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- [00:00]
A
If you actually look at the science, we're wired to feel first, think second and act third. The part of your brain that feels moves faster than the part of your brain that thinks. Whatever the brand, whatever the industry, you cannot give what you've never received. You want people to deliver an experience, but if you want those things to happen externally and you don't actually create them internally, people can't reflect what they've never seen. Brands tend to leapfrog over the internal customer, the employee, to focus on the external customer. If you actually build a team of committed individuals of people who want to be there, they will go above and beyond and oh, by the way, they will do it on their own. Where we're seeing the challenge with AI is when it's trying to outsource meaning and purpose. AI is great with efficiency and great as a copilot. The challenge is when it replaces the experience. People who lead based on head, which is, I'll do what you say as long as you're on top of me, versus people who take ownership to say, I see myself in this, I want to be there. I feel this, I'm with you. That comes from the heart. When you're leading organizations, you have to get people actually interested in why before they're actually interested in understanding what and how.
- [01:30]
B
Welcome back to Experts of Experience. I'm your host, Lacey Peace. And today I'm joined by Matt Marcotte, author of Built on Belief and founder of M2 collaborative. Matt has spent more than three decades building, scaling and advising brands, including working across 200 plus companies during his time at Salesforce. What I love about Matt's work is that he doesn't just talk about experience in theory. He's obsessed with how humans actually behave. How belief, emotion and culture drive what customers and employees do when no one's watching. Today we're learning a mental model you can reuse immediately to elevate your CX EX and frankly all your human to human relationships. So, Matt, welcome to the show.
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A
Thank you so much. It's so great to be here, Lacy.
- [02:15]
B
Before we dive into all the stuff that I know we're going to be covering today, Matt, I kind of wanted to take you on a down memory lane with me. So imagine me, young, 19 year old in my first Econ 101 class and I'm learning about what we call the rational consumer as we've probably all experienced in business courses. And it's this idea that there is this human that's perfectly logical who makes decisions based purely on price Signals and incentives. And while I loved economics and I really enjoyed that class, I never thought that that made sense to me. Like, oh, humans are just rational beings that act in this way. So I'm curious for you, was there a moment either in education or in business where you're like, this is kind of a weird assumption that we're making.
- [03:00]
A
I was actually an econ major.
- [03:02]
B
Wow, perfect.
- [03:03]
A
So I know that theory very well. But you know, it's interesting. There's another theory in econ that is actually very specifically based on financials. And it's the curse of the middle class, they call it. And so essentially the theory is it's about risk being risk averse. And people who are. Who have no money are not as risk averse because they have nothing to lose. People who have tons of money are not as risk averse. Right. Because they have tons of money. And people in the middle are very risk averse because 10% change in their salary affects how they kind of can able to support their families and all those different things. And so to me, I've used that for years because I think it speaks to. Even though it was a financial model, the risk part of it was emotional. And you realize that people really do make decisions emotionally first and intellectually second. So even in a quote unquote science that was very much based on supply and demand and all the different formulas that, as you said, would be rational, so much of what we do is based on how we either feel or how we see ourselves in a way that is not rational first. So I think for me, those were the early forming kind of like ideas in my head that really helped me to kind of find my way into what I do today.
- [04:19]
B
So give me a little bit more scope of kind of your career from there. Like, what was the career arc and how did you end up. I know you end up at Salesforce and then obviously writing this book.
- [04:28]
A
Yep. So I spent 30 years in the retail world and the great thing was I was able to see different parts of the business, meaning I did department store. I went to Gap and did specialty. I was at Apple to do technology. I went to Tory Burch, which was aspirational luxury. I then ended up at Bergdorf Goodman, which was obviously luxury. But the idea was, for me, as I kind of look backwards and my career, I was really fascinated with why people behave the way they do. So I refer to myself as a consumer anthropologist.
- [05:03]
B
Oh, that's such a cool title.
- [05:04]
A
I know, right? I've given it to myself. I really try to Understand why people behave in the ways that they do. And from a brand perspective, how do you find ways to connect better with the customers that you want to be connected with, to create relationships where they become the advocates for your brand? Apple obviously is probably the best example of a culturally relevant brand where people, they were obsessed with Apple in so many ways that were just emotional. Right. So how do you scale culture when we have explosive growth? And then when I went to Tori, I'd never worked for a privately held company that was small. So how do you actually take a founder led company and help to build that company without losing the DNA of the founder's kind of belief system? And you know, there was explosive growth as well. And then in, at Bergdorf it was how do you take this venerable, probably one of the most valuable luxury assets in the US if not the world? And how do you reinvent a stale brand in a way that doesn't alienate the core customer, but brings it into the world in a modern way so it can actually continue to be relevant for years to come? The reason I moved to Salesforce was because the world, as we all know, was going to technology. And really it was becoming a bigger and bigger conversation. And one of the things about retail is they have champagne taste and beer budget. So there's a lot of talk about technology but not a lot of investment or hadn't been. And I was like, if we're going to, if this is the way the world is going, I need to learn and I need to become more fluent in what it means to be a technology player. And so I was able to move over there and lead what they call the industry advisor team, which is a bunch of people like myself who came from owning PNLs and we served in this kind of consultative role where we helped to make the case for change to the partners across different industries. Yeah. And then I kind of decided that I really wanted to do what I'm doing now, which is how do you unleash human potential? So I really help leaders, teams, brands find their voice, get super clear on their North Star. And then how do you scale culture in a way that actually gives you repeatable and profitable results?
