Matthew Reyes:

 

Jeff Walter (00:05)

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast. My guest today is Matt Reyes. Matt is an expert in the customer experience with over 20 years of management experience at firms like Crunchyroll, Milestone, and eSignal. In addition to his expertise in customer experience, Matt has a passion for mentoring young men that are transitioning back into society. Matt, welcome to the podcast.

 

Matthew Reyes (00:28)

Thank you, thank you, very happy to be here.

 

Jeff Walter (00:31)

So Matt, as most of my listeners know, one of the first things, I always love to understand how people got where they’re at. So how did you end up as an expert in the customer experience and in your career? How did you end up there?

 

Matthew Reyes (00:46)

All right, so in a way, maybe it’s a long journey, but to me, it was very quick. It’s like, how did I get here? What happened? Okay, so I think I can say I started out, basically started out in high school after school building clones. I was building computer clones, PC clones, upgrading Apple IIEs, doing that kind of stuff. And that gave me that customer face-to-face

 

Experience where people would come in and they would drop a box off and say do something with this box and this magic box Something had to be tinkered with inside to get them and make them and then all of a sudden they’d be happy because of whatever RAM chips I stuffed in there or or whatever parts I put in there and and I was like, okay, there’s this computer part you got to fix and then there’s this Person part you need to work with and you need to interface with it’s like they’re two different pieces

 

And wow, just that understanding of those two different pieces from my very first job is something that I still have to teach today when I’m working with agents and working with, working with, ⁓ interfacing with AI and agent and a person. And although still distinctions are still super important. So I started out building PC clones. and that gave me the heads up. So when I graduated, I got a degree in a intellectual engineering.

 

I’m at 19 and I took on a job as a service manager in a PC repair shop. This was a relatively small, small shop, maybe 15 people and the owner had a lot of employees there that were related. was a And when you’re working with them, you can’t fire them.

 

Jeff Walter (02:30)

Thank

 

Matthew Reyes (02:35)

So it doesn’t matter if you catch them sleeping under a desk somewhere, you can’t fire them. So there I was, a service manager with two team members who were, technically their job was to deliver PCs in their delivery van. So they had to drive their vans and I needed stronger people. couldn’t get rid of them. I couldn’t manage them out of a job, which is, I hear these things, can you manage them out?

 

Jeff Walter (02:59)

Hahaha.

 

Matthew Reyes (03:02)

Can them? No, can I manage them in? So these are two people I had to manage them in, but I also had to motivate them in. I had to understand what were they really looking for? What did they want? And then how does I line that up with what we need as a company? And so I turned these two drivers into people who can build machines, computers that can go out the door.

 

And here I am. Yes, I have a degree in electrical engineering and these guys, they have their driver’s license. How do I get them there? And that’s when, when it started looking at, looking at a job, looking at a process and saying, how do I break this into pieces and the processes that people at different experiences can rightly handle these, these processes and do them in the right way and make decisions about it. And that still comes down to what I do in training today.

 

is helping people recognize what to do and how to do it, and then how to remix creatively, because they understand it strong enough that they can remix creatively to add value for that end user, for that customer. anyway, I’m doing this. Everything that I learn on each job, I’m still doing it. I’m stacking it up on top to get to where I can build a workforce, where within a short period of time, I can spin up a team.

 

Jeff Walter (04:06)

So, yeah, go ahead.

 

Matthew Reyes (04:23)

from zero people to 200 people and we got ⁓ a month to do it. Those kind of things, it all comes from each one of these little job experiences going on.

 

Jeff Walter (04:33)

I’m surrounded by software guys all the day, all time. I was, I was a software developer back in the day. Customer experience means something specific in terms of building software. That’s not what we’re talking about here from a customer.

 

So can you help the audience understand, when we say customer experience, what do you mean and then when, and what does it mean to train or develop these people, like bringing up a 200 person staff to support that customer experience? let’s just start with, so what do you mean by customer experience?

 

Matthew Reyes (05:01)

Call center.

 

So most often for customer experience, the titles of customer experience,

 

Jeff Walter (05:16)

Yeah, because we’re not

 

talking user interface on a software system.

 

Matthew Reyes (05:19)

Right, right, right.

 

So the customer experience on a big, big level, there’s that similarity in that this is what they see and this is what they experience when they click the button. So that’s on for software development. What is the customer experience? But then bigger than that becomes what’s the customer journey? So how did they first hear about your product? What are they, you know, what they saw an ad and then what does that get them? What gets them to click? And then what is the experience they have when they need something from you? When they reach out?

 

when they talk and that’s more on the customer service side. So those kind of all roll up into customer experience. But most of what I was talking about is this, experience that the customer has when they’re interacting with the company. So whether it’s face to face, it could even be on the floor of a giant convention. where something is representing the company to the customer.

 

Jeff Walter (06:01)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (06:10)

And that’s where the experience comes in. So even the software side that rolls up in through voice of customer and you push that back to engineers. So that’s the part that you, it sounds like you had the experience with.

