Ep. 527 - Matthew Rathje – Why Purpose-Fueled Strategies are the Ultimate Hack for Sustainable Growth

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Second in Command: The Chief Behind the Chief with Cameron Herold

Episode 527 – Matthew Rathje: Why Purpose-Fueled Strategies are the Ultimate Hack for Sustainable Growth
Host: Savannah Brewer (for Cameron Herold)
Guest: Matthew Rathje, COO of True North Companies
Date: November 13, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Savannah Brewer speaks with Matthew Rathje, COO of True North Companies, about building sustainable growth through purpose-driven strategies, aligning teams through vulnerability and accountability, and the balance of organizational health versus performance. Rathje shares candid stories from his professional climb, handling immense personal adversity, and how frameworks from Patrick Lencioni and COO Alliance shaped his company's evolution and resilience. Listeners will get tactical meeting structures, approaches to fostering healthy conflict, and the value of vivid vision in scaling culture during rapid growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Matthew Rathje’s Journey to COO (04:02–06:36)

• Began career in insurance payroll and claims, quickly rising to leadership, before joining True North’s claims advocacy team.
• Progressed through various divisions (risk management, benefits) before becoming COO in late 2023.
• Emphasizes that COO was never his original ambition, but his passion for assembling teams and solving problems led him there.
• Quote:

  “It’s not about always being the smartest person in the room, but it’s leveraging the unique skill sets we have… and getting the right people together.” — Matthew Rathje (07:19)

2. Value of COO Alliance & Cross-Industry Peer Learning (09:24–12:34)

• Joined COO Alliance before becoming COO to broaden perspective outside the insurance industry.
• Realized that growth and leadership challenges were similar across diverse industries.
• Appreciated access to insights from $5 million to $500 million businesses, encouraging the “spirit of small” as True North scales.

• "We're all leading people at the end of the day. How do you get individuals to gain alignment and aspire in the same direction?" — Matthew Rathje (10:45)

3. Accountability & Organizational Health (12:42–18:32)

• Clarity and accountability were chief challenges; borrowed frameworks from Patrick Lencioni and peer COO groups.
• Created explicit “relatable impact metrics and objectives” for every role.
• Breakthrough: Started the organizational health journey by focusing first on building trust at the executive level.
• The five key behaviors: vulnerability-based trust, healthy conflict, commitment, accountability, and results.

• “Healthy is the multiplier of smart. … You can really accelerate your business if you can work through some of those issues faster.” — Matthew Rathje (18:12)

4. Team Effectiveness Workshops (18:32–22:37)

• Workshops structure: One to two days, starting with vulnerability-based trust exercises, then working through Lencioni’s five behaviors.
• Identify pitfalls like “artificial harmony” versus healthy conflict.
• Each team defines expected behaviors and their unique internal culture.

• “On one end [of the conflict continuum], there’s mean-spirited attacks. On the other end, artificial harmony. … Really in the middle is where you can engage in healthy conflict.” — Matthew Rathje (20:34)

5. Recognizing and Addressing Artificial Harmony (22:37–24:08)

• Signs: Meetings dominated by one or two voices, nonverbal cues of disagreement, “meeting after the meeting.”
• Remedy: Directly asking for input, ensuring all opinions surface before committing to decisions, minimizing side conversations.

• “Artificial harmony would be as you move on from [a meeting topic] and don’t ask those people to weigh in.” — Matthew Rathje (23:20)

6. Principles for Fostering Radical Candor and Vulnerability (24:36–25:39)

• Rathje prioritizes leading with humility, optimism, and high collaboration.
• Learned to ask more questions and create space for others’ perspectives.

• “Not leading them to an answer… getting the right people in the room, getting the opinions on the table, meeting with optimism.” — Matthew Rathje (25:21)

7. Balance Between Collaboration and Decisiveness (25:39–29:20)

• Larger teams and matrix structures can stall decisions if over-collaborated; feedback from frontline staff to “just make a decision.”
• Addresses with tactical meetings: Build agenda on the fly, then focus on specific topics in strategic meetings with prepared agendas.

• “There are times when we want to collaborate, and there are other times when it actually makes our job harder by you not just having a decision.” — Savannah Brewer (26:20)

8. Adversity and Resilience: Personal and Professional (29:20–36:43)

• Lived through COVID and the 2020 Midwest derecho, losing his home and farm.
• True North’s leadership supported him and thousands of clients.
• Reflected that turmoil builds deeper trust, empathy, and perspective in leadership.

• “You will face adversity. Don’t let a good crisis go to waste. … We’ve come out on this other side so much stronger and it’s been a blessing in disguise.” — Matthew Rathje (30:10)

9. Balancing Vulnerability and Performance in Leadership (36:43–37:47)

• Open about his own adversity to model vulnerability and earn trust, but maintains boundaries to ensure accountability and high standards.
• Encourages “work-life harmony,” not a rigid balance.

• “Sometimes you have to give more to your professional than your personal life, and then other times that flips.” — Matthew Rathje (37:50)

10. Executive Team Dynamics and Vision Alignment (38:41–43:59)

• Executive team blends people-focused and results-driven styles; Rathje as executor, CEO Jason and President Trent as growth drivers.
• Monthly offsite half-days, spring/fall strategic retreats, constant adjustment to ensure clarity and commitment to vision.

• “It’s the same goal, different roles… We’re leading an organization together, but we have different roles to get us there.” — Matthew Rathje (40:51)

• Adopted Cameron Herold’s “Vivid Vision” model to clarify not just numbers but the felt sense and cultural goals for True North’s future.

