MATTHEW ABRAMS

>> Craig Gould: Matthew Abrams, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Matthew, you’re an entrepreneur, executive coach, author. In your 20s, you founded an incubator for purpose driven entrepreneurs, guiding over 200 founders from idea to market. Over the last 15 years, you’ve been facilitating transformational experiences for seasoned entrepreneurs through organizations like eo, ypo, and most recently, eos. And you’re the author of a new book, Inviting Genius, which encourages the embracing of conflict as a vehicle for growth, connection and self realization. Matthew, I want to dive into so much, particularly the insights from your new book, but I’d love to start these conversations with one common question, which is, Matthew, what are your memories of your first job?

>> Matthew Abrams: Well, I think we first have to define what my first job is. I would say my, my first real job was scooping ice cream at ah, Baskin Robbins. And what I remember about it was just like a, such an innocent free time of my life where I would go in, make a little, you know, extra pocket money, enjoy what I was doing, had a lot of like, agency over the job. The owners weren’t there and I had a couple buddies that were there that I worked with. So that was my first job. And yeah, it was, it was a good one.

>> Craig Gould: Are there any lessons, that you take from that experience that you kind of still kind of treasure today? I mean, is there anything that still 20, 30 years later still sticks with you?

>> Matthew Abrams: Well, I haven’t thought about that until you just asked the question. But there is one thing, and like I said, the owners weren’t there. I knew what my role was, you know, provide customer service, scoop ice cream, you know, obviously very simple things. But I had the trust and I had the agency to know what my role was and to do that work to the best of my ability and enjoy it and make it enjoyable for those that worked with me and for those coming in for an ice cream cone.

>> Craig Gould: Tell me about your startup, Mycelium. When we read your new book, we kind of come in in medias race in the middle of the end of Mycelium, can you talk about the beginning and kind of what you hoped it would be and then how the end kind of opened up a new chapter in your life?

>> Matthew Abrams: I had an educational experience and like a lot of entrepreneurs sitting in a classroom receiving information, storing that for a later date to, regurgitate it on a test didn’t work for me. So, you know, I think the traditional education system really does work for a lot of folks, but for some it doesn’t. So there’s this quote by Buckminster Fuller, which I love, which is if you want to see change happen. I’m paraphrasing here, but if you want to see change happen, don’t fight against the existing system. Create a new model that makes the old model obsolete. That was really my motivation for creating Mycelium. And it was for, initially it was for 18 to 25 year olds, those young adults at that inflection point, to really understand what makes them come alive and then equip them with the tools and self awareness to go live a, ah, life full of intentionality. That has been obviously a golden thread that’s run through my career. So that’s what I initially imagined. Like a lot of startups, you know, they iterate and evolve and it became an intergenerational, incubator for entrepreneurs to take a business idea that was to make a positive social or environmental impact in the world and bring it to market in the shortest time possible. The first couple years, it was great. And then maybe year two, year three, my C.O. founder and I had slightly, which became ever more significant, different visions of what this thing should be. And like I talk about in the very beginning of the book, I wasn’t able, for whatever reason, I know what reason, but I didn’t at the time able to speak it up. I wasn’t able to say, hey, I, I disagree with this direction. So I remained kind of quiet and just went along with it thinking, oh, she probably knows better than I do. And over time, our differences just compounded and it actually got to a point where it was irreconcilable and we decided to end the company.

>> Craig Gould: Looking back, if Matthew Abrams today had been there in the room facilitating that discussion, then would it have been salvageable?

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah. So I’m, I’m guessing you’re saying that conversation with my business partner and me at that inflection point. That’s a great question. It may have been too late because this was something, a fracture that had compounded over time. If I had, the Matthew Abrams of today had been there for maybe that last year and invited that conversation, invited the truth and the fears and the needs. I actually do think we could have made it work.

>> Craig Gould: How do leaders find themselves in these situations? I mean, you know, you do a great job of in the book kind of laying out, you know, these scenarios. I feel like there are a couple of things that are very American. One is greed and the other is confidence. Right. And when you have somebody at the head of an organization and that’s kind of their mindset. Hubris winds up being there. Oftentimes it feels like they’re shields for a level of insecurity. And it may not even be the leader. It’s also for the subordinates. Right?