- [07:18]
B
What I love about the through line of your career is this call back to the core, like what do humans care about? You know, where does this emotional pull, the belief culture come from? But then you don't leave it there. You're like, okay, but how do I scale that? Which is sort of the business function of how do I take that and go with It a lot of people like to talk about emotions and human psychology and talk about how they fold that into their business. But I think it's really difficult in action to take those beliefs and understandings and actually scale them across organizations in a way that the leadership team buys into and the customers buy into. And then, as you mentioned, with one of those brands, doesn't alienate the existing customer base that they already have.
- [07:59]
A
Yeah, it's interesting. I refer to what you're talking about as how do you operationalize belief, which are. Which seem like the biggest oxymoron? Like they should not go together. But to your point, it's critical when you're running businesses to figure out how to drive results. And so what you're saying is so true. It's how you drive those results and why those results happen. That's the really interesting part to me. Because the more you understand motivation and the core of what you're trying to actually do, the more you can actually control it and the more you actually can actually intentionally help to drive and deliver on it.
- [08:38]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I want to get into the framework that you have in your book, My Brain, and this is just proof of what you're saying. My brain keeps messing it up. I keep thinking it's head, heart, hands, but it's heart, head, hands. Right. And even whenever you Google it, it'll
- [08:54]
A
flip them around, it reverses them.
- [08:56]
B
Yep. It'll take the heart and put it second in the head first. So I'm curious, why does this order matter so much to you?
- [09:04]
A
I think for the reasons we just started talking about. If you actually look at the science of how people's brains are wired, we're actually wired to feel first, think second, and act third. In fact, the part of your brain that feels moves faster than the part of your brain that thinks. And so when you think about even just back in the days of the saber tooth tiger and the fact that something alerts humans to danger or like something, I don't know what it is yet, but I'm feeling something. I'm kind of. Something is making me sit up and take notice. And then what I do is I actually make some sort of try to understanding of what's going on around me. Right. Make sense of it. And then once I understand what that means, then I can decide how I want to act. And so just when you think about the. How people are built, that's how we're built. And so, you know, it's interesting if you're actually trying to get large Groups of people, especially, you know, in brands or in what, you know, for me it was a brand. So you know, when I was at Apple, I had 25,000 people that reported up through me. And we were, and we were actually exploding, growing 50 stores a year. So we're like adding more and more people into the mix. So it's interesting when you think about people who actually lead based on head, that's actually asking people to understand something versus when you actually lead with the heart. You're actually asking people to own something, to commit to something, to believe in something. And so if you want people to comply, which is, I'll do what you say as long as you're on top of me. And kind of there's the carrot and the stick, that's actually an intellectual exercise. But if you want people to take ownership to say, I see myself in this, I want to be there, I feel this, I'm with you, that comes from the heart. And so when you're leading organizations, you have to get people actually interested in why before they're actually interested in understanding what and how.
- [11:05]
B
I think it's something that startups get almost right away. Right. Like if you have a 10 person team, you're, you're just all of you, you're not making enough money yet to pay each other well. Right? Like you're not even sure if this makes sense and you're just going for it because of this vision that you have in your heart and you keep rationalizing away what will come. But then when you start to scale and you get to like a hundred people, a thousand people, ten thousand people in a team, I mean it is so easy to lose that that's still at the core of what makes a human motivated. I'm curious what you've been seeing with leaders. Whenever they're trying to build strategy, a lot of people like to default to data and decks and try to explain things to their team intellectually. But why doesn't that work even at scale?
- [11:51]
A
There's a whole part of our piece of my book which talks exactly to what you're talking about, which is the startup as an example, right? Because to your point, it's all very much about belief. And so what's interesting is I always think belief is actually the internal fuel, which is what makes you, there's an opportunity, a hole in the market, a better mousetrap that you can build. You believe you can do something and then you translate that belief into purpose. Purpose is what gives the company external manifestation of your internal belief that Other people can rally around. And I think as companies scale go from the 10 people sitting next to each other not getting paid, we're all here for the same reason, we're all the potential. And then you get to a certain amount of success and you realize you have to start bringing other people on. Professional management, what people don't do well is vet for the belief of the external coming in. And so what you end up having is people who bring their own beliefs, their own baggage, their own paradigms, their own experiences, which we all do. It's what you hire for. But you don't do this alignment and kind of, this kind of. How do we integrate the both of those so that there's not organ rejection, but there's organ acceptance. And so if you put enough people who are external into the company with these competing ideas or beliefs, what everybody does is actually defaults to the lowest common denominator of a North Star, which is profit. And so this is where metrics start to replace purpose because we can all rally around a number, but if we all start to say what are we here for? Why do we exist? You've got 17 different reasons in the room and unless you actually harmonize those into one, and hopefully it's the same belief that started the company or at least one that's evolved in a good way, you create a completely different company. But people are aren't comfortable with that exercise. It's messy, it feels soft. Metrics, decks and strategies are safer because they are easier to get your quote unquote head wrapped around. But they are the second part of the conversation, not the first. So you end up actually leading to objectives, not leading to purpose.
