Dec 30, 2018
Matt is the managing partner of Blue Rudder. When asked what was
his journey that lead him to where
he is today, he says it was not a planned journey. Matt went off to
college at Gonzaga where he got a
couple degrees. He then went out into the business world where he
bought, ran and sold a few
businesses. It was then that he got an itch that he wanted to
teach, so he went back to school to get his
PHD in Leadership Studies. He came to teach here at Columbia Basin
College for six years and went on to
teach at Heritage University by Yakima where he has been there for
three years. He has had a calling for
leadership for the last 10-15 years. His advice about advanced
degrees and education is do it while you
are young. Being married now with three little kids, there are too
many financial commitments and
other distractions now!
He would tell his 20-year-old self to find a good mentor. He has
been very fortunate to have a few really
great mentors. When you are 20 you feel like understand the world
and that you have it all figured out,
but then you fast forward another 10-15 years and you realize you
were 20. You didn’t have it figured
out! He has a mentor now that he met at 22 on the basketball court.
His wife actually sang at his
wedding and has been a great influence in his life. He is a
psychologist and has been able to learn a lot
from him. He has a few kids that he mentors currently and through
the basketball camp he runs in the
summer. He has coaching clients as well.
When Matt thinks about his strengths, he thinks about the people he
surrounds himself with. He has
three young kids that encourage him to get out of bed and be his
best self. He feels his biggest strength
is having a very wide life perspective. He has a big picture all
the time, which can also be considered a
weakness. He asked his wife what she thought was his weakness, and
she said that he isn’t very
organized all the time. When you look at the big picture, you can
often lose sight of the details. Find
people in your life to help you stay on track. Post notes on your
mirror; have your spouse remind you
about something five times a day for a week until it becomes a
habit. The other thing he would say that
as you find your strengths, try to find an occupation that lines up
with them as best you can. By doing
this you will have less frustration and friction in your life.
StrengthFinder is a great test you can take
online. Another one was created by professor Martin Seligman who
has a website called
www.viacharacter.org. He has found in his studies that we should
operate in our strengths instead of
improving our weaknesses.
Matt doesn’t really have a morning routine because his days are all
so different. He tends to get up
early, has coffee--and he really hasn’t had a morning routine in
the last 9 years because his teaching
schedule changes often between nights and mornings. When he wakes
up in the morning, he plans the
day and just gets stuff done.
He feels fortunate that with his job there are always new students
every quarter or semester and that
provides a lot of change. He has a personal battle with feeling
like there isn’t enough time. So, he works
hard to maximize his days. He has had some friends that died young
and he just doesn’t want to wake
up and waste the day.
Matt’s challenge in leadership is about being intentional. As
humans we are creatures of habit. Being
intentional means having a lot of discipline and energy. He then
needs to have mental focus and he gets
that by treating himself well, which means he needs to be
spiritually, mentally, and physically well. It’s
really hard to be an effective leader if you aren’t taking care of
yourself. Being a leader is not easy; there
is a misconception that you wake up a great leader. It’s lots of
ups and downs.
Matt exercises a lot and is very intentional about what he and his
family eat. They have never eaten fast
food. They also do simple activities like hang out in the back
yard, take walks, watch movies together.
Since having kids, they make sure that they go on a family vacation
every year. It’s a time to unplug, turn
off the phones and be together. Building trust is everything.
Matt talks about a certain failure in his book about when he was
leading a painting company in college.
He thought he was doing well. Years later a friend, an employee
asked Matt why they didn’t do a certain
something on a house. Matt was surprised that it had taken him 5 or
6 years to bring it up to him. The
failure in that was that he must have been doing something in that
leadership role that made him
intimidating or not approachable. Leaders need to make time for
reflection. Reflection plus experience
is the best teacher. If you don’t reflect, then you don’t learn
from the failures or experience. There are
many ways to reflect. Talk to someone at the end of the day and
journal.
Bluerudder.org
Mattkincaid.net