• “We’ve focused on who are the right-fit colleagues, clients, and partners… that’s really going to continue to enhance and promote the culture we want here.” — Matthew Rathje (43:47)

11. Launching The "True North Way" and Future Excitement (46:24–48:35)

• 2025 focus: Launching the "True North Way," aiming for service excellence (Chick-fil-A/Ritz Carlton benchmark), with plans to evaluate via Net Promoter Score.
• Personally, Rathje enjoys watching his children grow, embracing the busyness of school and family life.
• Books recommended: Unreasonable Hospitality (for customer experience inspiration) and The Apple Experience.

• “It’s not going to happen overnight. … We’ll be working on maybe net promoter score later this year, early next year.” — Matthew Rathje (47:20)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Healthy is the multiplier of smart.” — Matthew Rathje (18:12)
• “Artificial harmony … is when decisions are made, but there’s a meeting after the meeting or people just nod along and don’t say what they really think.” — Matthew Rathje (23:20)
• “Don’t let a good crisis go to waste.” — Matthew Rathje (30:05)
• “We’ve embraced the concept of vivid vision, and it’s not just revenue numbers, but how do you want the organization to feel?” — Matthew Rathje (43:28)
• “Sometimes you have to give more to your professional than your personal life and then other times that flips.” — Matthew Rathje (37:50)
• “Healthy conflict means allowing people to weigh in to buy in.” — Matthew Rathje (21:36)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 04:02 – Matthew Rathje’s career journey and COO role
• 09:24 – Impact and value of the COO Alliance
• 12:42 – Challenges with accountability and clarity
• 14:49 – Organizational health journey and Lencioni’s framework
• 18:32 – Team effectiveness workshops explained
• 22:37 – Identifying and addressing artificial harmony
• 25:39 – Collaboration vs. decisiveness in large teams
• 29:20 – Rathje’s personal adversity (derecho, COVID) and lessons learned
• 38:41 – Executive team structure and vision alignment
• 43:27 – Embracing “Vivid Vision”
• 46:24 – Launching the “True North Way” and personal reflections

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Resources, Books & Recommendations

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Patrick Lencioni
• Meetings Suck — Cameron Herold
• Vivid Vision — Cameron Herold
• Unreasonable Hospitality — Will Guidara
• The Apple Experience — Carmine Gallo

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Episode Takeaways

• Sustainable growth hinges not just on strategy but deep organizational health and vulnerability-driven trust.
• Effective COOs continuously seek outside perspectives and frameworks, fostering adaptability as accountability and culture scale.
• Leaders must balance candor with support, learning from adversity and using it to unify teams.
• Clarifying and living a vivid vision, felt by every team member, is crucial as companies grow in size and complexity.

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Transcript

[Matthew Rachi]

We get together and do off sites every month for at least a half day and then we actually do two longer off sites usually in the spring and the fall. In the fall, it's really where we spend time working on what are the strategies for the following year, what are or defining objectives. And we'll work through and understand, okay, the progress we've made this year. Some may carry over into the following year or this is what's most important right now that we need to make progress on.

[Narrator]

Welcome to the Second in Command podcast produced by the COO alliance and brought to you by its founder, Cameron Herold. In the second in command podcast, we talk to top COOs who share the insights, strategies and tactics that made them the chief behind the chief. And now here's your co host, former COO of a multi eight figure remote company and alumni member of the COO Alliance, Savannah Brewer.

[Savannah Brewer]

Our guest today is Matthew Rachi, COO of True North Companies and a proud member of the CEO Alliance. Since joining the company over a decade ago, Matt has risen through the ranks, bringing together people, processes and purpose to build scalable systems and enterprise wide resilience. With deep roots in property and casualty workers comp and workforce solutions, he's helped expand True North's impact beyond insurance and into strategic risk management. In today's episode, Matt shares hard won insights on how to find the right consultants to solve your business's most pressing challenges. How to structure meetings for speed and clarity, and how to avoid the trap of artificial harmony across your team. He opens up about navigating personal adversity and why those tough seasons often lead to the most growth, and offers tactical advice for aligning quickly on big teams and gaining clarity on vision with your executive team. Let's dive in. All right. We are live with Matt, a fellow SIWO alliance member and also someone that I have ran around in a animal onesie with at a SIWO alliance event. So I'm really excited to have you here.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I'm excited to be here and honored. Thank you Siobhana and Cameron for having me.

[Savannah Brewer]

Absolutely. And this one is going to be really in depth with a lot of amazing golden nuggets. I can already tell. We've been chatting for 20 minutes before this and there's so many different ways that we can rock and roll in this conversation. But let's just begin with giving us an overview of True north, the company that you work with. What do you guys do and who do you serve?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, absolutely. So True north is a insurance and professional services firm based out of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We were founded in 2001. At that time we were about 9 million in revenue and about 100 colleagues. Today we have four flagship locations here in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Des Moines, Denver and Chicago. And we also have 70 small town locations across the midwest, primarily in Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota. One of the things that we often pride ourselves on is we are passionate about solving problems. It's not always about this transaction of insurance. We often approach it with how do we help protect and maximize our clients assets, resources and opportunities? And you do that oftentimes with. It's not always about what our clients need or what they want, but it's helping them achieve what they would want if they knew the possibilities. So this year we're on track to hit about 165 million in revenue and about 675 colleagues.

[Savannah Brewer]

Amazing. It's so cool. And you've been with the company for 11 years?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yep.