- [14:04]
B
How do you hire for that though? If I am someone trying to scale a team, how am I making sure that that comes through in the hiring process? Or is it maybe too difficult to do at that point and you just have to have a pulse on it and see like, oh, we need to realign with the teams that we already have.
- [14:20]
A
No, I think it's very, it's. Well, I won't say it's easy, it's not easy, it's time consuming. But it's the right, it's how you decide to spend your time. So for example, if you think about values of a company, the things that the hallmarks of what makes us unique, what makes us different is one example is a piece of the conversation. Defining what those words mean and what they don't mean in context of your brand, your company, or whatever it might be, is critically important. And most organizations don't do that. They have the word we are about collaboration. They don't define what collaboration means for them. They don't define what it doesn't mean for them. And when you don't do that, it's open to interpretation. So let's just say if you have five people interviewing the same person, they might all have different ideas of what collaboration means, so they're gonna actually look for those things. But if everyone knows what, what is important to the organization and the brand to succeed, that makes the culture what it is, that helps you to fuel the results. Then you actually build your process around mining for those things. You start asking different questions, you start listening for different answers, you start putting examples, like, tell me about a time when. And you allow people to give you kind of their. Their experience and their perspective. But the filters with which you're listening are very, very clear. And what I find is that people tend to interview based on your resume, not on your beliefs. And if you get the beliefs right and the resume strong, that's a win win. Right. You assume people probably have the skills to do what you're asking them to do because that's why they're in front of you. Hopefully be vetted the right way. But you've got to then go one step further, which is the bigger double click up, which is what do they actually believe? So I think most organizations that I've interviewed with, the ones that I haven't worked for, did not do a good job of that. The ones that I did work for, if you listen to who I worked for, they were all incredibly culturally led organizations.
- [16:23]
B
Now I'm thinking about, okay, cool, I have this leadership team. Like, let's say I'm already at a point of scale, right? And I maybe didn't do this in the hiring process. How am I aligning the team? Do you have, like, I don't know, questions that you tend to ask leaders, like leadership teams?
- [16:37]
A
Yes. So I think there's three, I'll give you three Cs for this conversation just to make it super easy, which is clarity, curiosity, and connection as an example. So clarity is, let's get clear on what we're solving for. So to your point, if you have a team that's kind of all over the place, you're not where you want to be. First of all, where do you want to be? What is the. Stop back up and say, what is. What does perfection look like? What is our North Star? What is, like the ideal situation, the ideal brand, the idea ideal Culture, ideal results, all those things. Things. Right. And you do that so everyone's super clear about what it is we're striving for. And then there's a distance between where you want to be and where you are. And that's where curiosity comes in to really understand from the people that are on the team, how do they see themselves? What do they think the North Star is? Where do they see the opportunities? Where do they feel like we haven't lived up to this? Where's the distance? So you start to get clarity around the work, which is the distance between where you want to be and where you are. Right. And what I find is most companies don't do the second part, which is to say, where are we today? They pontificate on the North Star without understanding what they have to do to actually bring people towards it. And then the third piece, once you've done those two, is connection. And connection means that all the people that have to help to be part of the success of the strategy, of the vision, of the purpose, of all the things we talked about, do they have the tools, resources that they need and the authority and responsibility they need to be able to do that? Meaning you bring people along with you, you create co creation, you have people be part of building because people want to have skin in the game. If they're the right people, the ones that don't, then you realize, you know what? This probably isn't for you. And then you have to have the tough conversations about aligning what you want with who you have and what their desires are.
- [18:38]
B
What I like about those that 3C framework is it also maps almost perfectly to the heart, head, hands, conversation as well. Right?
- [18:46]
A
Yeah.
- [18:46]
B
It's okay. Where are we at? What's our vision? Where do we want to go? The heart piece, the head. Okay, logically, where are we right now and how do we get there? And then hands, what do we need to do to get there? Right.
- [18:58]
A
Correct. Yeah. And, you know, I find, Lacey, it's interesting. One of the things that's super important when you're getting people to understand is speaking in language that is relevant to them. And so to your point, either I have 15 different ways to say hard head, hands, because for some people, they get it for somebody like this is way too soft for me. But as you just said, saying it in different ways, it means it can click for somebody in a different way. And that's the point, is to be able to connect with that person in a way that means something to them, not forcing them to Speak your language.
- [19:35]
B
No. That's brilliant. Have you noticed any difference between. Because you've worked with so many different companies, has there been a difference with certain industries where you're like, okay, whenever I'm working with this kind of industry, I definitely need to like use this language. Whereas whenever I'm working with retail, maybe they're more okay with that, like heart, head, hands, sound, you know, sound.
- [19:53]
A
I'll answer this in two ways. This is my caveat. You know, leadership is very individual. So there are people that I work with in every industry that get it. There are people I've worked with that don't necessarily get it. There are people who are in the middle. So I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but. But if I do now, I would say that the industries that are more data driven, so think financial services, manufacturing, engineering, a lot of those industries, the currency in the industry is data, logic, formulas, algorithms. And so there's an environment we all live in. Retail, you know, one would think is actually more people focused, but really retail is product focused. So they're not necessarily any more sophisticated. There's usually just. There's a need to get people who are paid less to do more. So when you're talking about frontline employees, when you're talking about stores, when you're talking about, you know, retail tends to be a lower kind of paid industry in a lot of ways. So the way you actually hopefully motivate people is through culture. So I think there's a, a reason why you see it maybe a little bit more. But as you start to help them understand the, the need for reframing based on what they trying to accomplish, people jump on board. Election people are jump on board if they, if they believe it. Not everyone believes it. Right. And that's okay. I mean, it's not okay, but it's. I mean, you know.