 

Jeff Walter (06:18)

So.

 

Yeah, well, we’re a software company. So, you know, the guys are always talking about that, but you’re actually expanding the definition is it’s not just that user experience through the software, but it’s also the journey and all how the customer interacts with your brand. Right. And increasingly that includes how your customer interacts with AI agents. And then, and then I got to imagine, and then how humans

 

on the workforce side, work with the AI to create a better experience for the, for the customer. Hopefully. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (06:54)

Hopefully, you’ll get to work with the customer directly. So there’s different ways

 

you can implement AI. You can use AI and try to replace the human completely. So the outside customer human never talks to an inside human. And I’m not sure that that’s given us the best experience yet. So using the AI to triage, create the problem, and maybe even fix the technical side. Let the computer fix the computer, but let the human fix the human.

 

And so the, the, we’re, we’re not necessarily replacing the human. We’re just replacing the technical part that the human no longer has to hit the button, click here and drop and then do the troubleshooting. Instead, they can see that the problem is solved. They can celebrate with the customer that it’s solved. And then they can add the value, the value that keeps the customer coming back and the value could be education or the value could be, we’re, we’re exposing them to more of my business.

 

getting them more involved in environment or just helping them feel that they belong. And that’s a really big piece.

 

Jeff Walter (07:53)

Yeah.

 

Well, so it’s, really interesting because, you know, I think back to your story about, you know, early in your career, you know, family business where you’re a manager, but you’re a manager over people that are family. And so they’ve got kind of an inside track to the boss, independent of the reporting hierarchy within the company. ⁓ and it’s interesting is that as I’m listening to you talk about the customer experience and, and.

 

Matthew Reyes (08:10)

Mm-hmm.

 

See you guys.

 

Jeff Walter (08:21)

the humans and I, and I listened to you talk about, that experience and how that started layering things for you. it, it, it’s interesting cause it’s a, I see a similar parallel to a lot of our clients where, you know, whether if you’re a franchise or where the franchisee and their employees are the customer experience for your brand, not

 

the franchise, not McDonald’s corporate. Nobody at McDonald’s corporate is the customer experience for McDonald’s customer, right? It’s always a, it’s a, it’s a franchisee who’s an independent company and their employees that, you know, when you go in and you’re either self ordering on the app and you’re coming in, picking it up or talking to that cashier or whatever that is, it’s, it’s, it’s not your people.

 

Matthew Reyes (09:00)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (09:16)

And you can’t fire them as the franchise or, or, or, know, um, you know, uh, dealerships, car dealerships, you know, where you, or any other type of reseller program where you’ve got these partners, uh, it’s a lot of there that, that I’ve got to be able to develop the, these people that don’t work for me. I can’t fire them, but I’m responsible for them. Right. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (09:40)

Well, there’s one more piece besides

 

you can’t fire them. It’s not that you, that we would even want to fire them, but it’s that we have a, when we are training people that you’re moving them up to the next level. When we’re working with top performers, that’s not, you’re not going to fire them anyway. They’re, these are your top performers, but we want to develop them to go to become that next level to be on that top performer. That’s a different type of motivation. And those motivations are not so.

 

You’re not, you’re, that’s not where here I’m going to give you, I’m to throw you a pizza party. That’s not going to get you the top motivators. That’s it’s, it’s a different type of motivation of understanding who they are, where they’re going, what they want, and then helping them feel like they belong to that. That’s totally different. And yet those motivations, that same thing that works with volunteers, same things that work with people you can’t fire. That’s what really will get them going, not just to do their job, but to do their job very well. And so that’s what we’re looking for.

 

Jeff Walter (10:14)

Right.

 

Well, it’s

 

yeah. Well, so that’s really, so it, so it sounds like in your, you know, sounds like relatively early in your career and then building on that. So it’s the motivation. It’s, it sounds like to me, and if I, if I put my, my mat hat on, that it’s when we’re doing learning and develop and we’re trying to get 200 people up to speed, whether they’re employees, whether they’re

 

partners that are, you know, we’ve outsourced the call center to a bunch of partners, whether they’re the grandkids of the owner of the store.

 

You know, it’s almost like, if I can, if I can, it, if I get the, your, perspective, it’s actually the financial relationship you have with the individual is not important. It’s the motivation. It’s identifying the motivation to get them to perform at higher levels. Is that, did I get that right?

 

Matthew Reyes (11:35)

We’re getting very close. I want them to perform where they are getting that satisfaction of really providing value to everyone around them, to building their own identity of who they are as a valued member of the workforce, but more importantly, a valued member of the team. I want them to feel like they’re part of…

 

Jeff Walter (11:37)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (11:56)

a team that is delivering something, something bigger than themselves. And those, so they’re really all parts of human needs. How am I a human? What are the needs of a human? If we’re meeting those as a leader, then our followers will never leave.

 

Jeff Walter (12:00)

And yeah, good.