[Savannah Brewer]

Let us hear a little bit about your journey because you've really risen through the ranks in a sense and wore different hats. What has that journey been like?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I'll probably even take a little bit back further in my journey. So I started my my professional career working on the insurance company side. I started my career actually handling a payroll for a book of business with a team that we would process payroll checks and we also charge work compremium on a weekly basis. Then quickly moved into working as an adjuster and into leadership. About three years in my professional career. So I was a young leader. After spending seven or eight years on the insurance company side, I had the opportunity to join True north and joined as an individual contributor. I was in the leadership prior and I felt very comfortable with where I was at. But True north came along and provided an opportunity that I just couldn't pass up. So I started here at True north in our claims department, our claims advocacy team. So that oftentimes is working through unfortunate situations with our clients, whether it's a workers compensation claim or an auto claim, and helping them navigate that process and advocating for them and also educating them on the insurance process. And then that role evolved into overseeing other services such as safety and loss control, our client facing technology that we offer. And back about 2019, 2020, I had the opportunity to jump into different divisions working in different projects. So had the opportunity to jump into our risk management division, our employee benefits division before becoming COO effective 11 of 23.

[Savannah Brewer]

Would you have thought you were going to be a COO 11 years ago? Was that in any way in the.

[Matthew Rachi]

Vision it wasn't even on the radar at that point in time. As I was on board at True North, I was. I was pretty focused on my past experience as a claims adjuster and claims leader. And I felt leading the claims team was something that I was really passionate about and I still am. I was actually just in the room today with some of our insurance company partners and got a chance to reunite with some of those team members I worked with four or five years ago. And now that has morphed into a coo. It's not only about claims, but it's what do we promise frontstage and so we can ensuring we deliver backstage. So with some of our key client relationships, I'm still engaged here and there, but my role today entails overseeing all of our client service operations, also our shared services organization, including parts like our human systems team, our corporate support, technology, marketing, etc. The finance, accounting, legal reports over to our CFO, who's also on our executive team.

[Savannah Brewer]

Why do you think you were chosen for the CEO position?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I. I think back to conversations I had with our current CEO today. It was right after Covid and it was a catalyst moment for me. There were some things that happened with us hosting some larger client events the year or two prior, but also leading the firm through Covid and how are we going to adapt to it? How are we going to engage with our colleagues, what is best for the firm, but also our clients. So I was one of the leaders at that point in time that helped us navigate through the complexities that came with COVID Whether it was working from home, being in the office, but ensuring we deliver on our promise every single day. Talked with our CEO, our CEO and president and cfo. We have a very united team, united front. I'm also a synergist and naturally collaboration is something that I get a lot of energy out of. It's not about always being the smartest person in the room, but it's leveraging the unique skill sets that we have with so many talented individuals here at True north and so being able to understand what is the challenge or problems in front of us and getting the right people in the room. So there's a high degree of confidence with our executive team as we set the vision that we're also going to be able to put the team together to deliver.

[Savannah Brewer]

Was there a big transition between the work that you were doing before and those first 90 days as COO?

[Matthew Rachi]

There wasn't really for me. I was playing a version of that role as I stepped into it. So as I moved out of the, I'd say risk and workforce solutions role, I was working in different projects, leading teams. And so True north, we had a COO previously, and I would say that COO stepped out of that role back in, like, 2017, 2018. Still here at True North. She's the reason I'm at True North. I highly value her as a partner in the business. She's leading one of our divisions. And then we, in her absence, we really operated as a great operations leadership team, which had key stakeholders and operations leaders from many different teams, and they acted as a cohesive unit to be the coo. And then over time, it morphed into Jason as our CEO making the decision. Okay, now it's time to reinstate the role of coo. And that is at that point in time where I jumped into that role, I was very much playing a similar role to that, say, for the six to 12 months prior.

[Savannah Brewer]

Gotcha. So kind of just maybe the title change, but not necessarily the work that you were doing.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, gotcha.

[Savannah Brewer]

And in terms of the CO alliance, what was the reason why you joined with Cameron?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, so back in 22 or so, so this was six or 12 months before I officially stepped in the role COO. I knew that that was looming as an opportunity and I wanted to expand my horizons. In our industry, the insurance industry, there wasn't really any groups that came together as operations leaders to talk about challenges or problems in the business. There is today. There's a smaller group that's together, and I do occasionally meet with them. So it was ability to understand how other organizations are operating. It was my first time as coo, as it is for many people, as they're jumping in the COO role. As I jumped into CEO alliance, understanding that you have companies of all sizes, you know, they may be 5 million, they be maybe 500 million. And so it doesn't. It isn't always about the industry that I'm in. Insurance. We're all leading people at the end of the day. And how do you get individuals to gain alignment and lead and aspire in the same direction? So what I have enjoyed about CEO alliance is you have perspective from large companies. At the same time, you have perspective from small to midsize companies. And as we're in the range of $165 million this year, talking to someone that's a $50 million firm, it reminds you how small and nimble they are and ensuring that we often talk about the spirit of small and the power of scale. So how do we keep that spirit of small and that mindset? Because that's. That's the culture we have here at True North. True north culture is so strong we want quite a few accolades for it, that we want to continue to perpetuate that as we go from 165 to 250 to 500 to eventually a billion dollar company.