- [21:28]
B
Yeah. What I do love is you teed me up perfectly for my next question, Matt, is how do I take this methodology? So we've talked a lot about like internal leadership, right. Getting your team to believe in something, but how does that actually leak outside of the organization to customers?
- [21:44]
A
I have this belief and it's based on a marketing campaign of the 90s for cheese in California. So this is very sophisticated. So everyone listen up. And the marketing to handle was happy cows make happy cheese. And so I don't want to offend anybody by calling them cows, but this is how I would talk to my teams about this, which is. Or I would talk to my peers Or I would talk to leaders who I needed to influence to get them to invest is that you cannot give what you've never received. And so when we want employees at any level of a company, whether it's in merchandising, whether it's in finance, whether it's in engineering, whether it's in the stores, whether it's in E commerce, whatever the brand, whatever the industry, if you want people to deliver an experience, to deliver some sort of sticky point for your customer, to make them want to stay with you. So we all want customers to go from being transactional to loyal, right? We want relationships, all the things people talk about. But if you want those things to happen externally and you don't actually create them internally, people can't reflect what they've never seen. And so what you see brands tend to do is leapfrog over the internal customer, the employee, to focus on the external customer. And then there's this misalignment of, oh, we told the external customer this was going to be experience. They don't get that experience, they get frustrated, they get angry and then they walk away. So they're mad at the internal customer. But the internal customer was like, I, I don't know what to. I'm not given the tools, I'm not given the resources, no one's invested in me. Why would I invest in somebody else? And so forth. For me, the way that it leaks out to your question is by focusing internally first. Because if you actually build a team of committed individuals, of committed leaders, of committed practitioners and executors, people who want to be there, they have, as I said before, they have skin in the game and they will go above and beyond. And oh, by the way, they will do it on their own. And so it's a kind of a simple idea which is really challenging to execute on at scale because the ROI can be longer term than some people are comfortable with.
- [24:11]
B
It is interesting though, that there are brands that have done such a great job at this. When I was younger, you know, in high school, college, I was working random big companies, you know, like I worked at Lowe's for a little bit, Starbucks. And I felt like both of those companies did an amazing job getting me, even as a young adult to buy in to like, oh, I actually genuinely want to help this person figure out what paint color they need for their barn or whatever, right? Like, I actually genuinely want to do that because of how they train you and teach you and you learn about the whole, like low scene story or the Starbucks story, you Feel it. When you walk into a company or a big name, your brand, store, you can immediately feel like, oh, these people are all bought into this. They want to support me and I want to buy from them. Versus you can go to the same store a town over and whatever, the management is slightly different or something, and you don't feel that way. So I'm always very impressed whenever I go into these larger companies that have successfully done it at scale.
- [25:14]
A
Yes. And this is the thing I think is so interesting. There are so many proof points, like you're saying you just named two of them for you. There's so many proof points where you see it works and you actually see what it does to your desire to participate and your desire to kind of be part of the brand and give them your money. Let's just say that it always amazes me that more companies don't pay attention, that somehow it's a. Well, that's just over there. Versus it should be kind of. To me, it should be a kind of foundational, basic understanding of what we're talking about. You know, it's interesting. I was just in the airport last week coming back from a client meeting, and it was in the Philadelphia airport. And this is. I'm flying out of the American terminal. There's this one section, relatively new, it looked like, but there were these three different kind of, you know, the newsstands type of situations that were on corners. And I'm sure they're probably owned by the same, you know, kind of company and whatnot. But I walked in and I'm just standing there trying to figure out something I actually wanted something sweet, like something like a cookie or something. But if you are in any of those, everything's super sized. They're crazy little big. And I'm like, I have no discipline. If I got by this, I will eat all of the gummy bears. I only wanted one, right? So this woman comes over and she's like, oh, hi. I noticed. Is there anything that can help you with? And I was like, oh, my God. I said what I just said to you. She's like, come with me. She brings me over to this, like, place where there was this one little like a Reese's peanut butter cup thing in a bag. And I was like, oh, thank you. So I, I didn't buy it, but I was just like, why did she help me? Because it's so not the experience you are. Nor in an airport, right? I go. I go across the way to the. The next one. I'm going to A gate, and I'm just looking again and someone else is like, how may I help you? I, I walked away and I came home and I was saying to my husband, I wish I had more time or knew who these people were that I could get in touch with. Like, what are they doing? Because the level of commitment and the level of engagement that the employees at an airport were giving me were so, so different than what I have experienced across the board in airports that it like, it shook me in a way of like, what is happening? Like, is there an incentive they have? Are they competing against each other on the corners? And of course it made me buy something because I just felt like I had to participate because these people were so nice. But your point, it's when you see it. I had a boss used to say, if you see it, it can be. So when you see these things happening, you know, it's possible. And the question becomes, as companies, are you investing to make that happen?
