[REPLAY] Matt Spielman – Executive Coaching in Asset Management (Capital Allocators, EP.210)

0:04Hello, I'm Ted Seides and this is Capital Allocators. This show is an open exploration of the people and process behind capital allocation. Through conversations with leaders in the money game, we learn how these holders of the keys to the kingdom allocate their time and their capital. You can keep up to date by visiting CapitalAllocators.com. My guest on today's show is Matt Spielman, the founder and CEO of Inflection Point Partners, an executive coaching practice he launched after a 20-year career in the financial and corporate worlds. Matt partners with high-performing executives and their teams in asset management, media, professional sports, and other industries, and last year was named one of the leading coaches in asset management by Institutional Investor.

0:59Our conversation covers Matt's background and path to executive coaching, inflection points in his own career, and his coaching philosophy. We then turn to frameworks for setting goals, executing on them, aligning interests across an organization, and dealing with inevitable setbacks. We close with Matt's thoughts on turnover in asset management firms and advice for senior leaders. I should note that Matt was a classmate of mine from business school and is also my executive coach. Before we get going, I wanted to let you know that we're enrolling the first cohort of capital Allocators University, a live online course that starts on September 21st.

1:43Rahul Moodgal and I put together a course to help train investment professionals on the skills they need to succeed at the most senior levels of their organizations, but that aren't typically taught in investment curriculum. We'll be joined by an all-star cast of past guests on the show to help you learn foundational skills like time management and public speaking, and value-added ones like decision-making and networking. Hop on the website and click University in the menu to learn more. Please enjoy my conversation with Matt Spielman. Matt, great to see you. It's great to be here. It's really good to see you.

2:21Well, why don't we start with what background and path took you from Wall Street pre-business school to what you're doing today? It's definitely not linear, although when you look back, it kind of makes sense. So I did start my career at Morgan Stanley, and I was in the fixed income analyst program, but actually just upon graduation from undergrad. So one of the benefits of going to school in New York City is that I was able to intern at companies that were in New York City. So there was one summer where I was living in New York City and playing a bunch of baseball, about 30, 40 games, and I needed a very flexible job.

3:00So I applied for a position going to the career services in the days where they actually had little like index cards there. And it was for a nighttime typist at a place called First Boston. So I went for an interview and they said, you might be a little bit more qualified for a nighttime typist. What about working on the fixed income trading floor in the emerging technology group? I said, that's great. I'm thinking, I don't know what that is. So I ended up getting the job and I worked that summer at 50, 60 hours a week on the fixed income trading technology group. And I'm like, wow, this is just my whole horizon opened up of something that I had no idea what that was.

3:37Liked it so much. And then when it came time to interview for full-time positions, I was very fortunate to have the choice to go to various fixed income trading programs, as well as investment banking analyst programs. And I ended up choosing the former at Morgan Stanley. I hired 10 people to do rotations across the floor. When I was there, I fed off the energy of the trading floor. I found myself getting up and walking around and talking to people. And people don't really do that. I was rewarded in some instances for myopia, which is I need to know the sliver of this, whether it's the yield curve or this mortgage-backed security market or whatever the case may be.

4:13And I was really inquisitive and curious. And I wanted to know what everybody else was doing. So I wanted to learn more about myself and the world around me. And I kind of have a little voice inside that says, I'm not sure this is what you want to be doing. I also saw TED, which has become one of the things that I talk about a lot and see in my coaching. I saw a majority of the people, as I say, living out the Henry David Thoreau quote, which is the mass of people lead lives of quiet desperation. There were people there who absolutely loved what they did. They had Bloomberg terminals at home. They read Barron's on the weekend.

4:45But that wasn't the majority. The majority, they were waiting for check day at the end of the year. and I saw them as for the 364 other days, walking around a little bit like zombies. Yes, I'm personifying various things and being somewhat hyperbolic, but that wasn't going to be me. So I applied to business school. Unfortunately, I was admitted. So you go to business school thinking that that wasn't going to be your path. How did you figure out what you wanted to do as you came out? It wasn't going back to the fixed income trading floor. I had resigned that and said, I'm not ready to sign on the dotted line for that for the next seven to 10 years.