>> Craig Gould: Can you talk about the psychological minefield that we have to navigate in leading an organization?

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah, well, I would say I, I wish we could change the narrative around greed and confidence being like intrinsically American. Right. So that’s what we’re trying to do here. I would say there’s another component which is this like radical independence. Right. Like pull yourself up by the bootstraps. It’s like historically so American. So what, what happens is we at a very young age, this has been my experience for me and for the leaders that I’ve worked with are acculturate it with a, narrative of what we should be like you’re saying. And as we continue to matriculate up, in leadership, we have this story that we need to have it all figured out. And I’ve seen this with all the entrepreneurs I worked with through EO and ypo. And when, when we as leaders have that story that we need to have it all figured out, any kind of threat to the armor that is our story, we’re very resistant to. Because to admit that maybe I don’t have it figured out, maybe I need help. Maybe this, I’m at a place where this is actually interdependence is what’s needed rather than independence. It’s a threat to our identity as leaders. So that until we can recognize that we’re living by someone else’s story and that these leaders are living up to someone else’s standards, our capability as a leader is limited.

>> Craig Gould: Talk to me about conflict. I think a lot of us are conflict avoidance. We may allow things to go unsaid for thorns to begin to fester. But you know, I had Kim, Scott on the podcast earlier this year and you know, of course she’s an advocate for radical candor. And conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing if you can handle it respectfully. Right, yeah.

>> Matthew Abrams: Conflict can actually be a really profound gift and Kim has been an amazing inspiration for me and my work. And it is like Kim talks about that inflection point, that kind of like crossroads of caring about a person and caring about the task at hand. So you’re right so often. And this is how I was too. And this is why I wrote the book, because I wish I had this book when I was you know, 15 years younger. So when we’re at that opportunity to have the conflict, it’s really easy to go back into that protective stance. We’re biologically wired to be safe. You know, 500,000 years ago, that made a lot of sense. Right now though, a threat to our identity, our, brains equate to a physical threat, and we respond in the same way. So when we have the opportunity for conflict, why would we move into that when we can just stay out, be quiet, avoid the conflict, and be safe? So that’s what, what I see, what was going on for me and what I see with so many leaders is we’re just trying to stay safe, to keep ourselves and our stories and our ident, to protect it. So that’s why so many of us are conflict avoidant. So we. I’ve seen leaders just so resistant to changing that narrative. And it keeps them stuck, it keeps their team stuck, it keeps their company stuck. And I’ve also seen it switch. And I’ve seen them move from conflict avoidant to conflict embracing. And when we can do that while also honoring and valuing the other human and their needs and their emotions and their story, really beautiful things come out of it.

>> Craig Gould: In the book, you, you, you talk a lot about kind of feminine and masculine leadership traits. It’s, it’s really interesting because, I mean, it’s like we are encouraged to adopt these roles based on our gender, but also just based on. I think we’re also expected. You know, even if you’re a female leader, you’re expected to take on masculine leadership traits as you, ascend a corporate ladder. You know, they both have lots of pitfalls and hurdles. You know, in the end, there has to be a better third way, right?

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah. So for your listeners, it’s important to kind of unpack this because this language around masculine and feminine might not totally be accessible to everybody. So first, just defining what those mean. So masculine and feminine do not mean men and women. and there are tendencies for men both through societal acculturation, but just through natural, you know, genetic wiring to have more of these masculine characteristics. And same for women and feminine characteristics. So masculine really, there’s healthy masculine and unhealthy masculine, healthy feminine and unhealthy feminine. So a healthy masculine is really about structure. It’s about execution, it’s about forward movement, it’s about accomplishment, it’s about the task at hand. Whereas healthy feminine is about inward, it’s about self awareness, it’s about relationships, it’s about intuition. Emotion so we can over index on the feminine and we become overly caring of the relationship and protect it and don’t say the things that need to be said. We can be overly, we can over index the masculine and we can take action at the expense of the relationship. So this third way that you talk about is really in integrity and not saying it’s 50, 50 at all times. But there’s a time for masculine leadership and embodying those masculine traits. There’s a time for embodying those feminine traits. There’s a time for pausing and being introspective and contemplative. And there’s a time for making decisions and action and moving and not just waiting. So what I’m seeing more and more is the leaders that can integrate these two dynamics intentionally in real, in an appropriate relationship to their context are the leaders that are really galvanizing and clarifying and building these unstoppable teams that feel like they belong. And then inherently as they model that their teams have permission and learn what that looks like and they become more integrated. And so in, you know, it cascades throughout the organization.

>> Craig Gould: How do you enable that? Is it creating the space? Because I mean, I think everyone would love to have a, tremendous culture in their company. How you define that is really amorphous in, you know, up for debate, you know, well, what, what does culture mean? And, and how do you enable that? But there needs to be a strong hand, at the helm. But also there needs to be a dialogue or the ability for a dialogue. You don’t need a thousand cooks, but you need, you need people to know that they’re seen and heard, right? How, how do we make a safe space there where we can be honest and communicate in a safe way?

>> Matthew Abrams: It’s such an important question and it is, it is a, question that I have found inaccessible to a lot of leaders to actually find the answer. So it almost always begins with the leader and her or him understanding what do we want and if we genuinely want. So not all leaders want this, but if we genuinely want to create a human centered workplace where everybody in the organization feels like not only they have a voice, but their voice matters, the leader needs to model that. And the way the leader models that is by being vulnerable, by being real themselves. Instead of saying, hey, what do you guys think about this? They’ll say something like, what’s wrong with this idea? When they’re have some questions and self doubt, they’ll communicate that, guys, I’m, I’m really stuck here. Like I Feel like I might have made a mistake. I feel like I might be taking this in the wrong direction. And here are three really powerful words. I need help. I need help. So when the leader can do that, they actually are implicitly creating permission for their teams to say, I need help. I’m, making a mistake. Because what’s going on psychologically is that leader is rewriting the story. So you know a lot about narrative, right? So we have this really strong narrative. And what the great leaders do is they override that narrative, our, our social narrative, and become human, more and more human. And great leaders are messy. Great leaders absolutely have vision, often have a lot of confidence, but also have curiosity, often have vulnerability. And this is where that integration of the masculine and feminine is so valuable. So when they can model that and be courageous and vulnerable at the same time, be confident and curious at the same time, and hold these divergent paradigms and model those at once, that’s where they start to model it for their teams. And that’s where their teams learn. Just like we as children learn from our parents what’s acceptable. That’s how we begin to build that culture that invites the wholeness of everyone.

>> Craig Gould: I’ve spoken to other executive coaches before and, you know, hearing you speak about this kind of breakthrough and vulnerability, in reading about these case studies in the book, can you speak to the kind of unique capability of that third party mediator to be able to kind of crack that egg? Because it seems like if, if left to its own devices in a, management meeting where the company head and his chief lieutenants are sitting around a table at an impasse, no one is going to raise their hand and say it’s not working. You give one example, you know, at Ford, where Mark Fields, who went on to be the CEO of Ford, was actually brave enough to raise his hand when, Mulally said, where is this failing? But for most organizations, folks aren’t going to volunteer to be vulnerable.

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah, that’s right. At least at first. So, you know, I’ve been working with leaders and leadership teams for 15 years now and really explicitly and explicitly pretty much exclusively for the past 10 years with the teams. So in the beginning, that third party moderator is really an essential component if they’re, they’re good at this, because if they’re bad, it’s actually worse. but if they’re good at this, then having that impartiality, having that expertise, having that distance can be really valuable. I’ll talk more about that in a second. But facilitators and moderators that are really great at it are actually building the capabilities within the leaders so they can continue to do that when the facilitator or moderator isn’t there. So what great moderators are able to do is understand that at the, at the core, why is there a conflict? You know, it’s not about missing sales projections. It’s not about a process being broken. It’s about a need that’s not being met, a fundamental need, a need for respect, a need for appreciation, a need for trust. So what we as moderators can do is, you know, we have this really great gift that we’re not emotionally charged because we’re holding the space for these humans to connect authentically. So that kind of amygdala response doesn’t happen. I mean, it can for sure, but it’s less likely to happen. So we can remain grounded and we can slow things down, because what happens in conflict is we go into a backup state. We go into a fight or flight mode or follow. Fight, flight or follow are really the three responses. So the moderator can slow things down and ask questions. You know, sounds like you just validate. You know, it sounds like you’re really upset because so and so did X, Y and Z. What’s this really about?