- [27:37]
B
Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Okay, this is a random question for you. Have you started to use the word like intuition at all whenever you're describing this kind of stuff? I have this gut feeling, this intuition about something like this. Especially when you're a small startup company, you're like, I desperately believe this thing, even though I don't really have the data to prove that there's a reason for me to believe this thing. But then we're just constantly trying to justify our intuition.
- [27:59]
A
I think for me, the idea of belief is that word belief is something that I just feel like it's. It's who I am, it's what I believe. It's. And then you have to, as you said, either prove or disprove whether it makes any sense. The word that I'm hearing more and I tend to be using more than I probably would like to because I'm not a big one for buzzwords. I find they kind of, I don't know, I just, I don't, I don't like them because it feels very of the moment. But the word is signal. And so the signals in the system. And so to me, what I take from this converse, this part of the conversation is part of being a great leader. And I talk about being a consumer anthropologist is looking into the world to see what's happening. So for example, you're seeing now, especially with Gen Z, this idea of the going back to flip phones, the idea of malls have become important again. The word community keeps coming up. They're watching 90s television with their parents, they're sharing experiences. There's signals in the system that would say that we are saturated with technology, we're saturated with siloed existence, we're saturated with loneliness. And so where the human spirit is starting to push back in different ways now, to your point, I don't know if that's a widespread signal. I don't know if that's a trend signal. I don't. You know, you start trying to research all these things, but it makes sense to me because my belief, like you and I both talked at the beginning, is we're human. We're wired to connect. We're tribal by nature. There's something in us that while the world and technology wants to rewire our brains and it's doing a little bit of that, obviously there's also a internal spirit that wants to be fully human. And so when you think about how you then express that in a company or a business, how do you create experiences which connect us to each other, which actually play on and help to further humanity in a way that is relevant and appropriate for. For that brand relationship?
- [30:10]
B
I mean, it's such a. Such a hard question. And I mean, it goes so deep, too, because when you look at the history of humanity, it's one of connection, right? It's one of like, we've got this purpose and we're all working together towards that thing. And I think it's what's elevated humans beyond other species, our ability to communicate, connect, empathize, storytell, right? And whether I'm out in the wilderness trying to hunt and gather, I still have my mythology that I'm tied to of, like, my belief of why am I doing this? I think we're just going to constantly create that for ourselves. And recently in the last couple decades, I think it's been through business because we've used to be like, people were really into church and all that kind of stuff, but I think now it's more like, okay, there's other places that we're putting our belief into. And so how can companies leverage that to really create a great ecosystem for their employees, but then also, of course, hopefully help the bottom line.
- [31:05]
A
I just heard you say it when you actually finish that. And I feel the same way. It's like, you don't want to get. I don't want to become muddled and dirty and feel like it's like, you know, we're only doing it for the profit. But the reality is brands are about connection. People choose brands because they see themselves in that brand. They like. They like what the brand stands for. They like the esthetic, they like the values, they like what the brand's about. You know, I mean, I feel better about buying Bombas socks because they donate one to someone who needs them. Like, there's, you know, that's okay. I mean, there's. Obviously, they want me to buy more socks, but there's actually a payoff which is. Helps humanity as well. Right. So to your point, it doesn't have to be either or. It can be both when it's done in the authentic. In an authentic way. But I think one of the reasons profit has become a dirtier word is because people see the way people are getting profit is not with any sort of integrity. There isn't a sharing with. There's a very small group of people that make a ton of money, and then there's the people that don't. I will talk about this idea of belief is that, you know, you have to align what you believe with what you say with what you do. But what. How you act, your behaviors are always actual proof of what you really believe. And so where I think people get. We're upset is when there's a misalignment of, you're saying this, but. But you're doing this. And I'm not stupid.
- [32:22]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [32:23]
A
But the companies, like the Patagonias of the world, who align who they are and what they believe with what they do, people feel great about participating and want those companies to succeed. I don't know if you remember, there was a Black Friday ad, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago, I'm dating myself here, but it was back when newspapers were still a thing, and. And Patagonia took out an ad that said, don't buy a jacket for Black Friday. Don't buy our. Because they wanted people to keep and utilize what they had. And they also then talked about, if you have an old jacket, bring it into us and we will actually, you know, kind of do something. And they were completely. Because. Because of who they are and because people know they have integrity, they knew that that ad was actually genuine. I think they had like a 70 or 7 would have been some crazy Black Friday weekend because people were like, I want to put my money with that company, not because they asked me to, because they actually did what was right. And now I want to actually participate more. And so that alignment of values and beliefs and kind of how we operate becomes super important to people wanting to participate, especially now.
- [33:27]
B
You mentioned something at the beginning of our conversation about Long term thinking. I think that's what's really important here as well. Like Patagonia is not playing the short term gains game. They don't want just one year to work well. They're like, we're building a business for the next century. How do we establish ourselves now in a way that's trustworthy and keeps people for generations? Right. Because I, my, my parents were wearing Patagonia, I'm wearing it, my kiddos are going to be wearing it, you know, like their kids. Maybe it's just a different mindset of like, do I just want to sprint for some cash in the short term? And then you have like a really hollow company with a lack of belief or do you want to build something for the long term that has some other core mission that it's trying to accomplish and it's not just cash, but cash helps funnel it.
