Mat Mathews-Motivating Organizations To Embrace Digital Transformation
/
Rudy Fernandez
Welcome Marketing Upheaval. I'm Rudy Fernandez from Creative Outhouse. And my guest is Mat Mathews, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Mat leads a team that's guiding this 160-year-old plus organization through a digital transformation. And he's going to tell you about how you do that. Thanks for joining me, Mat.
Mat Mathews
Great to be here, Rudy. Thanks for having me.
Rudy Fernandez
So I'm going to start with the most basic tell everybody about Boys and Girls Clubs.
Mat Mathews
Oh, that's great. You know, I appreciate that. Because I can't tell you how many times I get people coming up and telling me how much they love our cookies. We are not the Girl Scouts. We're not the Boy Scouts. And we're not Big Brothers, Big Sisters, all amazing organizations.
“We have over 5000 Club sites across the United States, and just about every military base around the world, US military base. And also we have the largest youth serving presence as an organization across native lands.”
But as you noted, we're Boys and Girls Clubs of America and well over 160 years old, probably pushing close to 170 years now, we have over 5000 Club sites across the United States, and just about every military base around the world, US military base. And also we have the largest youth serving presence as an organization across native lands. We’re widespread.
At a high level, I'll just quote our mission, it's to enable all young people, especially those who need us the most to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. And so, what that means is we look at the overall health of not just the youth, but their community, and everyone we serve. When you're talking, you know, about an organization that is very much human to human mentor to mentee, even peer to peer. And we're balancing that with how does technology fit into all this. And I think that's what we're going to be talking about here in a moment. But I can't tell you it's been just an amazing journey. I never thought I'd get into nonprofit. But I've loved every moment of it. And you can't help but be thrilled to wake up to this mission every single day.
Rudy Fernandez
It is a great organization we've worked together in the past. And yeah, let's talk about that. Because it is a very high touch operation, you're helping children. And now you come in saying, "Technology!" So obviously, there's a chasm, I guess, between the people who their mission is to help children and now you're bringing in a bunch of new tech. What are some of the challenges in bringing in digital transformation?
Mat Mathews
I like to characterize it, as you know, the, maybe the fifth grader that we serve today is definitely different than the fifth grader we served five years ago, and is different than the fifth grader, we're going to sort of five years from now, the world that they're experiencing the technology that they're experiencing the different dynamics, even their communities are facing different challenges and changes, we use the word transformation, it's really important to not that that's an active word, right? It's always happening with an organization as large as ours.
And again, very much the key value is that safe place to be so there is a physicality to our locations. But we're also recognizing there is this virtual world that has emerged. So, it's more than just the internet, it's social media and AI, but our youth are, are more actively utilizing technology. So are the new staff, there's expectations of you know, what their experience is going to be. There are expectations of parents, guardians, there's expectations simple things, like, how often do you swipe your credit card, maybe you tap it, all those little subtle changes that are happening throughout the world, we as an organization also need to keep up with changes. Your experience in the rest of the world can't step back three decades, when you come into one of our organizations. There's that expectation.
Rudy Fernandez
But you also have people who've been there a long time. Tell me a little bit about the adoption. And you were talking a little bit earlier about the term digital transformation.
“Everybody loves change until it has to happen to them.”
Mat Mathews
As a technologist have learned to sometimes shy away from using the world, "digital" transformation, because if you work in tech, any kind of leadership position, and you get in front of your board, they say, oh my gosh, here's the IT guy, how much is this going to cost me? Right? There's always a cost center. And I will say companies have to weigh this in cybersecurity too is they have to accept a risk. So what I like to do is to challenge don't think about it necessarily as digital transformation. Digital obviously is akin to technology. What we like to talk about here throughout our leadership is we call it organizational transformation. So that's a bigger change that we're talking about. You're talking about cultural change, behavioral change. in product development, we have this concept of people, process and then the tools, so don't lead with the tech. Lead with what is our mission that we're trying to accomplish? Who are the people that are going to help us get this done? And what are the processes that are involved, and then the tools come in to help. So it's really about organizational transformation. And I'll tell you, that is even tougher to sell. Everybody loves change until it has to happen to them.
Rudy Fernandez
We worked on a project together, where we there are many, many locations as you as you pointed out, and many, many different people who run those locations, all wonderful, devoted people. But some open to technology, some, like I got this post it system that I use, that I don't want to change. How do you let them know that this is a better way to serve the children?
