I’d like to start a movement to boost the economy by asking people to cut up their credit cards
With Mattias Hallberg
I would ask people to cut up their credit cards and only shop using smart payments. This may sound small, but considering the fact that many payment gateways are essentially blocking microtransactions today by adding high transaction fees. I believe that once transaction fees drop considerably, there will be a huge surge in the economy.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Mattias Hallberg, long term IT management professional with background in e-Commerce at the Japanese IT services giant Rakuten, now CIO and head of the Attuned business unit at Wahl & Case K.K. Wahl & Case set out to change recruitment, but found along the way that it needed to try to solve the problems of employment on the whole; recruitment, engagement, and retention. The group has launched innovative tech solutions to relieve the pain and frustration of contemporary employment.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Thanks, I would be happy to do that! Over the years, I’ve held several management positions and have read a lot about management; how to become a great people manager, how to motivate people, and how to build high performance teams. What has struck me is that you often encounter cookie-cutter best practices, with the assumption that these are applicable to anyone. Too few are seeking a more adaptive approach, where the manager first will need to understand more about what kind of person the employee is, and then apply the “management” part. After studying various psychological models, including Human Dynamics, DISC and MBTI, this has become even more evident. I first heard about the research done at Attuned in October 2017 and immediately understood that they were on to something important. Not too long after that, I started having discussions with Casey Wahl, CEO of Wahl & Case, and was offered the chance to lead Attuned. I accepted on the spot!
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading Attuned?
Yes, that is quite easy! Attuned is very versatile; it offers deep insight into what motivates people, so its field of application can be vast. One of our customers noticed there was a bit of a communication gap between certain account managers and their respective clients. They were using Attuned internally, but he rather daringly decided to ask their clients to take the Attuned motivator assessment. In so doing, he was able to finally understand what was motivating each of their clients and could then assign account managers with similar values to facilitate better communication. We certainly did not see that excellent use case. The lesson learned here is that the customer rarely buys what you think you are selling!
What do you think makes Attuned stand out? Can you share a story?
Attuned’s strong point is its ability to bring forward and visualize people’s intrinsic motivators. The reality could sometimes be a surprise. One of our customers, an NPO in the apparel sector, was dumbfounded when the results from the initial motivation survey came in; the top motivator was STATUS! Why not ALTRUISM or SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS? They were first in stark denial, but then realized that as employees they were actually very proud to work in this field, with this particular merchandise. They truly wanted to make a statement and leave a long lasting impression on the world. Due to this discovery, they now have no problem to openly discuss their relation to both status and NPO activities.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Right now, we are working on a new module which compares the motivational profiles for both manager and employee, and supplies insightful advice to the manager regarding their own behavior in order to maintain a good working relationship. This project came out of discussions with both small and large organizations, where we have seen difficulties for managers and employees to work without friction due to particular differences in their motivational profiles. For example, a manager valuing innovation might have difficulty to work with a team valuing rationality. The team would request hard data before moving ahead with a new initiative, while the manager would favor a learn-as-we-go approach. Such situations are potentially toxic unless the manager is ready to sit down with the team and openly discuss their concerns.
What advice would you give to other founders to help their employees to thrive?
For startups, it is very difficult to stick to different professional roles; there are just too many different tasks popping up all the time that someone needs to address right away. A high level of flexibility is an absolute must at an early stage startup. Unless this is clarified before joining, employees might feel that their careers are not moving ahead. Hiring managers need to explain this to new potential hires so that expectations are aligned. A person being hired as a Product Manager might need to do Project Management and even UI as well.On the other hand, a startup is a great environment to try different roles, to experiment using a different set of skills, and doing this with much less risk compared to a mature company. This is a great benefit which should be properly explained.
How do you define “Leadership”?
I believe there are as many answers to that question as there are leaders, but to me, a leader is person who always knows which direction the team should take, and who enables each person to do their very best to reach a common goal.
What advice would you give to other CTO’s about the best way to manage a large team?
The most difficult thing to accomplish as a leader for a large number of employees is how to delegate while not losing control. Getting delegation to work should be a top priority. Decisions requiring fast response should be handled as close to the action as possible, meaning far away from you. Centralized decision making should only be done when the impact is large and economies of scale is substantial. The second most difficult thing is internal communication. There should not be too much communication, nor too little, and not too slow. Third and last is the setting of goals for every employee, to show how each goal ties in to a bigger common goal.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have had the fortune to work along many great people. I cannot mention any names, but this person was very influential at a company I worked for, and one of the reasons was an ability to remember details. This was very useful at that particular company as there were many standoffs at management meetings and the person with most up-to-date data in their heads normally came out on top. I learned to carefully study topics before meetings and be ready to not only respond to an initial probing question, but also to follow up questions a couple of levels down, providing more data along the way.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I am still working on that!
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CTO” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
- Find time to keep up with Tech: Technology is moving so fast that keeping up is getting more and more challenging. At C-level there are so many other things you need to do, so I strongly suggest blocking your calendar once a week with a 60-min hands-on session “Explore the Latest Techie Stuff.”
- Regularly go and talk to the engineers: Learn about what problems they are facing, and what solutions they are choosing. This will create a great feedback channel and build strong trust.
- Educate non-tech staff: As Head of Technology, you will need to set aside time to update the whole company on tech trends and tell people what you are doing to stay ahead of the pack.
- Be a face to the outside: Investors and customers will expect public appearances, blog posts, articles and such. If this is something you are not comfortable doing alone, work with your PR team.
- Data, Data, Data: Data is becoming a new hard currency. If you have a lot of it, you will be able to create more. Never pass up an opportunity to collect data which will give the business a deeper knowledge base. Revenue will follow later.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would ask people to cut up their credit cards and only shop using smart payments. This may sound small, but considering the fact that many payment gateways are essentially blocking microtransactions today by adding high transaction fees. I believe that once transaction fees drop considerably, there will be a huge surge in the economy.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Nothing is impossible, really! “ I cannot recall when and how this was coined, but in my experience, when people put their mind to things, breaking complex problems down into details, there is no limit what they can accomplish.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
I read the biography of Elon Musk by Ashlee Vance a while back. It was very impressive. Elon is very impressive! A breakfast with Elon, hearing about his plans for the future, would be pretty awesome.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
They can follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattiashallberg/