Michael Mattson - Leading Cultural Change as a Middle Manager. Hi there and welcome to bring your own chair. I'm Sally Mildren, your host. I'm the CEO ofClarity PX.I love this work of customer experience and today you're in for a treat. We're talking today withMichael Matson, who is a consumer affairs manager for a very large government agency thatwe all know. And he's here today to talk to us about his journey into customer experience.Starting from the ground up and moving into management, Michael has been able to reallyinfluence continuous improvement, a focus on humans and the voice of the customer. He hasbeen able to really help influence his team and integrate powerful servant leadership. Humancentricity and empathy into his work.Thanks for joining in Now we'll jump into our conversation with michaelThank you, Sally. Thanks for having me. So we always start these conversations with kind of alittle journey of how did you get to the role that you're in or find your way into customerexperience, whether it's your official title or not, each of us has found a different path. And Ithink it's interesting for our listeners to know how'd you make it here.Yeah. You know, my origin story, I think it begins with my dedication to service. Even beforegetting into government work I owned and operated two businesses. They were photographybusinesses and at the core of those. Enterprises, it's building connection authentic connectionwith humans.And so I kind of took that entrepreneurial spirit, that dedication to service, and I kind of fell intomy career in government not because that's where I ever expected to end up. But out ofnecessity you know, I made some choices to, end up closing those, those photographybusinesses and, and move and be close to family and help support them.And in doing so I wanted stability in income and ended up on the ground floor of, a serviceoriented. Government agency and, saw a need for bringing empathy human connection puttingthe customer or the general public at the core of our services and really make a differencebased on that really take action, right. Instead of lip service really, yeah. Make some, somemeasurable decisions and and get into positions where I did have more formal or informalinfluence and could change our processes, can change our way of thinking, could helpinfluence the culture to be more human centered.And that's what I really fell in love with. And I think no matter what agency, what organization Iwork with, that's really at the core of my passion is. Taking care of people helping people andreally helping organizations become more emotionally intelligent.When we had our first conversation, which I loved, it's so, it's such a familiar refrain inparticularly in huge. Traditional organizations. There is an opportunity where you might feel likeit's not my job or I can't make a difference.Because it wasn't officially part of your job to start with.But because you saw a need, and certainly that has been the case in my own career where,okay, I was over marketing and outreach for a huge fortune 50 health insurance, and we kept hearing the same drumbeat of issues by our customer and we took initiative to say, Hey,maybe we can do something about it to prevent the problems.In the first place, but I think it's an important story for you to talk about what would you say tosome of our. Community in the CX Accelerator or maybe to some of our listeners who arethinking, well, that's easy for you to say, because you have that job, but you didn't . When youfeel like maybe it's not your role or you can't make a difference.How would you respond to those folks?Yeah, you know, honestly, it is daunting and it's a very, very big challenge and I, I don't thinkthat challenges really. Any less daunting when you do have that in your job title, when it is partof your formal functions. I don't think it is. I mean, changing a culture to be more humancentric, is always difficult because it seems like a lot of organizations get so wrapped up in.Metrics numbers in the bottom line, which are all important, but kind of lose sight of the visionof, why the organization exists and that is to serve people, to add value to people's lives. Andso when I struggled with that same kind of internal challenge, internal struggle you know,really, I guess what it came down to is just having.The courage and tenacity just to just not stop. It's just try it anyways, do something. And whenit comes to a such a large organization it really just takes taking what you do have some kind ofcontrol over or some kind of influence and doing something about it. Right. It's just kind ofdiving in.And even if it's just your slice of the world, if you can make that just a little bit better than that'svalue add, and that's going to be important and culture is just a culmination of actions. Right.And so the more actions. That you can put towards the right vision and the right culture. Thenover time that has a compounding effect and ...
