Totally Rewarding Chats | Ep. 21: Keys to Communication

Shifting mindsets: from inside-out to outside-in

In this conversation, Sean Luitjens and Robert Mattson discuss the importance of effective communication in total rewards and HR. They emphasize the need for HR professionals to shift their mindset from inside-out to outside-in, focusing on the audience's perspective. They also highlight the significance of storytelling in communication and the power of transparency in building trust and engagement. The conversation explores the challenges of implementing effective communication strategies and offers insights on how to overcome them. Overall, the discussion emphasizes the importance of clear and transparent communication in driving positive change and engagement in organizations.

In this episode

• Host, Sean Luitjens, General Manager of Compensation Benchmarks, Visier

• Guest, Robert Mattson, Principal, INTRIGUE Communications & Coaching

Episode transcript

Sean Luitjens (00:00.898)
All right, we have another Totally Rewarding Chat coming. I'm excited about today. We have Robert Masson. How are you?

Robert Mattson (00:07.856)
I'm doing well, Sean. Thanks for having me on the show.

Sean Luitjens (00:10.038)
No, I'm stoked. I will get into why I'm excited in a minute, which I know I'm pretty easily excited. I'm like a child, so not that big a deal, but I'll talk about it in a second. But just so we can set the table with your background, can you give me, and everyone, the elevator pitch of your background? And you can take however many stories you need in your elevator.

Robert Mattson (00:30.0)
Well, it's a long and varied trip from all the way from an electrical engineering degree to software development to finding my way to marketing to the last six and a half years teaching storytelling to business people, salespeople a lot, marketing people, and to HR people because it's one of those tools that everyone needs but not a lot of people devote time to. So I've spent the last six and a half years wishing I had a time machine.

So I could go back and kick my own butt for all the mistakes I made over the 20 to 30 years before that.

Sean Luitjens (01:01.432)
I did not know actually that you came from Dev as well. There are a few of us out there rolling around that kind of gone into different places. It's a great place to start. Like I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm having an understanding of Dev.

Robert Mattson (01:13.082)
Yeah, I was a total hack. I was a hack coder. But I wrote some decent tools. I was pretty much a tool guy.

Sean Luitjens (01:19.8)
Yeah, but I think it's such a great skill when it comes to, know, because your pet peeves become things like, well, only takes 10 minutes. It's a simple fix. You know, it forces you to think about the problem always being more complex than it actually is. So I think that piece and the ramifications of a short term fix versus doing something right, all that stuff kind of plays well long term.

Robert Mattson (01:39.738)
So here's the phrase that I know every developer hates. Couldn't we just change that? That should be easy, right?

Sean Luitjens (01:45.004)
Yeah. Yeah. Mine was always, it just takes. That was it. It's just going to take. That's it.

Robert Mattson (01:51.007)
I just have to reconstruct the database tables and figure out the calls are and change the entire flow. But you're right, that 10 minutes, no problem.

Sean Luitjens (01:57.688)
10 minutes. So to prove you're human and not a cyborg type of Skynet developer, what do do for fun outside of work? Anything, hobbies?

Robert Mattson (02:09.2)
I joke to people that I consider myself a long -term dilettante. I spend usually 10 to 15 years in some kind of pursuit. So I've developed social media sites before Facebook existed. I've built furniture from raw wood. I've been a singer -songwriter. I've been an actor and a playwright. And last fall, I filmed my first short film, which is now we... It just got accepted into its seventh festival.

So very proud about that.

Sean Luitjens (02:38.776)
So does that mean you're on IMDB? Is that what it is?

Robert Mattson (02:41.712)
I actually have to make sure that's updated. Considering it's a six minute, 37 second epic, I don't want to make it seem bigger than it actually is, but we had lot of fun shooting it and people seem to get a few chuckles out of

Sean Luitjens (02:55.416)
Well, that is six minutes and 37 seconds more than I'd be willing and able to do. So I will give you mad credit for that. So a couple of things, I met Robert a year or so ago. And actually one of the things I want you to do is the, I don't want to give it away. Yeah, yeah. So if you do that quick and then I'll go into why from there I wanted to and what I want to discuss today.

Robert Mattson (03:03.472)
Appreciate it.

Robert Mattson (03:13.894)
the opening talk.