>> Craig Gould: There’s an excellent example you had in the book where it was this entire conversation of he said, she said between a manager and a, subordinate who she had come back from maternity leave. There were these, stressors. The manager’s solution was, well, I know your family’s important to you, so if you need to, you know, kind of scale back and go part time. But the thing is, like, he was trying to understand her needs and respond in a way that was caring, but he was doing just the opposite. And, you know, it’s one of those situations where if there’s not a third person in the room, one person’s going to walk away being hurt and the other one’s going to walk away being totally confused. In terms of what did I say? Can you kind of describe exactly what that situation was?

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah, so you did a great job recapping it, but basically, a leadership team of four. Two men, two women, two dads, two moms. And the woman really valued these two identities that she held. One was as a leader of the company and one was as a mom. And the. They had a sales training. And the sales training was scheduled for the first day of school. And she said, you know, I wish we could have some more consideration for when These sales trainings are happening. And then the male leader. This is unhealthy, masculine, oversimplify. This is an unhealthy masculine trait. Oversimplify, and be reductionistic. So the male leader said, well, you know, if you, if you can’t make it to the training, that’s fine, or. And then went so far to say, you know, we’re so supportive of working moms. If you need to take time off or you need to even take like a, you know, part time or take a year or so off, were supportive of that. And she went really inward and became quiet. And I could tell she was emotional. And, you know, just to kind of cut to the chase, what was going on was she wanted to be valued for both of those identities, and she wanted partnership. She wanted to work together to find a way that she could uphold her identity as an awesome leader of the company and a great moment, not choose one or the other. So he was very, very caring of her, very supportive of her, but he was missing the complexity, missing the nuance. And she wasn’t feeling seen and she wasn’t feeling valued, and she felt reduced to choosing either a great leader or a mom. And it didn’t feel great. So I was able to kind of, you know. And you’re right, I don’t think in that situation they could have navigated that because he couldn’t see what he wasn’t seeing, and she wasn’t in a grounded enough place to articulate what she was needing.

>> Craig Gould: So how do you get invited in to these, opportunities? I mean, I know other executive coaches I’ve talked to before. Sometimes it’s the investors ask for help, intervening. Other times, leaders have the humility to kind of raise their hand. How do you most often, often find yourself being invited into the room?

>> Matthew Abrams: Sure. So I. I’m a leadership coach, and I train leadership teams on an operating system called EOS, the entrepreneurial operating system. So I’ve worked with 80 companies over the past eight years and really helped them integrate this operating system. So they know me, you, know, build this relationship. I usually work with my clients for roughly two years, and then I become redundant. They graduate, but they know that this is my superpower, is creating healthy teams, creating the conditions for teams to be healthy and teaching them how to do that. So sometimes they have, you know, entrepreneurs know other entrepreneurs going through a challenging patch and say, hey, we’ve got a really great guy that I think can help navigate you through that. Sometimes they invite me in. So it’s a lot of Referral and relationship.

>> Craig Gould: At this point it sounds like, you, you kind of start with a physical because I mean it’s, it’s a health check. What are the particular steps from analysis to being able to, to graduate and maintain a healthy team going forward?