5:23I really arrived on campus in 1997 with this sort of wide open aperture of looking at the world around me and really going within. So I was much more introspective than I had ever been. And I was able to have really these meaningful conversations with people. There was one day very early on when I was preparing for the next day, I was reading a case and I had the TV on in the background. It was sort of muted, but I could tell what was going on. And I saw this was, I think a 60 second commercial where I saw Billy Joel in a crowded stadium playing. And there was something on the screen that said something about Piano Man.

6:03He was singing in the iconic song, Piano Man. And I could tell that the 18 ,000 people in that enclosed Stadium were also singing it. That was very apparent from the visual. And it really struck me hard for whatever reason. I think I was in that moment where I was thinking about a lot of things. I had three thoughts. The first thought I had was, wow, it'd be awesome to be in that stadium, like almost be like a religious experience of 18 ,000 people singing anything. It'd be really awesome. Where is he playing? I may want to go. The second thought I had was, what if Billy Joel had chosen not to go in that path.

6:35It certainly was not the path of least resistance to become a musician, to write songs, and to make a living, and to be the musician that he was. There are probably a hundred other things, if not a thousand other things that he could have done that would have been easier to become. And then the third, which was probably the most important to me at that time, which triggered this multi-day, multi-month, multi-year search, was what is my version of Piano Man? Not necessarily to sit down and pen that song for 18 ,000 people to sing, but what is my version of that? Is it, and for everybody, it can be different, but is it to teach second grade in Idaho?

7:17Is it to become a managing partner at a private equity firm? Is it to become a doctor? But what is my version of Piano Man? And that sort of formally started this quest to figure out what is my version of that. I was really interested in helping build something from not necessarily nothing because there was something already established, but to really build something and have an impact on something and also being able to serve several different roles. One of my classmates, section mates actually said, hey, Matt, how'd you like to run sales, marketing and business development and help us raise money for a 13 person web hosting company in Los Angeles?

7:54I said, that's awesome. What's a web hosting company? So I got involved in HR and becoming like the chief people officer and we had onboarding and we had university for people and that was really, really cool for me. There was also an opportunity to generate meaningful wealth at that time. And this is sort of on the heels of Yahoo buying Geocities and several years after Netscape going public. I wasn't thinking about it exactly like this, but it was a bit of that 98, 99 timeframe, a bit of the wild, wild west. And you know what? Not having necessarily come from that really any type of wealth, that was really exciting to me.

8:34So I could help build something and potentially generate meaningful wealth at that time. And it was just exciting. And I was working with two of my classmates who I knew really, really well. And that was pretty cool. What happened? The company was acquired in fairly short order. It's really good that that happened because I was wrestling with the whole situation. I was in Los Angeles and I didn't necessarily have family in Los Angeles, not necessarily like a built-in friend network there. And Los Angeles is several different places separated by lots and lots of traffic. So I feed off the energy of others and it was a little isolating.

9:10Plus, I started dating very seriously in my second year of business school. Sharon, we're married now and we had plans to go to New York. We were going to live together and that whole thing. And that was on hold. So we're flying back and forth. I was going to New York. She was coming to Los Angeles and that was really challenging. So I was ready to kind of leave Los Angeles behind and come back to New York full time. So what happened from there? So I had the bug to once again have an imprint on building something. And I reached out to a friend and sort of mentioned to her that I'm coming back to New York and I'm looking for my next opportunity.

9:45And she said, you got to meet this guy. He's great. He just was part of the team that built movie phone and sold it to AOL and he's looking for his next thing. So I met him and sort of longer story, very short, I ended up being employee number three, day number two at this young company. And that was exciting as well for very similar reasons where I got to wear many hats, build something from nothing and very early stage, leave an imprint, shape the future of the company. So you have these startup-like experiences at a very, very heady time for technology. Your path somewhere along the way veered into what you're doing today.

