rid of the seed and get the so it's been a process. But for him, I think he feel, when I talk to him, he feels in a different place, because he's now clear, like, I don't have to do this. I can give it off. We just gotta play on it. I think Brad's also also really a powerful thing to do.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:38

Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's what the show's all about. It's like he can create the business with the right people, and that does free you up to do the other things that make your heart sing, which is what we all want. We want for everybody in our team, you know, we want everybody to actually want to come into work every day, love what they're doing, add the most value to the business, and not be overwhelmed stressed working ridiculous hours, right?

Matt Hansen  17:57

Yeah, for sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:02

So there's lots of people tools in the EOS framework as well. Again, is there a tool in there that stands out for you in terms of its game changer?

Matt Hansen  18:10

Yeah, this is not a people tool. I guess they're all people tools to some extent. But another one, and this is one that I I wish I'd known about earlier, is the level 10 meeting agenda. It's so simple, and it's like I went I remember running programmes and businesses and things in departments, and they were awful meetings. It was awful and because we just get stuck on thing where we were the classic, get in a room, tackle an issue, discuss it to death and not really ever accomplish anything. And so the level 10, and that's always, usually the first thing that people are always like, Yeah, that's great. They feel the benefit of it right away. But to me, it was such a simple but really, really great tool.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:54

It is, it is, and it's interesting. I actually went back. I've been working with a client on and off over the last six years. And I want to say on and off only because they actually graduated, and then they've invited me back in again because they felt like they perhaps were the wheels were falling off a little bit. And I observed their level 10 meeting, and we do this a lot as implementers, to see how the level 10 meeting is going, and it's interesting. So they're now in their sixth or seventh year into EOS, and they've bastardised the level 10 meeting agenda a wee bit, and it's seen not only small things, but it's amazing how, if you actually just don't stick to the agenda, how you can get back into that, that thing of discussing, discussing, discussing, and not really ever getting anywhere, or, even worse, I think, ignoring some of the issues so they didn't drop some things down from the scorecard that they hadn't achieved. I was like, why don't you drop those down to the issues? As we've gotten to drop them down to the issues, and suddenly we had some really in depth conversations about what could actually change, and we had some action points about what we could actually do from it. And I think that is the power of the level 10 meeting. When it's done purely and you follow the agenda, there's no room to wiggle off and start, you know, getting caught up in things that aren't important. Important, and every IDs, every issue solving we do has to have an action point so you know, you're not sitting there discussing, discussing, discussing, with nothing coming out of it.

Matt Hansen  20:09

Yeah, I think it's also interesting is people starting to get better at the prioritising of what issues to talk about. I had a client once you asked, What do we do with issues that are on the issues list for a long time, it was like, Oh, it could be a lots of different things. Could be that it's a really hard issue and everybody's scared of it and it's sitting there because you're trying to ignore it like that could be a thing, or it could be you're doing exactly the perfect right thing is it's just not a priority, and it's just gonna sit there. And so someday maybe you do a cleanup and you're like, No, it's not an issue. Who cares? It goes away like, or something in between, but it's always, it's it's interesting.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:49

Yeah, I've seen it a little bit where I think that some particularly on the beginning of the journey, in the beginning of the journey, some clients feel like they have to tick off all of their issues, like it is a race. It's almost like a tick box exercise and actually say, No, it's like, actually we should be dealing with the ones that are really important, giving them the time that they actually deserve. And you're absolutely right. If something sits on there for a while, then it means it's not important. Or, I think the biggest one is that elephant in the room. I had one particular client with a whole bunch of shareholders, where we're doing actually a shareholder level 10 meeting, and that there was one issue that they just I knew it was the biggest issue in the room, but they all just kept avoiding it. And in the end, I said, Why are we not talking about this issue? Because I know each of you individually has told me that this is actually the biggest issue. Like, we don't want to go there.

Matt Hansen  21:34

Guess what? We're doing it. Man, yeah, I'm sure you probably have, like, the clients who are like, No, we don't really have any issues, right? There's nothing to put on the issues list. And then, I don't know, months later, you're like, oh, yeah, we had no idea. They finally no problem coming up to the issues. It's just they had to get used to it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:51

Yeah, it was not a normal thing to even talk about issues in some businesses. And I guess as you roll out EOS throughout the whole organisation as well, and everybody's able to be part of a level 10 meeting has the chance to start raising issues. Then it starts to uncover things that may have been sitting there for a long time, but nobody's had the forum to do that. And so that's when it starts. It's like building a muscle, once you kind of get used to it, then you you start to see things. And I always, you know, we talk about this, EOS is like shining a massive spotlight into every single corner of your business, and it highlights things that you really had hoped would never be highlighted, but all of a sudden they're there to deal with.

Matt Hansen  22:25

Yeah, that's true.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:28

What's your favourite tool? My favourite tool? So I have to say, I would always say it was the Oh, the accountability chart is one of my favourite ones. I think that's the one that most people who self implement avoid that, because it's probably the most difficult one, and I really enjoy getting people to really think about what's important. And I've always had the level 10 meetings, I think they are an absolute game changer. However, I have to say, now that we've done a bit more of a deep dive into that quarterly conversation, I've realised the power of it, and this is after five and a half years of implementing I've been teaching it for a long time. I've always thought it's a great tool. But now, now that it's almost like there's been a bit of an aha moment for me in terms of it is that linchpin. Is that linchpin that brings all the EOS tools together and enables you to work with your people, to really bring the most out of them. So I'm kind of leaning towards that quarterly conversation. I'm just in the process of delivery. I've delivered developing a little bit of a pack to help people make it easier to have those quarterly conversations. So I know we've got the books like they had to be a great boss, and we've got the tools, but just putting together things like emails that they can actually send out to their direct reports to get them just to make it easy, I find often with especially some of the smaller businesses, they're just too overwhelmed with everything. So the more you can make it easy for them, the better.

Matt Hansen  23:36

Wow, that's a great idea. I have to think about that. We're not trying.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  23:40

I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel. Don't get me wrong. EOS has got all the tools there, but it's just sometimes I know that, you know, if we can make it just a little bit easier for them, I just know that when they do it, they're going to love it. And I had this the similar thing with the clarity break. So the clarity break is always one of my favourite tools. I've got lots of favourite tools, but I love the clarity break because I've it took me a long time to actually take one myself, and then when I did it, I realised how important it was. And so I had a client that fought me for a couple of years, would just not do the clarity break. They said, No, I don't need to. I think when I'm in the car, or I think when I'm doing this, it's like, yeah, that's not the same. You need to actually have complete stillness, complete silence. She eventually went and did it, and she went to a beach, and she sat there with a with a blank notepad and pen, and she just she came back, and she's, oh my goodness, Debra, that was the best thing I've ever done. I can't believe I fought you for such a long time. And now she's my biggest proponent of the clarity break, and she goes out and tells everybody how amazingly wonderful it is. So I think the quarterly conversations are like that too. I think if you can just do them, you'll start see the power in them.

Matt Hansen  24:42

You're right about the clarity break. What? What are your what, you know, her experience, and what you're saying. Because I always thought I would be doing clarity breaks, right? There'd be times it'd be quiet. I'd go for a run, or I'd do, you know, something. And it wasn't until recently, after on the flight home after the annual QCE in San Antonio, you. So I sat down and I spent, it's about a two and a half hour flight, or three hour flight, or something like that, to UCl, and spent the time basically like, I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna do clarity break, and maybe it's after the conference anyway. It doesn't matter. I ended up, like, filling six pages from all of these notes and all of these thoughts about what I can do to be a better implementer for my clients, what I can do to run a better practice, all this kind of stuff. And it took a little bit to kind of open it up, but once it got going, it really got going. And so yeah, you're exactly right. You got to be still. It doesn't work as well if you're active, doing a thing.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  25:35