[Savannah Brewer]

Yeah. The range of perspectives is so valuable. And I definitely at my first event saw, I mean, Cameron has everyone lined up and like, I think by age first and then by company size, employee size, revenue, and just being able to ask questions to so many people in different types of industries. It was fascinating to me. Cause I actually had this idea of maybe this like limited thought that I needed to be in groups in the online coaching space and online education, which is the company I was leading at the time. But the ability to transfer what people were doing from other industries was actually really surprising to me and it gave me. Whoa. Like I would have never thought of that because the way we do things is so out of the box. And some of those more traditional ways of doing things that people have been doing more traditional models for a long time, I could actually really use, and vice versa.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I think that's a really, really good point. There's a diverse group of individuals and opinions in that group that I wouldn't have exposure to in the past. And there really isn't another group that I'm aware of that brings the COOs or most senior operations leaders together on a regular basis. So I've really enjoyed it. I'm wrapping up my third year and I'll be renewing for a fourth year.

[Savannah Brewer]

What are the challenges that you were experiencing when you first joined that maybe you were able to find some solution to?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, it's another good question. I think one of the areas that we identified a couple years ago was how do we continue to bring clarity and accountability into our organization? And clarity and accountability for us has come along as we've been working with Patrick Lencioni and his team. But we didn't really have a structure or framework around it to help guide us through that. So working with several of the other COO alliance members, gaining perspective, how do we continue to drive clarity and accountability into the organization? And at the end of the day, it's helping our colleagues understand what does it take to be successful in their role? What are the specific, what we call rooms and RIOs, relatable impact metrics and relatable impact objectives? What does it Take to be successful in your role and having clarity on that. So over the last two or three years, I've been able to lean on other members. I'm also a member of the accountability group. So we have a very strong accountability group that's been together for some time that we've really enjoyed.

[Savannah Brewer]

I think the accountability piece is so important for executives because especially even a CEO or an owner. I heard actually one of my old bosses that I worked with, he said the employees on the team might be held accountable to leadership, leadership might be held accountable to the CEO. But who's the CEO accountable to? And ultimately it's the customers. There's always some level of accountability and being able to find that in different, different methods is really supportive. Especially I know for me being in the CEO role. No one else on the team knew what I was supposed to be doing, kind of creating it as we go. So being able to have other CEOs that can really hold the standard for what's possible for you was really supportive for me. And in terms of kind of structure and accountability. I know one of the things that we were talking about before even jumping on here was the concept of the organizational health journey. Could you break that down and what is that?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. So the organizational health journey for us started about three and a half years ago as there was. Our current executive chairman was one of the founders of 2nord back in 2001 was transitioning the CEO role to his son as a new executive or as an executive. So we were transitioning essentially from the first generation to the second generation. What we identified with that is as the leadership team morphed and evolved and adding new members like myself, that we had an opportunity to get clarity and start to build trust. We knew that there was opportunities in the middle of the business and we thought that's where we should start. But after working with Patrick Lencioni's team and our consultant Joyce Schaefer, who's been amazing for us through this process we identified we had to start at the top first. And she walked and guided us through different exercises. But also how do we set up the structure and framework at True north so we can cascade that through the rest of the organization and we're not there yet. It's a journey for us. It's taking time and it's important though that we go through. How do you build that vulnerability based trust? How do you engage in healthy conflict? How do you gain commitment? It's not always about getting consensus, but it's getting clarity and committing as A group and ultimately back to holding people accountable and then driving the results. And that has been. That has been great for us as an organization. And we continue to not only work at the executive team level, but now down into the business with our respective teams. And it's becoming part of our vernacular going forward.

[Savannah Brewer]

What is the difference between working with the COO alliance, working with Patrick Lencioni? What have. Because you've been working with both of them for a few years now. What is the difference, you would say, in terms of what they're bringing to you? Because it sounds like there's some overlap of the accountability and the structure, communication. How would you find yourself kind of defining those two?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I would say the difference between the two for me with the CO alliance is being able to hear different ideas, thoughts and think about how they might apply to your business. And ultimately it's your responsibility to come back to the business and to figure out is it something that makes sense and viable to deploy. The engagement with the table group has really been an ongoing relationship where we're doing what we call teaminars. We're doing. Sorry, we're doing team effectiveness workshops. So those are things that continually happen. Additionally, it's brought a framework around meetings and how do we work through the different matters in the business. How do we understand what's most important right now? In the past, I'd say prior to the engagement, we would have many different strategies or many different rocks. We would be guilty of chasing shiny rocks, as many organizations are. It's helped us get clarity as to, okay, what's most important right now and what are the three to five things we're going to focus on for the next six to 12 months. And that is really our filtering system along with other strategic anchors for us to make decisions. So working through that with them and then being able to have a cadence to our executive team. For example, we meet at 8am every Monday morning and then we have our executive leadership team at 10 o' clock on Monday morning. And then what follows suit through the rest of the week is divisional leadership, team meetings and other team meetings. So as things happen throughout the week, you can effectively cascade information throughout the organization. We have continued opportunities. It's not perfect, but it's one of the things that's been helpful for us, in addition to having the different strategic meetings and off sites that are really important to build that trust so you can get to clarity quickly.

[Savannah Brewer]

There's a couple of pieces in there that I'd like to pull the strings on. One is Team effectiveness workshops. What are those?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. So as Joyce has worked with us from Table Group in using the five dysfunctions of a team and organizational health, we've identified and she shared with us that there are smart organizations, there's also smart and healthy organizations. I say we're a very smart organization. Prior to the engagement, we were very good with our finance and accounting, we're very good with our marketing efforts and we knew our numbers. At the same time, we had opportunity to grow the health of the organization. Are we minimizing politics? Are we able to get clarity quickly? Are we able to engage in healthy conflict? And so we really believe that healthy is the multiplier of smart. And so we can really accelerate your business if you can work through some of those issues faster. And that's what it means to be a healthy organization. And so the goal of the team effectiveness workshops really is to work through an exercise like that to, to get to a point where the team is healthy and gets to a state of health. And it's, there's different maturations and things that you need to go through. It's not going to happen with the snap of the fingers. It takes, takes time and that's okay. And that's where we're continually working through throughout the entire organization to work through those workshops.

[Savannah Brewer]

So is that like by department that what does the actual workshop entail? What's the structure of it?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, typically it's a one or two day workshop and you may start the workshop with a vulnerability based trust trust exercise. And that may be something very personal history. Then you start to work them through the different concepts that Lencioni has defined in his five dysfunctions of a team or what he's also known as the five cohesive behaviors of a team. So what does it mean to have vulnerability based trust? What does it mean to engage in a healthy conflict? There's really a, there's a conflict continuum. On one end there's mean spirited attacks. On the other end there's artificial harmony. I think many people lean towards the artificial harmony, but really in the middle is where you can engage in healthy conflict. Because if you engage in that healthy conflict, then you get to a point of commitment. Everyone's opinions are heard and thoughts are shared. It's likely you're in many situations. You may not get everyone to agree 100% on, hey, this is the direction. But if their voices have been heard, we often say allowing people to weigh in, to buy in. And so they are they weighing in where they can share their thoughts but then we also get to a point, let's get to commitment so we can move forward then ultimately holding people accountable and then driving toward the results that we want. And so that workshop really works us all the way through those. Additionally, it'll work through, help the team get clarity on, okay, why do we exist? Why are we here? What are we doing? What is our team norms? Every team has a little bit different culture. We talk about one True north culture and it's vibrant and we, we, we enjoy and love the culture here at True north. But at the same time, each team has a little bit different culture. And so what is normal within those teams? And so we'll work through that as well in those workshops.

[Savannah Brewer]

How would you determine what is normal for an internal team culture?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I don't know if there's a definition of normal per se, but it's what is expected behavior within that team and that the team will work through and share different thoughts as to what is expected behavior. Because that then goes back to accountability. If someone's not displaying what the expected or normal behavior should be, that's an opportunity to engage in a conversation and understanding. We're all human beings, we're not perfect. We do sometimes revert back to old habits and that's okay. That's an understanding as well. But it's also then reminding them, supporting them, getting them to this is what's expected of our teams here at True North.

[Savannah Brewer]

When you were talking about the communication, kind of the pendulum from attacks and maybe some nastiness versus the other side of artificial Harmony, the artificial harmony really stood out to me because I think this is really common and yet I don't think a lot of leaders even know when that's happening or what to really be looking for. Could you share your perspective on what is artificial harmony? How would you know if that's happening in the team? Why is that something where you should maybe have a look at it?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. So artificial harmony I think can surface in a couple different ways. They can surface if you're in a meeting and you're having discussion on topic and you're maybe hearing opinions from one or two people, but you maybe are observing that some non verbals from other in the room that you can tell are not totally on board with the direction. And so artificial harmony would be as you just move on from that and don't ask those people to weigh in and provide their opinions. I think that is one of the areas that you may see artificial harmony. Others may be a meeting after the meeting or A meeting before the meeting. It's, you know, decisions, decisions made, and they leave the room. But then there's conversations that happen on the side and maybe they're not totally aligned. That's then that you're not getting to commitment, because as they leave the room, you ultimately want the team committed to the direction where you're not having the meeting before the meeting as much or the meeting after the meeting.

[Savannah Brewer]

Mm. How do you personally, with your team, it sounds like you really enjoy leading people, and it's obvious that you've done an amazing job at that. And having grown through the positions that you have, what are some of your principles, your ways of being that you really try to embody to allow your team to feel like they can show up in radical candor, have those honest conversations, be vulnerable. What is it about you and the way you're showing up that allows that to happen throughout the whole company?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. So one of my. I'd say my core values, I'm necessarily the true north core values is leading with humility and optimism and also collaboration. And that's where the crossover happens with. I'm a high on collaboration, and so I've also had to learn in my journey, there's a point where collaboration can be too far or you. You don't make a decision or move fast enough. But true north of our core values are exceptionalism, resourcefulness, and collaboration. And there's further definition behind those. As. As Cameron has taught us, the thing when I engage with the team, and this has been part of my growth and development, is asking more questions, not leading them to an answer, and understanding the different views and opinions that may be in the room. So I think being able to do that in a. If back to the synergistic way of approaching that conversation, getting the right people in the room, getting the opinions on the table, meeting with optimism. But the collaboration piece is so important to hear to us.

[Savannah Brewer]

In True North, I had this memory come back and you talk about the collaboration because there was a time period in our company where we were really small and everyone was collaborating and we could still move really fast. Then we got to a point where just one team had maybe 15 people involved, and we're on a zoom call and everyone's collaborating, and we get off the call and nothing got accomplished. We're more confused than ever. And we actually had one of our account managers who's on that meeting reach out and they're like, hey, can we give you leadership some feedback? Of course, yeah. They're like, we actually would Love if you guys would just make a decision and tell us what to do. There are times when we want to collaborate and there are other times when it actually makes our job harder by you guys not just having a decision. And that, that was some of the best feedback anyone had ever given me at that point because it, it really allowed me to see there's also opportunity when this collaboration can be negative and lose trust in leadership or the team when no one's being able to make a decision. So my question is, how would you guys go about collaborating while, like you said, still making sure that things move forward, close quickly, that you're collecting all the pieces, but you guys have a really large team now. How do you go about that?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I think it also is interesting because we're a matrix organization where you have different competencies that are going horizontally, but you also have different divisions here at True north and how we've approached that and that I've had a, you know, a question or a comment from my team in the past. This is a situation or a topic that we just need a decision to be made and will support that direction. But as we go back to our, our meetings, you know, we talk about what's most important right now for the first five to ten minutes, and then it's building the agenda on the fly and then it's at the end getting commitment to decisions that were made and action items that are coming, coming out of that. And so there's with the. The need to make decisions at times, if we feel and where the leadership team feels that we need to make a decision faster, we still want to make sure that we provide the appropriate amount of time to get some individuals or teams to weigh in because ultimately you want them to buy in. Unless it's a fire drill situation, you may not have the luxury of allowing everyone to weigh in in terms of.