10:27How did you think about whether what you were doing was your version of Piano Man? In many instances, when we start something new, that grass is generally greener. When we start something, there's luster, there's excitement, and it's really awesome to be in that new thing. Had it been more of my Piano Man, it would have been more sustaining, lasting, and enduring. And so what led you to get off that track and go in this different direction? The more senior I got in the various jobs, whether it was at Morgan Stanley or at some of these young companies, or I spent six years at Viacom and also was a senior leader at a digital media agency within the publicist group, I managed a whole lot of people and large teams.

11:12in particular, it was a 30, 40 or 50 person team. I kind of forget now whether it's the chief marketing officer at a company called Return Path or it was the senior leader at Publicis was 30 or 40 or 50 people. Yes, we had a product or a service that we were looking to sell. I was most drawn to the impact that I was having on the individuals. Are they in the right role? Do they have the right training? Do they have the right guidance? What can I do to see them grow and develop and thrive? If I'm meeting with the CEO, is there an opportunity to have them meet the CEO or have them present at the town hall?

11:48I was constantly seeking those opportunities for them. The bells began to go off. While I was interested in hitting our numbers and our sales numbers and we're doing a good job on the marketing side and getting our message, all that. Yeah, definitely interested in that. Much more drawn to seeing other people thrive, grow, and develop. And what did you do when you started hearing those bells? It was a little bit of confusion in the sense of how can I manifest this? So on a daily basis, this becomes the focus. There was this period of time that I began to research and talk to chief human resources officers.

12:20Is that something that I could do that gets me closer where it's the direct impact on others, as opposed to almost by proxy, if I'm the head of sales or chief marketing officer or whatever the job title was, by proxy working with the team and getting the best out of them for themselves? Can I do it more directly? I kind of found that being that chief people officer or CHRO, there were a lot of other elements that were involved there, which was benefits and lawsuits and litigate, like all that stuff, which was that sort of energy drain versus energy source. So what'd you do with that insight? I was really fortunate at the time to be partnered with my coach, Peter, and we had active discussions where one day I said, Peter, I wanna do what you're doing.

13:05I really like that a lot. How the heck can I make that happen? And that's where the majority of our work and our discussions focused on realizing that, actualizing that, making it happen. So I wanna dive into your whole coaching philosophy and practice. Before we do that, I'm really curious to ask you about that moment or that period of change and inflection. You have a career path. It's going well. You have a family and you think about a student body left to do something that you hadn't done. What was that like? Oh my goodness. So people looked at me with even more quizzically than they normally look at me, you know, like that's a little off.

13:47I was 44 years old at the time and I had lots of conversations with Sharon about this is what I want to do. Why? This is what I think it could look like. And she's like, hey, if you sort of sketch out the business plan over dinner, we could talk about that. And so I began to do that with her. And it was really risky. And I also wanted to do it the right way. There were three legs of that table for me to launch a successful practice as an executive coach. I felt like my 20 years of work experience helped sort of foster additional understanding and empathy and also experience that people can sort of ask me about.

14:22Second is how I'm constantly as a person. what energizes me and seeing other people thrive and develop and grow is my fuel. And the third is training. There really is training and there's a science behind coaching and the arc of the coaching conversation. I want to do it and I didn't have that and I want to do it the right way. And anybody can call him or herself a coach. It can be a really squishy industry. And that was not the way I wanted to launch. So, okay, shoot. I'm 44. We have two boys where we have this place in the suburbs. How am I going to work this out? We figured out how to make it work at the full support of Sharon.

14:56I did go back to school, essentially taking off most of the year, doing some consulting work and advising companies and stuff like that, but really going back to school and taking a rigorous program. And several people asked me, or actually said to me, I didn't ask me, like, what are you doing? Like, this is a real risk. And without sounding obnoxious, I said, the real risk is that I don't do this. That would really eat me alive. And if I'm 55 instead of 45, and I didn't actually do this, it would be harder then. I would have spent 10 years walking down a different road than the road that I really wanted to walk down.