“We need to invest in these more efficient technologies so that the professionals that joined our organization to work with you spend less time behind a laptop and more time with the youth.”
Mat Mathews
Yeah, I like how you just phrased it there. And it really does tie back into the youth. I was asked at our last board meeting Matt, why are we investing in all this technology, we're a youth serving organization. And my point was, we need to invest in these more efficient technologies so that the professionals that joined our organization to work with you spend less time behind a laptop and more time with the youth. So that's the change in investment, because then they can serve a lot more folks. And again, you touched on it right there is by investing in this change, you're able to serve more kids, that's what the primary goal is.
And so these are the behaviors you have to adopt, in order to get there. Maybe I could just quickly rabbit hole into like cybersecurity. That's one of the hardest sells, because people are always worried about well, how much is this firewall going to cost me? Or how much is this anti-virus endpoint protection going to cost me? And what I like to frame it with is, sometimes cybersecurity starts off as free. It's all about behavior. Can you wait and read that email for three to five seconds longer, make sure you understand that address, were you expecting this message, that kind of behavior is free. But if you have a rushed behavior, it could cost you everything. And so that's, again, where we emphasize how you act is actually where it's going to start. And then you start to understand what this transformation is all about. It's so that we can actually serve for another 160 plus years.
Rudy Fernandez
I was going to point out that in your past life, you worked in national security and counter terrorism and cyber defense. And imagine within the Boys and Girls Clubs with privacy and all that it's important as well.
Mat Mathews
It absolutely is the only thing. I will say about as I unfortunately got to see always the negative side of it, how bad actors threat actors are in this world. And so that's why we can never let our guard down. And so being on the let's call it the defensive side, what we always have to know is attackers are always coming at us. And we're always posturing or we're responding. I don't think we're in a situation today where we can always be out in front of the attacker, because they're spending time figuring out that one little area that you're vulnerable.
And that's what they're going to go after. It's a different mindset when we tie into what we're protecting, you know, going back into why I love this mission is I'm not protecting a stock. I'm not protecting a secret formula, trying to help protect kids. And so then the pressure is higher.
Rudy Fernandez
I'm going to nerd out for a moment, behavior change is my passion. So there's a theory called the prospect theory that is part of a larger theory that which is a Nobel Prize winning economic thing. It reinforces the notion that people will do more to avoid something that they perceive as painful as opposed to gain a reward.
Mat Mathews
Sometimes transformation also comes from peer influence, even within the nonprofit leadership community. We're acutely aware of like, let's say in cybersecurity, it's an uphill battle to sell that investment. But it's no longer hard when something bad does happen. In transparency, I'll share, why did Boys and Girls Clubs of America hire me almost six years ago, to be head of cybersecurity? It was after a ransomware attack. Now, on scale, it's nothing compared to what is today and the time when we weren't operational was quite low, then I'm able to share that information, why it's important to invest because while we conducted the forensics, well, that means we weren't serving kids.
“You can't just leave these things alone. That's also part of transformation.”
So it's the ripple effect. And so we teach each other. I learned from the Target breach I learned from the Equifax breach, right? So those kinds of things are rampant, but organizations are getting attacked. And the SEC has a new rule that's coming out any organization has to report a cyber breach publicly traded company has for a cyber breach within four days of knowing that, and it's changing the landscape. And I think there's going to be a broader effect on a lot of organizations having to look at what is our accountability.
No Longer are the days of like, yeah, we'll be fine. You know, we'll, we'll hire somebody and we'll clean it up business will go on as usual. Now it's going to be more public. I think sending some shockwaves, unfortunately, is, if you follow the news, solar winds, which was attacked back in 2021, their chief information security officer Seeso is under trial for fraud. And why that is, is there's reporting that you had publicly traded companies have to do no matter what. And the accusation is that there wasn't transparency in that reporting, and it ties back into the seaso. And then you start to understand the world of cybersecurity professional, where we land right in the middle of we want to protect this house, but we cannot slow business either. And so where do we find that happy medium?
I get in front of our Risk and Audit community, I will have to share, here's what happened at these nonprofits just like us, we haven't been attacked. But I'm glad we have the systems that we do have in place, and but we need to keep getting better. You can't just leave these things alone. That's also part of transformation. Like I said, it's security has a transformation. So it's not just the products or the experiences that we give the youth or the staff, but it's also how we protect them.
Rudy Fernandez
Think early you mentioned your educational managers, what is the structure that you ripple out a new software, a new system, or how do you get that out, you have to get them motivated first, and then how you get them to learn.
Mat Mathews
We have a philosophy here that we listen to the customer, in this case, the customer, depending on the project or product, it could be the youth that we serve, it could be the staff, it could be the senior staff. And so we start with them. Because we don't want to build or invest in anything that doesn't serve at the end of the day, that mission. And I remember the project, I think one of the things that you and I worked on, but we wanted to underscore this is for the clubs, by the clubs, you asked for this. So when we talk about change management, we don't want to do anything that we're forcing upon them, we're actually doing things that they have asked for, because who better but the field those that are on the front lines, if you will, or the youth themselves, to tell us how this world is changing.
I can sit in my office in Atlanta, and read a lot of articles and listen to my peers. But the most important are those that we're serving. So there's part of that, right. So we start with, we're doing this for you, we don't do anything that you didn't tell us not to do. But then you know, having to underscore, this is what you're going to have to do to because this is a team sport transformation. So it's not just the technologist, it's not just the product or the developer, it's actually the users themselves.
Rudy Fernandez
So then how do you get the word out? How do you get the training out? What's the structure for that?
Mat Mathews
Yeah, it's I would say it's multifaceted, because I think one of the first things I learned when I joined the organization is you have different generational experiences with technology. And then you start to learn people learn in different ways. Some folks like a good user document, some folks like a video, some folks want a phone call, or even once you there in person, right?
You’ve got to acknowledge, it really isn't one size fits all, especially with an organization as large as ours, when you the project you and I worked on, that was mainly senior leadership, and that was 65,000 plus people, you're not going to get one person that same. But you know, we identify those buckets of learning. And then you communicate often, right? I think we did you know, not to brush either of our shoulders off ears, but you know, we did it right, we communicated very early, and we can be communicated very often.
Rudy Fernandez
First of all, you could say nice things about me anytime.
Mat Mathews
Yeah, even when we had confidence that this product was going to be solid, you start communicating, because you say Get ready, this is coming. You know, you may not do a specific date, but you give them a leased fall or something like that. But you communicate it early you communicate it often, you find different messengers. So that's the other part, right?
The other layer is there's a different impact from when like, say myself as the the lead technologist sends out a message versus our CEO, or CFO, there's a different impact, because when the latter to send a message, they're gonna read it, you know, whereas if I send a message, I don't know, half the time, my own team doesn't read my messages. So you want to communicate that and then you're communicating what we mentioned earlier as why is this change happening? How is it gonna happen? What do you have to do, but to also explain and then benefit? So again, what's in it for me, but we were nicely able to tie in while we're doing this, because you wanted this You asked for this, and this is the right thing to do for the future.
And then for us that scale, we also incentivize and if you remember, we, you know, we...
Rudy Fernandez
Yeah, Yeah. X Boxes.
Mat Mathews
And it was amazing. It wasn't just the introduction technology, but the club leaders had to verify certain data they had to verify people that were were still on staff. So they had to go in and look these systems. So for the first 100, that they did that we did a drawing for 10x boxes and some games. The turnout, was amazing to where, you know, by launch, we were probably about maybe 90% of everybody already having checked all that information out, but they felt included in the process. The Xbox is I'll throw in there, because one special thing about organization is, it's for the kids.
“You want to communicate early, get them involved early, let them know, we heard their voices, and show them how we implemented they're input.”
Rudy Fernandez
Yeah, I was gonna say the incentives weren't individual, they were here something for your club for the kids. And that was more motivating than any individual reward.
Mat Mathews
Yeah. And then they get to be heroes, too. There was a club CEO, who, when he was a club kid, there, they were still using the same PlayStation that he had, it was really cool for him to be able to replace the one he played on as a kid. So you being part of that giving rewards. And then, you know, it's not just launch and you're done. You have to show because you did this.
We're doing this so much better now. And, you know, additionally, what's in it for them? Now we're able to give them reporting on here's what you're accessing, here's what's been most interesting to you. Here's where you should check out next. So they're starting to benefit. And then you know, it's rewarding for the technologists to to say, well, they're using it and they're benefiting This is making a difference, making giving them time back, because it's easier to find things, that type of thing. So it was, it's a long project. But again, on the scale, I don't know if it mattered if it was 65 people or 65,000, you want to communicate early, get them involved early, let them know, we heard their voices, and show them how we implemented they're input.
Rudy Fernandez
And those are great steps. How about organizationally? How do you keep the leadership aware, involved and motivated to keep on investing?
Mat Mathews
You meet with them regularly, even if you don't have a scheduled one on one, you go out there and engage them and keep them informed, right? So no leader likes to surprise. And at the same time, what I'm fortunate to work around is professionals who are seasoned in private sector for several decades, but then I've also worked in our movement for many decades to so they understand the customer as well, in a very different way they to our customers in you have to listen. I think I know a decent amount about technology, but I don't know everything about our customers, and then you know their needs. So to listen to our leadership. Again, it's making sure that the human factor of listening early and often. And then you know, also you have to be ready to be honest about costs. You have to be honest about mistakes, or bumps in the road. I will say you know, for me, Rudy five has ever give professional advice. What has not failed me yet is being truthful. I have no problem apologizing.
“I believe in beachheads, you got to start with the small wins, earn trust, and always share.”
My style of leadership is if something happens on my team, it's my fault. I think earning trust is a really big deal. So before we, you and I started working together on larger projects, I had to have smaller, let's call them wins, I'd have smaller opportunities to prove I do what I say. I hold myself accountable to it. So yeah, if you're coming in to like a role like mine, and then you're trying to do a multimillion dollar pitch, I don't know if it'll work. I believe in beachheads, you got to start with the small wins, earn trust, and always share. You know, one of the things when I took this role that I'm in today, I was surprised when I asked everyone, what could we be doing better? I expected, I assumed it's all oh, I need this website to work differently, or I wish the laptops were it was nothing about tech. It was all about trust.
And so I spent my time about trust. And so you know, the full circle, how we communicate, naturally an over communicator? And I do encourage that, you know, don't leave any stone unturned answer questions, because then, you know, the questions you get from your leaders are probably going to be the same that you get from your board. And you just have to be ready for that. And then be able to answer those questions for your staff as well.
And all throughout show the impact that it's made. At the end of the day, it's always about the data. Have we changed the needle? Right? So for us, did we keep a kid safer? Did we encourage even more to think beyond just their high school years? What do they want to do as professionals? That's what we have to tie back to tech.
Rudy Fernandez
Now, and I appreciate that, you know, being honest, I found is so much easier. I think there's a Mark Twain quote that says, if you a;ways tell the truth you don't have to remember everything.
Mat Mathews
You're absolutely right.
Rudy Fernandez
One of the things I loved about starting this company in 2001, it wasn't because I wanted to own a business. I just I didn't want to work in the way agencies work. And I noticed this a few years after starting I visited a friend at an agency and I heard a phrase that I had not heard in years. And that was something that anybody who's an agency listening has heard. "What do we tell the client?" That's such an agency thing to say? And I'm proud to say we don't ever use that phrase.
Mat Mathews
I love that Rudy and I think going back into you know if you communicate and communicate With the other leaders, I can't be in every meeting, I shouldn't be in every call every meeting, but I have confidence that if my CEO goes into a room, my CFO, my CEO, they'll say exactly what I would say, because I've already informed them, right. And so they go in confidently. And that's so important. You know, they, they only need to be an inch deep on certain things. But as long as we're all saying the same thing, and you know, talking the same direction, that's, that also ties into being truthful, and earning trust, because then they're more confident.
Rudy Fernandez
I'm going to ask you one last thing here, because you we've talked about this a little bit. And you you mentioned just the beginning, you know, here comes the IT guy. I know that that's like, Oh, you IT? Is that still a challenge for you? Is that still like a you clumped together? With? Okay, that's all the wires and computer stuff? You're the IT guy? Yeah, that? Is that still a challenge? And how do you change the thinking from? No, this is organizational. This is not computers and wires?
“I think a mistake a lot of technologists come in with is going straight into operations going straight into infrastructure.”
Mat Mathews
And you know, the irony of calling me the IT guy. I'm a liberal arts major undergrad and masters. Second career in technology by way of the work in national security. But yeah, it goes back into technology is an enabler. But I think what every technologist has to do at any company is understand their business. So you have to speak in the business's language, I have to understand where our youth development strategy is going, I have to understand what our fundraising strategy is, I have to understand maybe what our you know, financial investment strategies, right? Technology is the facilitator, but that's the business.