[Savannah Brewer]

Building the agenda on the fly. I know one of the things you had said was meetings were something that you guys were struggling with before working with Patrick or there's maybe there was a challenge there with the meetings. I know that I read Cameron's book Meetings Suck, and that actually really helped me make the most of some of my time. Specifically just shortening meetings, being like, not every meeting needs to be an hour, but I know his method is creating the agenda beforehand, sending it out, making sure that the right people are on the meeting. When is it the right time to create the agenda before the meeting versus making it on the fly?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I We haven't figured out meetings completely yet here at True north. As we look at our engagement and culture surveys, that's an area of opportunity we need to continue to work on. And I believe it's a challenge in most, if not all businesses today we view the weekly meeting that we do as a tactical meeting and that's building in the agenda on the fly and what's most important. But then we will have ad hoc or strategic meetings that occur on either a specific topic or a standard strategic meeting. Standard monthly strategic meeting where we build the agenda, we prepare for. We built the agenda, prepare for the meeting, and then we share things in advance. So that's how we've differentiated here at True North.

[Savannah Brewer]

Okay. In meetings, you know, one off meetings being a challenge, that's one thing, that's one form of adversity in the business. And then there's really big adversity, really big challenges, both personally, both in the business. One of the things that I saw you had wrote before the podcast is you will face adversity. Don't let a good crisis go to waste. Would you be open to like you had expressed the vulnerability, trust exercise that you guys had you do in the business. And humility is something that you personally really value. Are you open to sharing one or two personal adversities or business adversities you've gone through?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I'm happy to. And the don't letting a good crisis go to waste really is going back to engaging in the conflict if you need to. And many times when you come, when you work through crisis, situation or conflict, you come out on the other side much stronger the relationships with that individual or with the client. You're building that trust and rapport with them on, on the personal side. And as I shared with you, as I've my role at True north has evolved the last five years. It's also been probably the period of time where I've gone through the greatest amount of personal adversity. Not only you had Covid which is impacting everybody, but then there was a little storm called the derecho that moved through Iowa in the Midwest back in 2000. And actually August 10th will be the five year anniversary of that I say little known storm because it didn't get a lot of national attention, but it, I believe at that time it was the fifth most costliest natural disaster since 1980. So multibillion dollar storm in the Midwest and unfortunately my, my family, we lost our house, a lot of things on our farm and really were left with little to Nothing after the storm and took us a tremendous amount of time to do that. So you put that on top of COVID in that storm and the leadership team here at True North. As I was going through adversity, being able to see where I could bring value and take the firm forward for the next 20 plus years, I was extremely grateful and appreciative for. So when I was, my wife, my kids, we've gone through that. That situation unfortunate and living in less than ideal living conditions for two years, ultimately getting back on our feet. And now, as you look back, it was a moment of adversity for us. It was a great learning opportunity for us and our kids. But we've come out on this other side so much stronger and it's been a blessing in disguise. Not that I want to wish that on anybody, but it's been something that, looking back, I'm grateful and appreciative that we've had the ability to bounce back and navigate that adversity, but also have the. A tremendous amount of professional growth during that time.

[Savannah Brewer]

What would you say was the hardest part about that for your family?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I'd say the hardest part for my family was the storm was 40 to 50 miles wide here in the Midwest. So after the storm, there wasn't a lot of housing available for a period of time. And we actually had to convince a neighbor that had a house that his mom had lived in, who he was no longer living there to help him clean out his house, so we could live there for almost a year and a half because otherwise the only available options were probably a couple hours away, which wasn't ideal. So I think getting back on our feet, navigating that. And then personally, I was actually on a business trip at the time when the storm came through. So I don't. I didn't actually experience the emotional part of the storm rolling through. And just my daughter being 3 years old and my son being 8 years old at the time. There's a lot of emotions tied up when you think, you know, the house is essentially going to blow away and. But again, kids were young enough. They're. They're doing extremely well. And it's been a positive. As we look back, were you, were.

[Savannah Brewer]

You in the position of CEO as that storm happened?

[Matthew Rachi]

I was not. I was. I was likely. I think I was in a VP of one of our divisions or just had transitioned into a senior vice president role, playing a broader operations role at that time.

[Savannah Brewer]

What was the relationship like between you and the company going through that? I mean, I'm sure there was a period of time where like you were not able to be as present or on as you were before. How did you guys manage that?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. So in given that Word insurance and financial strategies firm, we had not only myself, but we had a large number, thousands and thousands of clients that are also experiencing devastation as a result of it. So there was tremendous amount of understanding. I have a very strong claims leader who's still with us today. Not only helped us navigate the claims situation, but also helps all of our clients and his team played a key part of it. So the organization was very understanding. This was four months or so after Covid really started to hit us here in the United States. So many of us were still working from home. Today we're in a hybrid environment. But True north and the team around us helped us navigate not only my situation, but our clients really efficiently.