15:34So you go through this training and you start a practice. So how do you describe what you do today? This is one of those questions where I wrestle with in terms of what do I call myself? I think executive coach is too limiting. I also think people misinterpret what the word coach is. They believe it's very directive and back elbow up or keep your eye on the ball. Don't say that in a meeting. There's elements of that, but coaching is a little bit more reflective than it is directive. So I'm more of a performance partner. There is an integrated performance partner element of it where it's not only we are creating this partnership, it's an empowerment model, and you are going to kick ass in your life, both in the office and out of the office.

16:20And the additional trainings that I took, it's not only executive and organizational coaching, but also I'm a board certified health and wellness coach as well, studied nutrition science at Stanford. It's the holistic nature of, I wanna create a partnership that empowers you to kick ass in your life, in all the different facets or pieces that drive how you're feeling on a day-to-day basis. There are several ways that we sort of get into that. But one of the ways is we don't coach from a position of weakness. So let's find out what Ted doesn't do well. And let's take out the sandpaper and sort of smooth that out.

16:54Let's identify what you do really well. What are your strengths? What are your signature traits that you derive a ton of energy from and that really guide you throughout the day? Let's tap into those. Let's find out what's working and let's do more of that. Let's find out what you've done in your past that worked really well. and let's understand the ingredients and the recipe for what brought about those really good results. And let's use more of that in the future. And sometimes it's really hard to do that by oneself. So have this thought partner and it's an empowerment model and we're sort of driving together.

17:27In fact, you're actually behind the wheel. I'm in the passenger seat. So that sounds awesome. If I'm coming to you and saying, okay, Matt, great. Let's make my life even better. How do you start working with somebody? Yeah. So I look at it in three different stages. So it's, and I sometimes use the medical analogy, whereas, you know, a doctor doesn't walk in and say torn ACL. There has to be, let's get a medical background. Let's do a history. There's maybe blood tests. Let's do maybe an MRI, all of that. So the first stage is the diagnostic stage. We've got to gather information and that's both formal and informal.

18:04The second stage is once we have enough information is let's co-create our game plans. We'll call it an action plan or a leadership assessment and development plan. I don't particularly like those words. The centerpiece of what it is that we do is the game plan. And then the third component is we're going to execute like heck against that game plan. And the game plan, the GP is part of a larger game plan system, which is what I'm describing to you, the double entendre is quite intentional. GPS. GPS provides direction. It navigates you to where you want and need to go. Just like a GPS, when you're driving in a car, there's traffic, there's obstacles along the way, there, God forbid, there are accidents, but ultimately you have your eye on where you want to go in this co-created game plan that you set for yourself.

18:52And the GPS sort of helps navigate you around that. Your coaching partnership helps navigate you around that. So the first stage, so that's sort of free diagnostic process, co-creation of the game plan, and then the execution against the game plan to realize or achieve these goals. Because the other notion is, and I think why clients gravitate to the approach and the team that I've assembled is this is not an academic exercise. Yes, you will feel good afterwards. Yes, you will feel energized. Yes, there'll be intentionality, more intentionality or actions. Yes, there'll be more clarity. All of that.

19:26If we don't accomplish what we set out to do and that's in your game plan, no. This is based on performance. As a former athlete who played shortstop in college, there were three other shortstops to take my job who if I didn't make the plays. So this is all about performance. The information that I mentioned at the outset and formal information, there are assessments that I administer in most instances to help trigger self-awareness in oneself and in others and to help identify what these signature strengths are. Again, we coach from a position of strength. That would be formal information, so from assessments.

19:59Informal information is, I may do a 360. Will definitely be several questions and even sessions where I have what I hope are provocative, incisive, thought-provoking questions where we gather information that really gets at not only kind of what about you, but why about you. What is the foundation upon which TED sits? What really drives you? And it's only then when we have that data, that information that then we sit down and we co-create this game plan and think football coach on Saturday in college or football coach on Sunday for the pros holding a laminated card that has the plays to win that particular game against that particular team.