>> Matthew Abrams: This is a great question and I’m actually in process of really answering this. So we’re in the beginning phases of creating something called a G Corp, a genius corporation, which is actually going through a very rigorous process to become this, what’s it called, a genius corporation. Basically a human centered workplace. And we’re building the curriculum for this. So more to come, stay tuned. But really like at the core of that is three levels. So one is understanding our own story around conflict. Like you were saying, I tend to be conflict avoidant. It’s really diving deeper and getting understanding like the genesis of our conflict story. We have all like socialization around conflict and staying safe, but we also have a very personal story around conflict. So developing that degree of self awareness, somatic awareness, what is what happens with our body when we’re approaching, you know, amygdala hijack. So getting really self aware and building the tools to navigate internally, that’s such a huge part of navigating and having productive conflict. The second is interpersonal. So how do you and I have productive conflict? What is productive conflict? How do we develop the tools and the capabilities to communicate authentically when emotions can be high? And then the third is organizational. So how do we create the conditions within the organization that support healthy open dialogue, debate, dissent? Those are really the three layers that we’re building curriculum around to build the

>> Craig Gould: capabilities for those companies that you’ve worked with, for those leaders you’ve worked with and you’ve seen them graduate or they’re trying to implement where do they normally get stuck? Because it can’t be just as easy as, oh, wow, I see it, let’s implement it. Where are the hurdles? Is it internal or is it the interpersonal?

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah, it’s not the desire, I’ll tell you that. I can’t think of anyone that says we don’t want to be a healthier team. So the motivation is the there where I see most leaders get stuck is actually in their belief system. So the belief system, these are our subconscious motivators. These are the kind of pillars that inform our conscious mind. And mo. It’s like an iceberg, right? 95% of these were not aware of. They’re just in the background like Jonathan Height talks about, you know, the, this elephant and the rider, and the rider thinks that he’s in charge, but the elephant is the one that’s in charge. So the elephant, is our, our belief architecture. So when we can’t see that, we just act on that. So it’s like we have these belief lenses that we see the world. What we need to do is take those lenses off and actually examine the lenses and then see what are these beliefs, what are these stories that are coming from my beliefs that are informing the actions that I’m taking. So that’s why this work is so elusive because it requires real intentionality to go inward and do an internal analysis of what are my motivators, what is my identity, what is my belief architecture and how are my beliefs informing my stories and behaviors that are creating the reality that I say I don’t want, but I don’t know what to do about it. So I work with the leaders and inviting genius. We talk about a methodology and a process to look at that lens and to reprogram to identify those self limiting beliefs and reprogram those self limiting beliefs to live and lead with greater integrity.

>> Craig Gould: I mean it sounds like you deal with a lot of entrepreneurial organizations, but even within entrepreneurial organizations there tends to be, as you grow a point. Say you’re a VC backed technology company and you started with a core team of five people.

>> Matthew Abrams: People.

>> Craig Gould: If you’re highly successive, there is going to be an inflection point between there and an IPO where there, there are going to be significant leadership changes. And I believe, and you talked in the book about this whole, you know, kind of inflection point of, you know, archaeology versus architect and how you, you can have an inflection point where you have to look at the past while looking at the future. And how do you do that? You know, within the framework of, you know, the company has succeeded based on a particular culture. But if you continue to look to the past, you’re not going to be innovative and grow to that ultimate goal in the future. And so how do you look back and forward at the same time and reconcile, especially reconcile with, you know, within a group, you know, of employees that includes folks that were there from the beginning versus new hires that are signing up for the new vision. It’s, that seems like a really delicate balance.