- [34:10]
A
I think to your point, there's such a distance between no profit and this profit. Like there's a lot of gray area. But what you said is super important. It goes back to saying before about at some point when you, A lot of companies, when they keep bringing new people in or they just get bigger, they replace belief and purpose with metrics. And that's exactly what you're saying, which is, you know, like a Patagonia, at least, you know, everything that we have seen up to this date is aligned and has continued to be aligned with why they exist, what the purpose of Patagonia, what it means to be profitable as their brand. They define profit in different ways than other companies define profit. Right. And so all those beliefs are the filters for decision making. And that's why I said, like, your behavior ultimately shows what you truly believe in, not what you say you believe
- [35:03]
B
in, which is uncomfortable even on a like, human to human level. Right? Because I'll be like, I believe in eating healthy. But then it's like your behavior says that you just ate that entire thing of ice cream. So I don't know that you believe in being healthy. It is an uncomfortable thing to face as an individual, but also as a company. But I just love when people are radically honest. Like, no, look, here's your actions, here's where we are. And it can help reset a company too, because I've seen many companies kind of shift off path maybe, and they seem to go into this like overload of metrics and KPIs, but then they'll get a really strong leader, leadership team come in and help realign or set a new direction where they're like, okay, this belief didn't work anymore for us, but this one will. And you know, there's a whole rebranding that needs to happen there. I think it's fascinating thinking about how some of these companies do it. Do you have any other favorite examples of companies that have done this really well?
- [35:55]
A
Well, it's interesting you mentioned one earlier which is Starbucks. And I think it's still early days, but I think the new CEO, Brian, I think he's done, I think the business has gotten stronger, which is great and obviously some of that's about, you know, kind of operations and costs and kind of streamlining. But his, when he came in, one of the first things he talked about in the interviews he was giving was that the company had walked away from the customer experience. When you think about what happened like during COVID and mobile ordering, which was always, you know, the idea of mobile ordering is also a throughput conversation, right? Like stores are busy, you know, dollars per square foot are important. How do you move more people through when they don't have to have to be there? And quite honestly, people didn't always want to just sit there and wait and sit in the. So I understand like the idea of mobile ordering super great, super important. I do it all the time. It's, it's very convenient for me. But it became so over indexed on during COVID and the company that this idea of the third place, right, Starbucks was basically home work, Starbucks. And so the third place was a gathering place, community, people. I remember back in the day, I'm sure you do too. Maybe you're one of these people. People would carry their Starbucks cup around after they had finished their coffee and put the coffee from the office in the Starbucks cup because they wanted the association with Starbucks, right? Those days have gone away and I think what they're trying to do on their own level, that's why, you know, the whole writing in the cup, which one can argue whether that's actually too manufactured versus being organic or not. But the point of it was how do we get back to this kind of more organic or human connection in a moment with other humans. And so I think what they're trying to do obviously is to find the balance, but to realize that part of what made Starbucks special was that sense of community. And community, which is a emotional construct, right? A relationship construct. They see the power in driving more participation, more purchase, more loyalty, more profit. And so it'll be interesting to see how it all kind of pans out. But to me, I think it's Interesting. As you said, when. When companies go off the path.
- [38:02]
B
Yeah.
- [38:02]
A
How do they get back on? And also how transparent are they? As you said before about even saying, we made a mistake, we got to get back to who we are.
- [38:11]
B
What I want to get into now, Matt, is the opposite of everything we've been talking about, which we've been talking about humans and belief. And what do you think I'm going to say? I'm going to say AI. So I would like to start to hear your takes on AI. I cannot get through a single episode without dropping that phrase, AI writing the perfect marketing copy and perfect emails and perfect customer service responses. But people are just rejecting it because you can tell it's almost too perfect to be human. And so I know you and I, when we last chatted, we kind of spoke about this briefly, about this almost desire for imperfection that we have now, that AI is kind of taking the reins of a lot of different things. So I want to hear kind of your take on this.