Robert Mattson (03:23.928)
Okay, so Sean and I met at the HR tech show in Las Vegas. And I would walk around and I would talk to vendors and I would ask them what they did. And they would tell me, usually, and not the best way in my opinion, and they would ask me what I did. And I would say, it'd actually be easier if I showed you than told you. And they usually say yes, and that's exactly how I met Sean. So I said, Sean, if I gave you this dollar bill at eight o 'clock on a Monday morning, you take it, you put it in your pocket, you might spend it, but if you didn't, and you looked in your pocket at the end of the day and you saw a bunch of dollars, would you know which one I gave you? Probably not.

This is an Eisenhower silver dollar. If I gave you this at eight o 'clock in the Monday morning, you'd take it, you'd put it in your pocket, and you probably wouldn't spend it. In fact, you might even show it to someone and say, when was the last time you saw one of these? And they might respond, well, it's been years. Where'd you get that? This guy Robert gave it to me. Why did he give you a silver dollar? Well, he was telling me about the power of storytelling.

And at the end of the day, if you looked in your pocket and you saw a bunch of dollars, you'd know which one I gave you. $1, $1. Same value, but because this is packaged differently, not only does it affect you differently, you pass along my message to others, and every time you look at this, you think of what we talked about. I help people find their silver dollars. And in fact, I've never asked anyone, you still have your silver dollar? And they say no. Sean, do you still have your silver dollar?

Sean Luitjens (04:52.962)
I do have my silver dollar, it's over at the other table, but freakishly so, I do, for two reasons. One, it's a cool story, and two, I think I was telling you before, I've completely plagiarized your story. Mostly when I go speak to high school students and college students that are coming out and they're going into the market, and so you're just like everybody else that's out there in the marketplace unless you package yourself different. So if you're coming out as a college senior in business.

What really differentiates you other than the packaging and the story that you bring to the table and how you're gonna do it. And so I generally do use a dollar. I basically ask people for a dollar. I have a bunch of dollars in there. Quickly look at their dollar, put it in there and basically say, if you pick out your dollar, I'll give you all $10. And so you've just made $10 and they can never pick out their dollar. It's kind of the shell game, whatever. But then I give them a silver dollar.

And then go to the next student and say, now you try it. And I give them a silver dollar. And they're like, basically I tell them, if I can pick out my dollar, can I have, I get all the dollars if I can't, you can keep them. And they're like, yeah, but I give them the silver dollar. they're like, shit, that's not fair. So actually then you move to, well, it's not that it's not fair. It's a dollar, dollar's a dollar.

So anyway, which is why I wanted to bring you on today. And so the premise was one of the soap boxes I've been on and it's come up a lot, whether it's on pay equity, it's on merit, it's on broadbands, bands, compensation surveys, is communication is now a part of the total rewards function. I believe more so because of paid transparency. It's no longer a black box or you don't need to know and by the way Robert you can't ask anyone else at work what you make. And so all of a sudden the science of comp now is a public thing. And so to start with I'd be curious how have you seen in the last six and a half years in particular

Sean Luitjens (06:56.822)
the role of communications and where it sits inside of Total Rewards and HR change.

Robert Mattson (07:03.248)
Well, it's really an ongoing journey when you think about it. And I think that a lot of people have great intentions when it comes to better communication, but oftentimes they just don't know how to go about it. And the interesting thing about total rewards, and I do have a background working with compensation planning software, David Turetsky and I co -wrote a chapter in the Compensation Handbook. So I do have a little bit of street cred.

And it's a situation where, think about what total rewards people are selling, because we're all selling, whether it is a product or an idea or an approach. We are trying to convince someone that this is a good idea. And when you think about total rewards, it often gets lost because people are focused on the elements that build total rewards and not the concept of total rewards and what different elements mean to different people. So maybe for someone who is a world traveler,

You know, the vacation policy of total rewards is really important. The time off policy. That's great. Maybe for someone like me who dropped their son off at college for his freshman year last Friday, he's on his second day today. I have his schedule, so I'm following him virtually through the day. no, it's easy to let go. It's very simple. But it's a situation for someone like me. Maybe compensation is more important. Direct annual salary.

Maybe...me 10 or 15 years ago when Sam was first born. Maybe it's about longer term stock options or bonuses that I can use to put into his college fund. So taking a look at the audience and taking a look at the bigger stories that you need to tell to convince people that what you're doing is in their best interests, hopefully it is, or minimizing the impact to let people know it's like, all right, this is a change, but it's not necessarily a bad change.