>> Matthew Abrams: It is. I mean you just painted a very complex story that involves humans and different parties, different stakeholders with different needs and different motivations Sometimes ideally, you know, VC and the company’s motivations are aligned, not always. And even when they are there’s an evolution that happened. So I was working with a biotech company that when we started there were 50 employees and we got upwards of 200 employees. they went public and this very thing happened. so they were even, I mean they use that same language like we’ve lost, we’ve lost who we were and they had trouble. So it’s interesting, I haven’t thought about it until you asked this question, but we as individuals need to look back and look forward. But we as an organization also have an identity, right? And we as an organization need to look back and look forward. And we need to do that really intentionally. So as an organization, we’re looking back. What were our roots? What were we founded on? Why do we exist that we can’t lose? We know that if we are going to grow, the structure is going to evolve. There are going to be people even on the leadership team that the company is going to outgrow their capabilities. So there’s the human element, but there’s the system element, the organizational element. So from an organizational element we need to understand what are our pillars, what are our principles. Oftentimes that’s our core values. And when we’re looking at acquiring, investment, that’s one thing that really needs to remain non negotiable. Why do we exist? And what are the small set of behavioral characteristics that identify and codify who we are? So when organizations, I found, can really be clear on that and own that and be non negotiable about that, it’s healthy. Now, is there disruption? Of course. Disruption is actually a healthy, essential part of, of growth. We, we know this, right? but when we don’t have that anchoring in the identity, intentional identity of the organization, that’s when we lose our way, that’s when we compromise and that’s where we’re untethered, unrooted, you know, without a real grounding in who we are. And the same thing is true for humans. When we’re not clear on who we are and what we stand for and what our values are.

>> Craig Gould: Were very susceptible for leaders listening who sense that they may be out of alignment but aren’t sure where to begin. What’s the first step you’d encourage them to take?

>> Matthew Abrams: Understand. Do your best to understand. Where are you out of alignment? Is there friction in the marriage? Where specifically in the marriage? What are examples that are coming up where in business, what feels out of alignment? So in the book I talk about doing, looking at conflict because conflict is actually this heuristic that Takes us right to the place where we’re out of alignment. But we need to be curious about that, because so many of us are like, I don’t even want to have the conflict. Or when we’re in the conflict, how do we get over this conflict as soon as possible? So especially men. I’m generalizing, but we’re like, okay, like, are we good? Can we move on now? You know, that kind of thing. But we need to stay in the messiness. We need to stay in the unsettled. And when we can stay in that place and genuinely be curious about it, that’s when we have the opportunity to think about our thinking. So I would encourage anyone who’s feeling out of alignment, because usually when we’re out of alignment, that’s where conflict shows up. It’s our authentic self being met with a reality that feels inauthentic, pulling us and making us compromise our values and, suppress our needs so that we can be accepted somehow. So in that we feel tension. So being curious about that, where was the conflict? Let’s look at that. What happened? What was the need that I had that wasn’t being met? What is the story surrounding my, my perspective in that conflict and really looking at that story, because that story is important. So if that story is, ah, you know, I can’t be trusted, where’s that coming from? If, if the story is, I need your validation to be trusted and to see myself as trustworthy, where’s that coming from? Because oftentimes when we look into that place, we realize that we have a story that is, when we look at it, is totally nuts. Like, I don’t know that this is the story. I’m not good enough until I hear you tell me that I’m good enough. And when you tell me that I’m good, I’m good. And like, we look at that story, we’re like, that’s totally absurd. But we realize that our actions are following, aligned from that story. So then we need to go back and say, well, what. What is the belief that I have that’s inspiring that story? And then when we can identify that belief of I need that external validation to feel like it’s authentic, we can be curious about where did that come from? And then, you know, I’m not a therapist, but oftentimes I will be honest, it feels like I am an organizational therapist. but, you know, we all have this story as a child, you know, trying to prove ourselves to our parents, you know, and this is just one story. There are so many of these types of stories. So just being, I mean bottom line, have conflict, be curious about it. This is the archaeologist where you’re really digging deep, deep, deep. Stay uncomfortable, get uncomfortable, you don’t. Nobody’s going to want to do this work. But it’s incredibly powerful when we can do it effectively it actually changes the architecture of our belief system. And on the other side we have freedom, we have peace, we have more confidence. We’re coming from a much more grounded place.

>> Craig Gould: I really appreciate you being my guest today Matthew and if folks wanted to find the book Inviting Genius, is it wherever they find their books?

>> Matthew Abrams: Yeah, it is and I would encourage them to check out invitinggenius.com awesome.

>> Craig Gould: Well again I really appreciate you being my guest today Matthew and I really appreciate your time.

>> Matthew Abrams: Oh, it was my pleasure Craig. Thank you so much.

>> Craig Gould: Absolutely.