And then, we start to tell the story of each one of us plays a key role in the mission, I think a mistake a lot of technologists come in with is going straight into operations going straight into infrastructure. Don't use the F word… firewalls, you know, talk about it as we're just trying to keep information safe. Right? And why does that matter? And so if you, it's by no means watering it down. But it should be able to get you into not a disarming conversation, but then you have an opportunity to learn more about them. It's less about tech, learn more about the business. And once you do that, then it's no longer. Oh, man, here comes the IT guy, it's, Hey, where is the technology leader? We're trying to solve this problem. And that's the pivot you have to make again, it comes with trust. But it also has to come with understanding saying, it's taken me a while to be confident in the role that I have done. Get there. And then learn the business.
Rudy Fernandez
Got it. That's good advice. So okay, given the trends, since this is about change, where do you see the sort of organizational transformation, digital transformation going here in the next five years? With AI and everything. It's just a little hard to predict anything right now.
Mat Mathews
AI has been such a game changer. I was looking at a stat the other day of you know how long it took certain companies to reach 100 million users, right? So I think like something like Facebook took three, four years, right? Instagram, maybe half that chat. GPT did it like in less than two months? Right? McKenzie did a great report. It's like almost 100 pages on generative AI but the changes but how rapidly the adoption has been. Generative AI feels like the biggest thing since the internet, right? How it opened up the world to so much. And if you play around with like a Google Bard, or even like Twitch chat GPT open AI are doing now is the we thought googling gave you access to so much of the world. These GPT solutions, it's even faster. And it's there's so much more. So, to me, it's not just the technology, but how people are going to harness it. So we try and also notice that I don't necessarily seeing is replacing too many jobs. There's a great advertisement in big letters. It says AI took my job and then subtext to the next level, because it is making very efficient people, developers leaders much more efficient. It's giving back so much more time. You know, I still take handwritten notes you know, when I do I do my own meeting minutes. Well now you can use generative AI is to Something that would take me 45 minutes an hour to collect and summarize my own thoughts by hand, it does it in less than 10 minutes. And so I get that much time back. And I'm right. And it's my truth. That's what I do also know, and maybe we'll, if I can touch on that where we are, as a culture society, you're gonna have to think about is the bias and ethics involved in AI. And that's, I think, the constant discussion. It's an important discussion that we had to bring up to the forefront. If you look at some of the output, whether it's images or language.
Rudy Fernandez
I just wrote a piece on this.
Mat Mathews
You and I have talked about it before. because there's an aggregation of the internet, you start to see, maybe I could guess the gender of the majority of the content producers on the internet, you might be able to guess, possibly a race. And so we have to be careful because that's what these AI solutions are producing.
And so for an organization like ours that is celebrating the individuality, the beauty of each human being, you know, the close to 4 million kids we serve every year, they're each so special and unique. The danger then is if they're going to AI like something making me efficient, but could also change the way that they feel about themselves the way that they look at themselves. That's a bigger risk. I don't worry about the terminators just yet. I do worry about the influence on our minds, the young minds especially,
Rudy Fernandez
I did a little experiment with mid journey. I asked it to show me a president, a CEO, doctor a Senator. In every case they were all white men.
Mat Mathews
I saw your post, we have to be aware of that.
Rudy Fernandez
This is this an obvious way AI pulls from biased information. There's so many probably little subtle ways that it occurs as well.
Mat Mathews
Yes. And think about children? What about the children we serve. What's a refugee? Do they have a face? They shouldn't. You shouldn't create an image because then your own human bias
Will kick in. Technologies, especially with the AI piece is evolving so quickly. And as human beings, we're going to have to evolve even faster to understand, let's say, maybe rediscover our own humanity to say, is that right? Do I accept this as face value? And do I believe this?
Rudy Fernandez
I think that the idea, the theme of what we’ve talked about today is making sure people understand that it all comes down to our humanity. Technology is all about, how does technology help us connect better, and do what we do better?
Mat Mathews
100%. And, yeah, tech is still intended to be a connector and not something that isolates in. That's what we're, I think, at the sort of an intersection right now.
Rudy Fernandez
Thank you so much, Matt. This has been fantastic. I think we should do a bunch of these because there's like 18 subjects you could probably speak intelligently about,
Mat Mathews
I appreciate the opportunity really. for the audience Rudy and I go way back. He's a dear friend, and I'm grateful to be able to work with him.
Rudy Fernandez
Thanks, Mat. Learn a lot every time we talk. To learn more about Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Visit bgca.org and to see transcripts and links of some of the stuff we talked about? Visit creativeouthouse.com/podcast Thanks for listening. Remember that the state of marketing has you confused? Don't worry. It'll all change. See ya