I used to argue the same thing myself as I go cycling every morning. When I'm cycling, I'm really and I'm not doing anything, therefore I'm thinking, but you are still doing something, whether you like it or not. You're still subconsciously, hopefully not avoiding hitting people. You're thinking about changing gears. You're doing all this stuff, whether you think about it or not. So the first time I did a real, true clarity about and I'm terrible. I'm distracted by things left, right and centre. So technology is the worst for me, because a little thing pops up on my screen. I'm immediately wanting to jump in and do something with it. So the first one did a real clarity, but we went away to a little place down by the lake where there was no Wi Fi, and so I was forced to actually have no electronics, which is unusual for me. And so I took my remarkable and I sat there, and it took a little while. And so, yeah, I was there, and I was thinking, it's a waste of time. It's not doing anything for me, you know, it's not really, I'm never gonna get anything out of it. And it was only after I'd sat there for a little while and really absolutely stopped, where I talk about the, do you know, talk about this in his EOS life book, you know, the glass of water that's got some sand in it, if it's always on the move, the water is always cloudy. It's only when you put it down, and it takes a while for that sand to really settle to the bottom, then you start to get the clarity. And so after, I think it's about 20 or 30 minutes in a plunge, in applying to nothing and getting frustrated with myself, all of a sudden, the neurons in my brain just started firing. It's like, oh my gosh, I've got this idea. I guess it's just that before I knew it, I'd actually developed a whole, a whole new thing that I wanted to sort of start doing, which was, which was fantastic.

Matt Hansen  26:57

So, yeah, I love that visual. I'm going to need to, I actually, I have a session next week where I'm going to be going over, you know, elevating quarterly. I'm gonna have to remember that for because you can do it in your session with your water glasses.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:07

So great. And people just get it right. They look and and you have to explain it's gonna be a very fine sand or a silt, because when you put the glass out, doesn't immediately all drop to the bottom. It takes a while for that silt to actually settle under the bottom, and then you've got the clarity. And so, you know, you've got to push through the oh, I'm, you know, I'm gonna need something to do or something to play with. It's like, no, no, just sit there in silence. It will come.

Matt Hansen  27:31

That's great. Thanks for sharing that.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:33

Oh, pleasure, absolute pleasure. So top three tips, or tools for people listening in, what would you say are the three things that you would recommend they leave this podcast and counting.

Matt Hansen  27:42

Well, I have one that is a non EOS tool to book. It's a non EOS book, but for people who work in an international environment, cross border, cross cultural I find a lot of people really click with it. So the book is called the Culture Map, and it's, I don't know. I maybe read it for the first time, 1520, years ago, something like that. But so it's been around. But what it's about is, there's a lady, she's from the Midwest the US, but she was a professor teaching at one of the business schools in France, and her research was mapping different dimensions, cultural dimensions across various a lot of different countries around the world, and mapping how, where the different cultures were on a scale. So an easy example is, one of those dimensions is context. When we speak, right? So in the US, we're very, very low context, right? We pre, we're very, we say very, usually direct, and it's kind of concrete, whereas in other cultures, you know, there's a lot of history of the country built into it, and they have little sayings that to somebody from that side will make absolutely no sense, but it makes sense to them. And actually, I just, I gave you an American example of context, as I described in great details, a very civil conver but it does that as well as on other dimensions. And I found it so I worked for, you know, 25 years in Asia, Europe and Africa and different places. So I found it really helpful to look at when I would go into a new country, to help me understand how best to interact and communicate with people, and to interpret how they were acting super helpful for me.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:29

And I think particularly if you think about a lot of teams now, I've got a lot of offshore teams as well. So in Vietnam, in Philippines, in Bangladesh and and you're right, there is absolutely a cultural difference there. And so it would help to understand how to better work with those environments, I'm guessing.