- [38:53]
A
As we discussed that. LinkedIn's a perfect example of where people feel like we've outsourced our opinions and our narrative to AI for efficiency sake. And what's happened is, as you said, people know. I mean, they can tell, which I think just speaks to the whole human spirit thing. We have, as you said, instinct and intuition of, like, that doesn't seem right. I mean, it's lovely, but it's not real. I feel like where we're seeing the challenge with AI is when it's outsourcing meaning or trying to outsource meaning and purpose. I think AI is great with efficiency and great as a. As a copilot and as a editor and as a kind of a, you know, a thought partner. I mean, I think I use AI a lot because it helps me to kind of think about things, but it's not meant to stop there and say, oh, great, now post this, or, oh, that's the answer. It's more of a, oh, think about it in a different way. Or what's the word I want to use? Or maybe that's one. Or whatever. So as a partner and as a potentially outsourcing tasks and making life more efficient to give me more space and room to connect more. I think it's great and I think it's important. I think the challenge is exactly said when it's. When it replaces the experience. And so you're hearing what you're seeing, as you said, with a lot of people pushing back, is there's been a lot of conversation now about what are the things that make us human? So whether that's emotional intelligence, purpose, meaning building, meaning, being able. Emotional intelligence in the way of being able to understand each other, nuance. All those things are what people are looking for. And in the world of imperfection, like, you know, we were talking before about Etsy, there's all this kind of uptick in, like buying crafts or crocheting or all these different little signals again in the system where people are looking for things that aren't manufactured at scale but are soulless. We want soul. We want that ability to say, oh, I see you, I feel you, I connect with you, I see myself in you. And that's a human experience. And so people, I think, are really resonating more with imperfection. In fact, funny, I've started to see, and I don't know if I'm just so close to this in a way of I'm. It's in my head. So I'm like. You start to look for the signals you want to see, right? Yeah, yeah, totally. I have my cognitive bias, but. But I'm starting to see different creators and not ones I follow. But sometimes you see them served up to you all of a sudden talking about the. The challenges they've had, or this didn't go well, or the video shows them having to do it twice, or. And I'm like, is that once again an artificial construct because they realize people want that, or is that realizing that people actually respond better when they see it's what the reality looks like? So I think AI is critically important. I think we all have to learn how to use it, use the right way. But what's interesting, the way that large learning models work, right, is they actually look back and they actually take everything that's in the system and figure out how to create predictions and all those different things. But it. In some ways, and this is an oversimplification in some ways, it aggregates and generalizes and finds the middle. So what it's actually giving you is the common answer would be the common. The most most likely prediction would be they're not the ones that are most kind of groundbreaking or the ones that are most innovative or the ones that are most kind of off the, you know, go on the left side or whatever might you want to call it. And so you end up with this kind of sea of sameness and this commoditization of narrative. And so we have to be very careful about what we allow it right now to do for us because it's creating generic Experience.
- [42:42]
B
I think one of the things that I think AI is probably not the best at, which is something you've been hinting at, Matt, is novelty. So, like, it can't come up with, with novel ideas necessarily, unless I'm prompting it in a certain way, which really means that I'm giving it the ingredients for it to be able to process that information and create something a little bit more novel or new. But if I'm not giving it good raw ingredients or creative ideas as the human prompting it, you're going to end up with what you've just said, which is that sea of sameness. And I really dislike this idea of not just businesses, but people outsourcing belief. Yeah, this is the hard thing about being human is like, I have these challenges in my life and then I have to sit and think about those challenges. And in that process of reflection and sitting with them by myself, maybe journaling or doing whatever, going on a walk, I come up with this, like, idea of, oh, this is how I should have handled that, or this is what this kind of means. And I create meaning for myself year after year after year. That makes confidence in who I am, what my core beliefs are, what I. What my moral compass is. And as a company on a larger scale, it's kind of the same thing that happens, right, Is like, we face this challenge as a company when we were little and now we're growing, and now this is sort of solidifying what I think is important based off customer feedback and all this stuff. But if you're trying to circumvent the long, hard process of creating belief for yourself or for your business by using a tool to condense that timeline down really short. I don't think that you're gonna get an output that's actually gonna create people, like a belief structure that people wanna buy into over the long term because it's just artificially created for you.
- [44:25]
A
I love everything you just said, so there's so much there we could unpack. So I hope everyone just listened to that because there's two things that I think come to mind first, which is what you said. Like, if we treat meaning or purpose or clarity as a task, we're dead in the water. And the task is when you outsource it for efficiency's sake. It's like, I need to get this off my plate. So let me check. Look, found my meaning. Done. The walk in the woods, the taking, the time, the. You know, it's why they always say, like, when you're in the shower, you have all these ideas come to you because you can't bring, because you can't bring your phone in there. But the idea of actually being present and being still and allowing your brain to go. The ideas to go into the subconscious, which is where you actually form what you're talking about. Takes time. Like you were saying, I'm sure you've read about this too. Technology, not just social media, but obviously it's a huge part of this. There's so much information coming at us at one time. Your brain has to be able to absorb that information without exploding. So what? Your brain only has so much real estate. So what it's done, according to the research that I've read, is the frontal lobe. The part of your brain that actually takes in information has taken more real estate. And where it's taken real estate from is the part of your brain in the back which actually is, is where you actually can concentrate. And so when you see people who have more add more inability to sit in the moment. And I'm not talking about people who really have adhd, I'm talking like the general population. That is a direct result of our. We've. Our muscles are now built to do this fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. The slower the is almost. We've lost that muscle and we have to retrain it. So if you've ever been in a meeting. I was just actually in a meeting a couple weeks ago and it was, it was an actual session that required people to think. Whenever there was a lull or a break in the session where we wanted them to do something, I would watch and the majority of people would get their phones out and start scrolling. Yeah. And so that ability, I mean this was like a 90 minute session too by the way. This is not like 5 hours. And so when you realize what you said, which is the ability to actually divine meaning, to be able to marinate and ideas, to create something that's actually kind of got some texture to it and some real like kind of heft. Requires time. And I think what we're seeing is we are all kind of now rewired to want immediate gratification and not have the ability to actually concentrate or stay in the moment. Which is really unfortunate. We got to rebuild those muscles. Like I've started reading again. Reading long form books.
- [47:12]
B
Same. Yeah.
- [47:13]
A
Because this helps your brain to stay in one place. Right. Because I read a lot of articles but it's a. Once again it's a quick dopamine hit.
- [47:19]
B
Yeah.