It's a change that can give you certain benefits. It's one of those things where compensation changes are very close to people's heart, obviously. I remember when I worked at a bank in college, ooh, when you're dealing with people's money, they get touchy. So I think it's, And it's taking a look at, all right, what does total rewards mean to a particular segment of an audience?

Sean Luitjens (09:13.526)
It's very well, it's it's a pay is always super personal.

Robert Mattson (09:24.642)
And how are you communicating whatever the policy, the change that you're making to them in a way where they will not get negatively emotional? You want them to get positively emotional. To say, this is the benefit to you. And by the way, because we are shifting over to a high deductible benefits plan, this enables you to put money away that you can use for X, Y, and Z in a different way.

Instead of thinking, my God, I have a $7,000 deductible or a $3 ,000 deductible, it's no, you can use that money throughout the course of the year to put away for the needs of your child that's going to school. So it's finding that balance of what is the message that people can accept in a way where they can have non -negative feelings and logically understand. I think that's a major shift because a lot of HR and total rewards people I know, they have so much work that they tend to get very procedural.

And I think the people that are attacking this in the more contemporary way is looking at it saying, okay, I'm not an HR person. I am a people person that has to do some marketing to try to get this message across to the right way. And they have to do personas and they have to do all that type of work that marketing people do. So it's really asking them to shift their hat from, no, you're not an HR resource person. You're a people person that has to get a message and has to get people to understand the direction that you're going in and get them to buy in.

Sean Luitjens (10:59.62)
So, I mean, I like the term when you say it's selling, but I think part of the problem in this conversion, problem, challenge, opportunity for success, how's that, for selling, is what made people good at benefits years ago was, you know, working with TPAs and getting everybody enrolled and nothing went wrong. You're doing payroll back when it was called personnel.

Robert Mattson (11:09.465)
Ha.

Sean Luitjens (11:23.404)
which I know Teretzky likes to make fun of. By the way, he was the first guest on our show, actually. So he was the first one. And that skill set, unless you find you're lucky enough to have both, isn't necessarily the same skill set that is now needed. So how have you seen companies start to make that shift? I'll toss out the thing I have told people is,

Robert Mattson (11:28.122)
Good choice.

Sean Luitjens (11:50.496)
you should make friends with the marketing department because in theory they can at least start to get you to think of exactly the words you just use and what those mean. Like here's the different personas, here's how they would treat it if they were marketing to something. But what other things have you seen successful programs kind of start to work their way through? Because you can't change what they're good at because you still have to process payroll, make sure people get enrolled. The complexities, there's more plans now.

There's more different things out there. You have to be good at that stuff still and you have to communicate.

Robert Mattson (12:21.36)
It's changing the job definition when you think about it, because it's really a hiring change and a vision change. I think it really does start with the CHRO or the head of HR. And they have to start looking at their function in a different way. There's been talk about, well, HR has to have a seat at the table. That was the talk 15, 20 years ago.

And now, hopefully, in most companies, the CHRO is sitting there and is not viewed as...a cost center but as an opportunity for growth. I think it's one of those situations where you have to change the definition of what an HR person needs to accomplish. And you're right, because it used to be, if you're not noticed, you're successful. And that has to change to, no, your job is to make an effect out there. Everyone should know the HR people. People should be coming to you for the information they need. You should be...a superstar, not a nondescript functionary. And I think that is the biggest change.

Sean Luitjens (13:26.292)
I'm going to push back a little and I say that because I say that from the standpoint of I agree with you from an MBA standpoint, right? So in the word, and I say that from like blue skies, rainbows and unicorns, that that's what we want.

But functionally someone who can come up with a great complex comp plan, you know, the merit matrix, the whole, how we're do pay for performance in the plan and the operations that go with it, as well as the payroll and pick out my benefits, get the best benefit plans and administer all those, you're also asking them to be a great communicator, right? And like, I get that, I functionally get that, but that's like saying, I want you, Robert, to be a great developer, but you also have to sell the software. and we know those two dudes don't usually, you know, that's not found in the same person all the time. You can find them, but they're rare. So how do you see companies who have great administration, you know, and people who are really good at that morphing themselves other than obviously the opportunity hire someone leaves, you try to hire for that fit.