[Savannah Brewer]

Were there any beliefs or principles that you really embodied during that time that allowed you to manage both or even get to the place that you're at now where you can look back and say it's a blessing because there are so many people who go through really hard things and would not say that it's a blessing.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. One of the things that I like to think about is back to the leadership teams that we have here at True North. And let's just say you have a team of 10 people and the average age is 40 years old. They've had 40 years of life experiences that has helped shape who they are today. Their beliefs, their opinions, their thoughts. And so as I look back on that, it is a point in our journey. It's not going to define us. It's helped us come out better on the other side, but it's perspective that we can share. And as we think about engagement with our teams here at True north, it's also understanding that others had probably similar situations or some that are, some are worse, some are better. And being able to understand that going into any conversation and engaging in an empathetic way, but also expressing humility, I think is so important.

[Savannah Brewer]

Have you found that people on your team are more vulnerable with you maybe than they were in the past, now that you've had something really big that you've been sharing with them?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah. As those things do come up and I will occasionally spring on a vulnerability based trust exercise with our team and just bring out some of those in a weekly tactical meeting and maybe five to 10 minutes and we go around the table and talk about something that's going on personally with them. I Would also say for our executive team and other teams throughout the organization, we are light years ahead of where we are at in engaging. And those conversations and sharing get really just getting a chance to know each other better.

[Savannah Brewer]

How do you balance the performance? And you know, there's this, we still gotta get business done, you know, at the end of the day. And also taking care of team. I have found this to be just a personal continued learning and challenge for me because I am someone, I am an open book. I am just, you know, this is it. This is what's going on in my life. All this crazy stuff can be happening. I can go do this on the personal weekends and I can still crush it at work. And I'm okay telling you that. And I've also had to learn where are the boundaries and the lines from a leadership perspective where I can create authentic close relationships with my team. But I've also seen the downsides of doing that as well where things can become too personal. I've had employees start bringing me things on one on ones where I'm like, look, I'm not your therapist. How do you find the. Yeah, where's the harmony in that of creating those personal trusting relationships while also holding people accountable?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I think it goes back to humility. And with any colleague here at True north, my door is always open to have that conversation with them in it's being able to. Where I can provide support to, to them as an individual, but also maybe get them aligned if we need to with the right resources or needs or opportunities that they're excited about in. In their development. At the same time, and you mentioned just the, the balance. I often refer, refer to it as work life harmony. Sometimes you have to give more to your professional than you do to your personal life and then other times than flip flops. And having a very understanding wife and family I think is important for that is seol because there's times where you may be gone for three or four days on the road with teams at the same time, you'll be able to make that up elsewhere and spending time with the family.

[Savannah Brewer]

Thanks for sharing that. I would love to take a little bit of, a little bit of a switch from team to your executive team. Specifically your relationship with the CEO Jason, could you tell us just a little bit about that relationship? How do you guys complement each other?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, Jason, I've been working together. He was one of the individuals in the room when I joined almost 11 years ago with Jason and also Trent, which they essentially co lead the organization here. Trent's our president oversees also CRO and oversees the sales side. We have a strong unit of four people on our executive team. With Jason and I particular we're both SIS on the disk profile, very people driven leaders. We have a very strong personal connection and so our personalities are very complimentary to each other. And I really have operated as the executor and the change agents are partnering with Jason, Trent and also Chatter cfo. Being that synergist, how do we effectively navigate the different topics or strategies and driving alignment across teams. What table group has helped us do as well is with that is and our executive team is giving that unified vision in where we're going. We often talk about time. That's same goal, different roles and at the end of the day we're leading an organization together but we have different roles get us there. Jason and Trent are maybe more focused on the growth side and sales side where I'm heavily focused on the executor. You know how do we ensure that we're driving the strategic initiatives. So that's been, it's been fun the last two and a half years as coo really working together. I worked with them, both of them actually all of them for my prior 11 years. That really turning our vision into reality.

[Savannah Brewer]

With how quickly you guys have grown over the years, I'm surprised to hear that there isn't a CEO that has more of a di you know a strong like driver. You guys both being SI's. I've had sis on my team and they're amazing and I've also had to pick up the pace a little bit with them sometimes. Where has the energy or the speed of the momentum to grow as big as you guys have as quickly as you have. Where does that come from?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah so Jason is an SI and so he really emphasizes growth sales. He has an operational lens. He's very high follow through. Trent is that DI as our president so gross sales and has also that finance lens. Collectively the unit of four of us have really a strong understanding of our individual strengths and where our opportunities that's as we've grown together and I say that's true in many parts of our business as well. As we think about our our teams back to matrix organization, we often align our teams not only have a sales team leader or we call it practice leader at True north but also align an operational leader with them. And many of us have read the Harvard Business review about the six types of COOs. I think that's true at many levels of the organization. How do you play matchmaker at times and ensure that the right operational leader is connected to the right, whether it's CEO or whether it's a practice or growth leader in your firm.

[Savannah Brewer]

Well, I like how you said that. The vision, really getting clear on what roles all take you to the same goal, the same vision. What is your guys's process like on clarifying the vision of the company and where you're heading?

[Matthew Rachi]

We get together and do off sites every month for at least a half day and then we actually do two longer off sites usually in the spring and the fall. In the fall, it's really where we spend time working on what are the strategies for the following year, what are or defining objectives. And we'll work through and understand, okay, the progress we've made this year. Some may carry over into the following year or this is what's most important right now that we need to make progress on. We also then during this time of the year, our executive team and we will look at, okay, what are the things as we look at the year end and our financials and other strategies, what's left undone and what we need to accomplish. So we're, we're working through that in a couple different ways as we build our defining objectives and strategies.