20:38on that one card, maybe several dozen plays, but thousands of hours of who that coach is, the coaching staff is, the teams are, all the history and who they're playing against and all that. So this game plan has three to four critical goals that you've thought a lot about that are real consequential, meaningful to you. And if they're chosen well, three or four is fine because they're going to have massive cascading effects throughout the rest of your life. How do you take those three or four key goals and then turn it into that implementation phase? You said execution, execute like hell against it.

21:13Yeah. So a critical component of the game plan is not only what the goal is, and then where I think other goal setting theories go awry, they don't talk about the next point, which is what is the why behind the goal? What is the consequence of it? What is the meaning of this coming about? we then spend a lot of time on what are the specific action items and milestones along the way against which we can measure how you're progressing and making progress against those goals. So we know on a daily basis and weekly basis and monthly basis how you are doing in making progress and advancing against the realization of what you set out to accomplish and achieve.

21:54How do people integrate your game plan into what becomes an incredibly busy life? People come in and the next thing you know, your day is away from you. That is an absolutely great question and a critical question. I think it goes beyond what several of my and our clients do is they have this laminated game plan as part of this overall system and they keep it prominently displayed on their desks. Some people carry it around with them all the time. Some people hang it on the wall. And I should have mentioned also, you know, part of the gold standard theory behind achieving your goals is sharing it with others.

22:29So your executive leadership team, for example, Sharon has my game plan. My two boys have my game plan. So there's that layer of accountability, transparency, and alignment, three cliched terms that actually cease becoming cliche. And they're sort of, wow, like that is transparency, accountability, alignment, if other people are seeing what's really meaningful to me and what I'm working towards. we really focus on the here and now well sometimes when i present this live people raise their hands say you know there's almost focus about the future and setting goals and by the end of the year or 10 years whatever what about this the present moment wonderful moment here and now i said great yes you're absolutely right if we have this image and these series of images of what it is that we're working towards in the future that enables us to ask the questions of what do we need to do today to make progress against those meaningful and consequential goals.

23:16So one of the things that we do with our partners, our clients is say, okay, Ted, if today's going to be a successful day and you can notch a W for a win at the end of the day, and you're feeling really good about it, what are the three things that you will have either, and it could be started, advanced, or completed? We don't always complete things in a day. So what are the three key things that you will have done, the future perfect tense today. So you can look back and say, that was a W. Not eight, not 10, not 12. Sometimes they go to four, but what are the three or four things that you can do?

23:52And that's not an easy exercise because there's generally lots of things that people add on their to-do list, which if you add 20 and do four and you leave 16 over, that could be really dispiriting, sort of works against you. I call it WTD, win the day. What are the three things you need to do today to win the day. And some clients text me in the morning what those are. I sometimes trigger it and send a text to them. Some email me or text me at the end of the day saying, here, these are the things and I'm high-fiving with you virtually now type of thing. So we're real focused on winning each day.

24:23Through your career, you started in financial services. You worked in what's called operating businesses. Where have you found effectively your client base most benefiting from your coaching? It's those people who have really lofty aspirations and realize that they can benefit from, and they recognize the power of partnership. And in many instances, a lot of the folks were, maybe they were athletes who worked on a team or then, and then after they work on a team and work with a team, they set really high goals and standards for themselves. And they realize like really hard work is what would bring it about for them.

25:06And that's where I get the most resonance from people when I'm talking about this model, where there's this volition inside that says, you know what? I could really benefit from having people around me where there's a coach and maybe other nutritionists and maybe another type of expert in my life because I do want to accomplish these really meaningful things. I'm often asked a very similar question, which is, Matt, when have you seen the coaching partnerships go awry? And I said, well, when it's thrust upon them in an organization and they haven't raised their hand for it. One of my clients was an athlete for much of his life.