Robert Mattson (14:33.744)
Sure. It's that kind of left brain, right brain conundrum that people have. So as I sit there and I can see my electrical engineering degree still in its cardboard tube, because I did not walk. So I've never opened it because I've never used my electrical engineering degree except for to impress software people. you have a hardware degree. That's amazing. But next to my on the shelf above it are my plays that I've and like my acting acting trophies and mementos from that.

Sean Luitjens (14:51.468)
Are you sure it's still in there?

Robert Mattson (15:03.864)
So left brain, right brain does exist, know, the split skill set. The question is, you're right, if you have someone who doesn't necessarily naturally lean that way, a lot of times it's missed opportunity because they've never been given the opportunity to try that out. So it's up to leadership to say, this is our goal. We want to invest in you as a total rewards person, as an HR person.

And give you the training that you need to get them to see things in a different way. And it could be just going to a seminar, going to a trade show, bringing someone in to train on a topic. The most amazing thing is that people can actually get along their path quicker than a lot of people think, in my opinion. I deal with...

When I teach storytelling, again, I deal with marketing, HR, salespeople, customer facing of all flavors and execs, and I tell people it takes me as much effort to get someone from 40 % to 75 % as it does to get someone from 90 % to 91 % when it comes to really doing things in a storytelling manner. Once people are exposed to the different concepts,

The great thing is they not only start doing it differently, they start seeing things differently. So when you get them to start thinking about, OK, we have this change coming out. Let's get ahead of the game. Here's the structure. We're going to get ahead of it three months. We know it's coming in three months. This is our process. It's kind of like pragmatic marketing. They've got all these different structures that you can use. Guess what? It's all communication. You just have better contact to your audience than marketing does to theirs.

So it's a launch. Treat it like a launch. And once people are exposed to that, I find that they start to say, it's just another process for me to do. And I get to do some fun stuff with it too.

Sean Luitjens (17:08.482)
So what are the key, let's walk that through because I think if you were taking somebody who said, okay, we need to migrate, what are the first couple kind of mindset changes you try to get their heads around? I think you mentioned it, they're now marketing, they're selling, but what are the first couple things you have them think through to become?

Storytelling and you know I actually like the term storytelling because I think when they say they're marketing to it marketing sometimes gets a bad rap so then they feel like they're selling them wares of some kind but their storytelling I think that's actually a really cool term some people could grab on to for their process versus selling them.

Robert Mattson (17:46.936)
And absolutely right. I love the way you approach that, Sean. Because the massive change, and the first one, is changing your mindset from inside out to outside in. And there's a term that I talk to you about, usually technical people, is the curse of knowledge. They know everything about their product or their service or their offering in the HR cases. They know where every decimal is and where every comma is and their policies and procedures. And there's a tendency when you know something really well to start talking about it and just shove the information out and also to do it in a way that it's not put together in a nice package. So that's the first shift because what you're trying to do is... go ahead.

Sean Luitjens (18:30.808)
I just immediately, I that's speaking human to them, right? So you have to translate from comp or tore awards to human to start. So basically you're, you know, the outside in looking at it from their perspective, don't use the term comp ratio, because they'll be like, I have no idea what that is, for example.

Robert Mattson (18:49.626)
Yeah, that's a huge part of it. The other part that people tend to miss is where are they in their thought process? Think of it as a sales approach. Should I even give you my time? Are you worth the budget? Are you better than competitors? Those are all hurdles that people have to get over. In our world of technology, are you secure? Do you have a good vision? And you're taking a look at all the people and saying, okay, where are they and what hurdle am I trying to get them over?

So if I have an initial talk introducing a change in compensation plan. So it's a comp change. are shifting from going from 3 % to 2 % for our merit increases. But our bonus increases, you have the potential maybe to increase there. So let's say it's that type of shifting where the money goes in the budget.

From the point of view, I'd say, OK, the first thing I need to get them over is to get them over the idea that they are not losing money. It is just coming in different ways. So that is the goal of my first meeting. There's a thing called the stages of change, which is a cycle of how people accept change in their lives. And the first thing is, do they think they have a problem? And if they don't think they have a problem, you're not going to solve the problem in a 30 -minute meeting. Same idea goes here. You have to introduce the idea of the change.

And that it is not harmful or that is hopefully helpful or a benefit to them. So it's in the outside -in concept, you're right. Make sure that you get rid of the jargon, make sure you elevate and simplify. But it's also looking at where people are and what is the step you're trying to get them to. Because you might have three or four meetings. You might have a meeting and then a follow -up and then a webinar and then a video and then a podcast. You might have all of those. But don't try to move them too far too fast.

Sean Luitjens (20:48.549)
And do you, how do you guys measure, how do you have companies measure success? Do you analytically go back and say here's what it was before and after? Like, because communication is kind of an interesting thing because, you know, if you do it poorly, a lot of people won't tell you, they'll just tell everyone else.

Robert Mattson (21:06.564)
Yeah, I there are a lot of ways you can do it. I you can do it in surveys, which I'm not a huge fan of surveys. I like to temperature take with the people involved in the process. So instead of sending out an online survey, I would sit down with a group of people and just grab them, it's like, okay, I'm gonna talk to that person Monday, that person Tuesday, et cetera, and say, hey, what'd you get out of it? And you can feel the tenor in a room. If you're doing it virtually, it's harder. But I would put the effort in and make those calls and find out,

One, do they get the message? Two, how do they feel about it? Because 95 % of buying decisions are made in the subconscious mind. In 2022, there were 160 ,000 minivans sold, and there were 6 million SUVs. That was not because a minivan can't do what an SUV does. That's because people connect emotionally with SUVs and don't want to be seen as the suburban soccer parents.

So finding out what their feelings are about the message is just as important as their ability to recite back to you what you told them.

Sean Luitjens (22:15.18)
And when you, so assuming they get their heads around all that and they start to get their process going, how long does it take company to kind of get their head around this and change their mindset and processes, et cetera, because I can't imagine it's a one week magic lever like in tech where you just have it happen. Where do you set the expectation for companies to work themselves through the process to kind of getting there?

Robert Mattson (22:42.552)
Okay, so there are three parts of any habit change. And this is what we're talking about. We're not talking about skills. We're talking about habits of implementing those skills. The first part is diagnosis. And one of my favorite clients I've ever worked for actually had me sit in on meetings. So I got to see how people communicated. I did nine hours of that so I could see individual strengths and weaknesses, but also common ones.

That was based on their culture. So there's diagnosis. This is the challenge that this organization is having. Then there is skills transfer. Teaching. Okay, let me introduce some concepts about three -act structure and how the brain works and how visualization and language is going to change the perception of individuals. Let's take a look at the challenges of, I know this slide's a bit of an eye chart, then why are you using it? All you're doing is asking me to ignore you. So there's the teaching, but then there is the follow -up.

And that is, to me, the most important thing, because you have to integrate it into your culture, whether that is having someone come in from outside and spend time with people on a regular basis and saying, hey, are you doing this? Tell me the challenges. Let me give you some extra coaching. Or less effective, because managers and leaders have full -time jobs, is saying your job is to make sure that they are doing this. Now, hopefully, they're a chapter ahead.

But it's something that you have to keep on reinforcing. And if people aren't using the new skills, you have to question them and say, why aren't you? We're making this investment. I mean, if they don't believe that they would help them, that's a great conversation to have because I love when people push back. My favorite pushback on storytelling is I had a salesperson says, I'm not gonna tell a CFO a story. And I said, really?

You think that CFO didn't get yelled at for not cleaning their room or was worried about not getting a prom date? I mean, we're all people. The levers work. It's just a question of how well you use them. So I would say it's that process, diagnosis, learning the skills, but then reinforcing it and making them habits so they're used. Then you're going to see change.

Sean Luitjens (25:00.98)
And I mean, the follow up obviously is an ongoing forever and it becomes a thing. But if someone was to say, know, I'm going to use a buzzword and OKR just so I can be cool and use a buzzword. You know, if someone was set a goal for it is a quarter to kind of get your head around it. Is it two quarters to where now you're, you know, at a point at which you're you're always improving. But in the follow up and kind of making that shift, I mean, what do you set a goal for companies kind of realistically?

Robert Mattson (25:29.776)
Well, there two parts. There's kind of how often do you reinforce, and then there's how often do you measure. And the measurement sometimes is...

Robert Mattson (25:40.892)
Does it fit into what they're doing? And do they see a benefit from it? So I would love for every client I work with to say, back every two weeks and let's talk about things. Take an hour every two weeks with the team and see what's working and what's not. And then quarterly, it would be great to have a nice big meeting where we spend a half day saying, all right, what did we see?