- [47:20]
A
And so yeah, for me that's like I'm trying to do things like that to reverse the kind of skills or muscles that I've built as a mom.
- [47:30]
B
I think about this a lot with kids. I'm like, I want them to build confidence. And I think if we cut too fast to the solution, you don't have the opportunity to build confidence in yourself. It could be as simple as I need to make a meal for myself. And rather than take the few ingredients in the fridge and throw them together and see what happens, I'm gonna Google GPT, send a picture in my fridge and let it, you know, tell me, here's a recipe that'll, that you can make right. But what's gonna build confidence and fun and joy over time. So I know that's like again, a personal example, but I, I think almost all these things with how we operate on a one on one level is. Yeah. How it applies to, to business as well.
- [48:09]
A
I've always said you don't, you don't leave yourself at home and find a different self at work. You bring yourself to you wherever, wherever you go. I work with a lot of companies on how do you build strategy. Right. Which is essentially this idea of build a bigger idea about what is it you're trying to accomplish. And what I find is a lot of companies have what I call a bias towards action. And it's that ready, fire, aim mentality. And there's two parts of your brain that work. Let's, let's just for the once, I'm oversimplifying, but this is kind of true. There's. There's a part of your brain that, that does the strategy piece, which is thinks about ideas and imagines things and kind of uses kind of is more expansive. And it's like, what if? And all those different things. And then there's a part of your brain that actually goes to execution. Right. The tactics of things, they don't work in tandem, meaning they can't both be open exactly at the same time with the same energy. So as soon as you move from the strategic brain to the tactical logistic brain, the strategic brain shuts down because the energy it takes to do the tactics is more energy than the strategic brain has to be able. So my point is, it's like when you're in a car and you're on the phone with somebody talking, and all of a sudden you have the phone and wonder, how did I end up here? It's because your brain can't multitask. And so the less time you spend in that area, which is like, I said ideation and the what ifs and thinking and dreaming and just being in a bigger place of know kind of the conceptual, the more apt you are to come up with worse answers. So you've got to front load the work on the strategic, the dreaming, the bigger picture and not go immediately towards the execution, the tactics, the logistics. And I always say like the if you don't spend the the right amount of time up front, you end up with cleanup and aisle seven in the back end. And so companies which say we don't have time for all of this kind of what they would call softer, whether it's building culture or creating strategies, being clear on the North Star, making sure everyone's aligned, being curious, connecting and they want to move just to action. The less time you send front loading the important things and just focus on the urgent things, the more time you spend fixing all the mistakes you could have actually avoided had you spend more time up front. And so that becomes a belief that you have to actually be able to invest in as leaders. But it kind of bears itself out every single time.
- [50:39]
B
Well Matt, I know that we are coming to the end here. I like to end the podcast with a quick lightning round. So I'm going to ask you a few quick questions. Yes. And the idea is that you answer quickly. So I'll start with the first one around your experience. So. So you've spent 34 years building brands. Was there one moment or decision that changed your trajectory of how you think about leadership?
- [51:03]
A
Yeah, I think it was going to from the, from the the office to the stores meaning when I finally worked with people as the kind of that was the people of the product, the human capital side and realized the excitement I had around that connecting but also the ability to actually do amazing things with a great team of people around you and making them successful was how I actually then achieved my so I think that was probably a key turning point for me and what I do today especially.
- [51:32]
B
All right, next question. In office remote or hybrid? Do you think are the future for
- [51:38]
A
companies hybrid with intentional and deliberate reasons for being together versus just because you want them to be in an office to check a box?
- [51:49]
B
I've mentioned now several times, I'm a mom and I always ask my guests at the end of our interviews what skills should I be thinking about with raising my young children?
- [52:00]
A
Okay, I've become obsessed with this and this isn't my idea. I actually heard this and I love it. Which is the ability to talk to strangers. It's not how we're living we live in our phone. We live with people. And so building connections and having confidence and being comfortable getting to know people is so important.
- [52:16]
B
Okay, what's one trend you're betting on that is not AI related?
- [52:21]
A
One trend I'm betting on, which is the return to physical spaces.
- [52:25]
B
Have you seen brands start to do that already or are you just projecting that that will happen?
- [52:30]
A
I think we're starting to see brands start to invest more in physical spaces. I think we're starting to see brands invest more in community spaces, whether it's the way they're actually setting up dining rooms, whether it's the way they're actually rebuilding their stores or creating moments within moments, but the ability of pulling people together and giving them space to congregate. And you're seeing companies do more interesting things, whether it's pop up concerts or craft fairs or whatever it might be where they're hosting moments to come together. Dinner parties. I love some of these dinner parties you're seeing where it's the one long table and neighborhoods are doing it. But this idea of community and connection and physical spaces is becoming, I think, as we talked about before, a antidote to just being in the virtual world.
- [53:13]
B
Well, last question should be the easiest one, hopefully. Where should people connect with you or get your book?
- [53:18]
A
So we'll start with the book so built on belief why cultures of commitment are the competitive advantage you can find on Amazon. That's the easiest place to get in touch with me. You can write me matt marcotte.com or go on to m2collative.com and send me a message or matt2collative.com all right.
- [53:37]
B
Well, Matt, thank you so much for joining us today.
- [53:39]
A
Oh, thanks so much for having me.