Matt Hansen  29:44

Yeah, so if you're in a multinational, right, you get teams from all over the world and all that stuff. So that's one thing, tips and tools. I think the other thing is, you know, I really do like the we talked about, top, top tool. A or tip is the clarity break. You got to take time to sit back and see the whole forest, right, not getting lost in that. So that's, that's probably another one. And then a third one, oh my gosh, that's a third one. Put me on the spot, you told me ahead of time, and I'm still bad at trying to come up.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:19

I want, I wonder if one of the tools that I do like with EOS, which they give away for free, is the organisational checkup, which just gives people a chance to have a look at where they are in the in their organisation.

Matt Hansen  30:30

At the moment, I think that you know the going along with it, the crystallizer assessment for visionaries and integrator. I think it's not as well known, but it's a great because, like that one client I mentioned, he was a founder, he was the CEO, just because he thought they needed one. And so being clear on what you're good at, what you love to do, that's that's really good.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:49

Yeah, no, it's true. I actually use it sometimes in sessions when I've got people who are not quite sure where they sit, or you've got a couple of people who think they should be the integrator. I just say, just do the test and just do it honestly. And let's have a look and see where your strengths are. Be great for thee to know, if nothing else. And I always thought, because it said, you know, it's designed to tell you, are you a visionary or are you an integrator? And I always thought, Well, what happens if you're neither? And I can guarantee that the test will actually tell you when you're neither, because I got my husband to do it, who's an actuary, who was neither a visionary nor an integrator, and it literally came back. He was 50s on both of them. It was like that. You're not even close to either of these things.

Matt Hansen  31:26

You know. Along with that, another point is some I think also I find with their like, especially like stem people, tend to be very neutral graders, never too high, never too low. Kind of ran the metal. I think that's the other thing is it can skew results too. It allow yourself the freedom to say, No, I'm I do like that, so I'm gonna max it out or whatever. Don't be just so middle around like,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:51

Oh, I'm just Okay, no, I never give fives, yeah. That's right, yeah. So go with your gut and kind of go, yeah. Actually, if you love something, be honest about it. Or if you really enjoy something, be honest about it. Okay, that's fantastic. Hey, Matt, we're gonna put all of your contact details in the show notes so people that get in contact with you, but just from your point of view, what is your ideal kind of team that you like to work with?

Matt Hansen  32:09

So I like people. So for my personal style, I am the kind of person I like to I like to push right. I My hobbies. I live here in Seattle. I love if I'm gonna spend the weekend in the mountains, mountaineering and doing hard things. And so I love people that are gonna pick up a lunch, fail and get to work. And so that's, that's what I love. The other thing, because of my background in engineering, I work with everybody, of course, but I have a special, special soft spot in my heart for people that build things. So could be construct, you know, construction, or engineers or manufacturing. I like that because it, it scratches an itch in my personality that I don't get to do anymore. So that's fine. Yeah, no, that's wonderful.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:51

So building, or construction, the rule of actually building things making a difference and and somebody is not going to be afraid to be pushed to really push into limits. I saw actually in your bio. So you do kayaking, you do mountain climbing. You obviously really enjoy that outdoor I love it.

Matt Hansen  33:07

Pursuit, yeah, yeah. We call it. We call it type two fun. I don't know if you've ever heard of type two fun, but type one fun is like, maybe go play golf, or you go to eat with friends. And it's, it's fun, right? It's fun. You fun. You do it. You have fun. Great guy. Type two fun is the kind of stuff when you're doing it, you're like, I think this sucks. Like, don't break it, quit. It's hard. I'm uncomfortable. But then you get home and you're like, Oh, I can't wait to do it again. Yes, and that's those are things that I gravitate to.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:34

Fantastic, and that's really fun. How beautiful. Well, hey, look. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us this morning. Thank you for sharing all your tips and tools and your background, and I shall look forward to hopefully seeing you over in the US sometime soon.

Matt Hansen  33:46

I hope so. It was pleasure. Thank you very much for including me. Debra. You have a great weekend.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:51

My absolute pleasure. You too. Thank you.