So it takes time because also the programs they're going to apply them to are not daily programs. So you have to find out what their tempo is and then apply a decent reinforcement and measurement tempo along with it.

Sean Luitjens (26:23.636)
So last question for curiosity when you say that in timing, do you try to do this kind of, for lack of a better term, off cycle with something small or do you have a really good project like we've got open enrollment coming or we've got merit, as you mentioned merit earlier, and have something really big that you can really sink your teeth into as a bigger project? Have you found one of those ways to go better, being a little idealistic that someone could pick?

Robert Mattson (26:49.836)
Yeah, it's, I think.

Robert Mattson (26:56.09)
It's a tough call because I've seen like big initiatives, beginning of the year, let's get it all done there. And I've seen people do it when it's like, we have time now. It's our off season, off cycle. It's past open enrollment or it's past that comp change where you don't call the comp people or performance review time. So it's one of the situations where it's where you find the time to get it done because communication is every day.

So they can learn the skills. In a perfect world, if they had a big initiative, I would love to get in, I would say four months, not three months, but four months. Because I want to talk to them for a month, and then I want them to get three months where they can start implementing concepts, and then you can start your measurement. I almost said three months. I go, no, it never works in three months. You always need that extra month to try to get people on board.

Sean Luitjens (27:47.18)
I think that's fair to get it going. think that's a good framework for people to kind get your head around. It's kind of a quarter of work with a month of pre -work type of thing. And my gut, if it was me, would be I'd probably want something I could sink my teeth into. I know merit's gonna be, open cycle's gonna be in March, then I wanna use that, but start four months ahead, not do what a lot of people do and start four weeks ahead and try to cram it in.

Robert Mattson (28:16.74)
I used to run customer references for WorkScape, a company that got bought by ADP where David Turecki and I first met. And IBM was one of our clients. And it was during their merit cycle, I find a reference that I need to get from Daniel Dreier, who's my contact. It was like, nope, no way I'm getting it. He is not going to take any time because this is a great guy. Daniel's a phenomenal guy. I am ever thankful. He was also the captain of his volunteer fire department.

So he was putting out fires at work and at home.

Sean Luitjens (28:50.188)
That's a good story. what kind of end, even though it's a little negative sometimes just for people to look out, what have you seen the couple biggest hurdles for companies to be able to do this? It sounds good. We get either internal or externally someone to help us start in four months. Where does the fit hit the shan sometimes when they're kind of go through there?

Robert Mattson (29:13.39)
It's going to sound kind of jaded, but it's when they don't take it seriously. When they view it as a checkbox. we'll have you in. We'll do this great two days of storytelling and then we'll set them off. Like, great. I've done that. And I've come back and I've talked to people and it's like, are you seeing any change? Like, nope. They liked it. And a couple people, a couple people might've done something, but they're not buying in. It's reinforcement. It's that habit change.

Sean Luitjens (29:20.428)
Gotcha.

Sean Luitjens (29:44.032)
It likens to me, I think, like a lot of things, it's a culture, you know, to me it's just another culture. We have a culture of quality communication, you know, and everyone always says that. It's just a culture. If you go down LinkedIn, nobody says they have a shitty culture.

That they have a bad one, right? But the proof is actually when you're there and the people and talking to the people and it's becoming grained as an everyday thing as opposed to, know, everyone says they have a good culture check. We did that. We had a culture meeting for one day. So I definitely can see that where it's got to be ingrained in, you know, and maybe some processes to help that. I like the idea of personas, like thinking like a marketing person. And I'll come back to like, I haven't been in marketing before a little bit. The premise of having them operate like marketer at least to think about, know, here's your end user, here's what they think about, assigning them a name, it seems real, and to your point earlier, kind of looping it all the way back, this is, you know, this is Robert, he's got someone going to school and you know, he's in the college part, this is Jane, she, you know, she's just starting here at work, she couldn't care less about a 401k, you know, because she's never going to retire, it's 50 years away, like, you know, that thing and putting personas to it and treating it like a true process.

Robert Mattson (30:59.588)
Yeah, there's a persona part and then of course that where are they in the cycle of your communication cycle. That's the part that I usually find dropped. People have heard about personas, but they don't think about hurdles throughout a process. And that's a big change for people.

Sean Luitjens (31:16.546)
So if you had just, you know, of parting advice for somebody to start or the communications, any words of wisdom, you know, besides the silver, carry a silver dollar.