[Savannah Brewer]

Awesome. And if anyone is listening, Cameron has a great book called Vivid Vision. If you are looking to clarify the vision of your company, make sure that your team is aligned. That is a really great place to start. And. Oh, go ahead.

[Matthew Rachi]

We actually read the book Vivid Vision as an executive team, I believe two to three years ago and we've embraced the concept of vivid vision and it's back to clarity and what are the strategies and identify. It's not, it's not only the numbers and revenue numbers you want to achieve, but it's how do you want the organization to feel. And we've, we've focused on who are the right fit colleagues, right fit clients, Right fit partners of True North. That's really going to continue to enhance and promote the culture that we want here.

[Savannah Brewer]

The, the feeling is such an important piece to this and actually so Cameron has partnered with Jennifer Hooty who owns Vision Driven and I did a fractional COO role with her the beginning of this year. And I really got to learn through going through so many different clients, Vivid Visions and the work that they do, the difference between some of the clients like first drafts where they may give us something that they had in mind and when you read it and it's like, okay, I, I see from like a very Tactical numbers place what you're wanting, but there's no pizzazz or spark of life. Yes, I could, I could, I could be drawn to this company. And this is something that Cameron talks really. I love the way that he communicates about attracting people into your business by like basically putting out decoys and making sure that the decoys are really, really, really good. And one of those things is feeling. And so whenever you're communicating and it's not just by writing your vivid vision or having these executive meetings, but it's in the day to day on meetings, how are you sharing? It's much more about a revenue goal, but it's what is the company going to feel like, are the clients going to feel, how are your, how's your team going to feel? What's the office going to feel like when you walk into it one day? Those are the things that really light people up and bring motivation and the hard work behind the vision.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's how we utilize the bit of vision here for us that as we think about aligning inspiring to something bigger here at True north, it's oftentimes difficult to understand how you can connect to that in your individual role. If I'm sitting as an account manager or a claims advocate here at TrueNorp, how, how is my daily engagement with clients impacting how we want the firm to operate in the future and where can I make an impact? So that is something that's been back to clarity and accountability has been important for us to give that clarity and ultimately then you're having different metrics in place at each level in the firm that connect to the overall burn strategy and vivid vision.

[Savannah Brewer]

Speaking of vision, I always love to ask, kind of wrapping up, what is something you're most excited about in the next six months both personally and in business?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, on the business side, we've launched what we call our True north way this year and we were doing an exceptional job engaging with our, our clients across the firm. That said, it's not necessarily always consistent and we wanted to bring some further definition to what does it mean, you know, that Chick Fil A type experience or that Ritz Carlton like experience bringing further definition to that. And I have a very strong operations leadership team here at True north as I'm working with our executive team as to bringing definition as to what that means and we've rolled that out and really starting to take that and further that within the firm. So we've, we're in the middle of launching it and it's going to be a journey for us as well. It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take. Take some time. So we'll be working on maybe net promoter score later this year, early next year. So I'm excited to further that launch and get some feedback on how it's going. I'd say personally where school will be starting shortly. Kids activities have been busy this summer and I expect that'll continue this fall. So I just really enjoyed watching kids grow as they're now 8 and 13 and there's no shortage of things going on at home.

[Savannah Brewer]

I bet those are. Those are busy years.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, it's a lot of fun.

[Savannah Brewer]

I wanted to ask, have you ever read the Apple Experience?

[Matthew Rachi]

I have not.

[Savannah Brewer]

Okay, that would be a good one to put on your, your reading list. I had one of my very first real jobs. I was given that as an onboarding book about kind of the Ritz Carlton Chick Fil, a vibe that you're mentioning and just how well Apple has done that over the years. So yeah, just throwing that out. There might be a good book to read in this season.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, I will do that. One book that we've also been reading as a leadership team and actually I just walked in the hall down the hallway and one of our colleagues is reading Unreasonable Hospitality and that is an exceptional book that really emulates what we're looking to accomplish with the True North Way as well.

[Savannah Brewer]

Beautiful. Well, we'll link both of those in the show notes if anyone wants to find them. And if anyone wants to find you, Matt, where is the best place to reach out to you?

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, feel free to reach out to me directly. My cell phone, also my email and Sivana, if you want to include that in the follow up, you're more than welcome to as well.

[Savannah Brewer]

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much for your time. This was amazing.

[Matthew Rachi]

Yeah, thanks for having me.

[Narrator]

You've been listening to Second In Command, brought to you by COO Alliance Founder Cameron Herold. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like, share and subscribe. Subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and our other podcast streaming platforms. For more best practices from industry leading COOs visit cooalliance.com.

[Matthew Rachi]

Foreign.

[Cameron Herold]

Hey, it's Cameron. I hope you're loving today's episode. Quick question for you. Does your company have a strong leadership training program in place to grow the skills of everyone who manages people? If you want to help yourself and your company grow, get everyone who manages people learning from my invest in your leaders online training program. There are 12 core leadership skills that I cover online and they're all going to really grow. CEOs pay me $78,000 a year to coach them one on one and now you can all benefit for 1% of what they pay me. These are the same leadership skills that I created and Certified. Everyone in at 1-800-got junk when I was there as COO. Go to investinyourleaders.com today and use promo code PODCAST10 before the end of the month to get 10% off each manager you sign up. Now back to the show.