Robert Mattson (31:28.576)
It's transparency. You touched on it early. I'll give you an example. I was at WorkScape, where Mr. Tretzky and I met, and Tim Clifford was our CEO and founder, and Don Fitch was our CFO. Great guys, phenomenal people. When we had our bonuses come up, they would have us, we had an auditorium in our building. It's not there anymore, but we had this beautiful auditorium for quite a while. And they would have everyone in there. And they would go through,

This is the number we hit. This is the formula for, this is the formula to feed and fund the bonus pool. This is the calculations that we go through. And this is what you will get based upon your performance. Perfectly clear, no black box. To me, if you start with that, everything is easy. I tell people surprises are for birthdays. And if there's something that's surprising,

Think about the chance of a surprise is even if it's not that bad, if it's surprise, it can be viewed as bad just because it's unexpected.

Sean Luitjens (32:36.984)
I think the transparency also, if communicated well, et cetera, takes away some of the issues around equity, the transparency being open, but also it's equitable because here's the formula and the formula does not take race, religion, gender, age into this formula.

You can see it's not part of the formula. That's not our goal. This is how it gets calculated. So I think a lot of that is very helpful to say this is the formula and this is why look, you know, this is why Robert got more money than you, Sean. You're awful and Robert's good. And that's basically how this works out. You know, that's why the math is it has nothing to do with anything else. It's formulaic. And here's the communication. And to your point, the story around it that

If you perform better, you can make more money, can maximize the income you make here.

Robert Mattson (33:26.48)
And when you think about total rewards, because we have the nuts and bolts of compensation and the benefits plans and all that, and total rewards is moving almost to the part of engagement. We talk a lot about employee engagement. It's a situation where if one of the things that I viewed as part of my total rewards was Tim Clifford and Don Fitch getting up every quarter in that room and giving me the straight skinny on what was going on. That added, that was, as far as I'm concerned, that was part of my comp plan.

I had an environment where I trusted my leaders and I knew they were being straight for me. So I love that company.

Sean Luitjens (34:03.608)
thing I'd change there is I know we call it employee engagement all the time, but I would call it manage management engagement. And you know, whether it's comp engagement, because theoretically, like, to me, the way that you get employee engagement is management's engaged, open, transparent, approachable piece. Otherwise, employees aren't going to be engaged. I don't know why companies and maybe that's terminology, but I just think it's backwards. Your expectation is employees will be super engaged with you, but you're not going to be like there should be some management engagement.

Robert Mattson (34:09.754)
You

Sean Luitjens (34:33.154)
Program in place.

Robert Mattson (34:34.288)
I was facilitating a workshop a couple weeks ago for a company there in the construction space. And we had a lot of people in the room from people out on the sites to HR people. Everyone was in the room. And one thing I said to them, I shared a little bit of my own viewpoint. said, try to make everyone the CEO of their own job. Whatever your job is, you're the CEO of your job. I'm the CEO of mine. We work together. We have mutual respect, and you run your business.

And that is something that the room kind of, this is it. I mean, we hadn't talked about servant leadership or anything like that or any of those concepts, but just that simple phrase of make them the CEO of their own job, because that's one of the challenges they were facing is that people weren't taking ownership. Well, if you tell people that you're in charge, they're more likely to believe it. And then you follow up with that and prove to them that you're actually putting your money where your mouth is.

Sean Luitjens (35:34.978)
I agree. This has been great. For those out there, really appreciate it. We will have Robert's information out there. It's always great to catch up. The storytelling thing, as I mentioned, storytelling communications, although maybe I'll change the storytelling as I get on my soapbox here and again with World at Work, I think is just gonna be such a critical part with pay equity and transparency in particular. The black box is gone, and so how do you communicate what was the black box? And I think...

To me you hit it on the head with you can make it a positive experience, a positive thing that we're sharing all this or it can be viewed as negative and here's your chance to kind of tell the story to make it positive.

Robert Mattson (36:16.366)
I'll tell you secret. This is a secret, John, only for you and anyone else watching it. Storytelling is part of your job. It makes your job a heck of a lot more fun.

Sean Luitjens (36:25.654)
Yeah, I agree. Well, this has been great. I really appreciate it. We'll have stuff out there. anyone has any questions, let me know. Robert's pretty easy to find and we will have his contact information. Thanks again, Robert.

Robert Mattson (36:36.58)
Thanks, I appreciate it.