 

Well, and so, you know, so that’s an interesting, so that’s really focusing on the human aspect of the motivational aspect of learning and development, right? A lot of time. Yeah, like, well, you know, usually we think of it, you know, a lot of times when we think of learning and development or training, you know, learning and development, we think of it in terms of, ⁓ an engineering exercise, right? Like if I just get the right course.

 

Matthew Reyes (12:24)

Human needs and motivations are like the same. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (12:43)

⁓ and the right curriculum and the right, pedagogy, everything will be swimmingly. but I, what you’re saying is, well, yeah, those things are important, but what you really got it, but what’s, what’s, what trumps that is what, what is motivating them to, how do you motivate them to be, to feel a member of the team?

 

Matthew Reyes (12:54)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (13:07)

and to have the teams back and therefore want to perform for the team, right? For their fellow human. And so how do you do that? That sounds really hard.

 

Matthew Reyes (13:17)

Exactly.

 

⁓

 

So recently I’ve been hearing a lot about about how do you work with Gen Z? I’ve been hearing a lot of that and they are they talk about things like

 

Jeff Walter (13:40)

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (13:47)

different communication style, less experience. I even made a list of some of the things they were talking about. Short attention spans, they value constant feedback, they need constant, they’re sensitive to mental health, all these different things. They’re saying that, oh, that’s drawback of Gen Z. And I’m going, wait a minute, each one of these things are keys to helping a person, Gen Z or not Gen Z, helping them get that next level where they really want to move forward.

 

for themselves and for their team. So how do you get them to want to be part of that team is you stack it up at least three human needs. You stack up at least three human needs in any process and that process will become addictive. Okay, let’s go to software.

 

Jeff Walter (14:34)

So what do you mean by stack up? I I understand the words, but what does

 

that mean? what are those, like that’s a nice bumper sticker, but I don’t know what it means. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (14:44)

Okay. So let’s, go, let’s, let’s go to software. So

 

on software, if I open up a piece of software or a subscription or whatever it is that our company is putting out there, if when they go to the website or they take it out of the box and it doesn’t work, then they’re mad. and pull up their show. They can’t watch their show when they want, when they want to watch their show, they’re unhappy. And the

 

the human need that that is hitting is the very first human need is hitting is safety or familiarity or reliability. Safety, familiarity, that’s the first one of the first human needs. So when you turn on the hot water, you want the hot water being on this side. If it’s not on that side, all of a sudden we got problems. So I don’t know, there’s a level of familiarity and reliability and safety that makes me feel safe. And I need that to be first. Now, next, I want some variety.

 

I mean, no matter how much you like your, you have a favorite lunch, if you start having it every single day, the exact same thing, you want something different. So we want, we’re humans, we want variety. So there’s, want sameness and I want difference, because I’m a human and I conflict in my needs and my wants, because I’m human. So I have a human need and then for safety and then I have this conflicting need for variety. So I want something different.

 

So when the show comes on and it’s this new show and I’m like, yeah, or I open the box and it’s better than I expected. Like, yeah, we want surprises, but we only want good surprises. So when you’re gonna give, don’t give a pizza party for you guys are working on extra hours and I’ll throw you a pizza party. It’s not gonna work. But if on another day after they’ve already worked hours, then you throw that pizza party. so that pizza party is like, ⁓ cool. You, cause you surprised them with it. So that’s the only time.

 

Jeff Walter (16:16)

Great. Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (16:35)

pizza parties are going to work at customer service is when it’s a surprise. Not when it’s considered a payment because it’s like really pizza. That’s my payment. So anyway, so safety, variety, and then significance. And this one is so huge for getting people to move out of that. I meet the requirements to I’m a top, I’m to be a top performer. That’s significance. That’s saying, Hey, I’m somebody I’m able to do this. So our job is to spot the good stuff.

 

I’m CEO, right? I’m the chief encouragement officer. My job is to be that cheerleader, but not cheerleader of anything, not a participation award. No, not a trophy just because you showed up. No, but recognizing the good stuff, saying, I see the good stuff that makes a difference. And you handle that good thing. And now I can get that good thing up and I can show everybody, look, this person did this thing extra special and here’s how. And now everybody else looks and go, ⁓ I can do that too.

 

And now I’ve got a whole team doing extra special, doing the extra, doing the above, but people have to know it. I have to be able to show it to them. And then I, that person now their own significance grows. going, I’m the guy he should use as an example. And that becomes part of their identity. Hey, I’m good at this. And now when something underperforms, they’re going to go, whoa, whoa, whoa. I can’t let that pass. I’ve got to, that’s not who I am. And it’s like a dog doesn’t decide to bark and a cat doesn’t decide meow. It’s who they am. It’s the part of their identity.

 

And for a top performer, when you get that into their identity, they will not underperform because it’s not who they are. So I’ve got safety, variety, significance, ⁓ connection, growth, a contribution. Those are all parts of team. And those are basic human needs. And so if I can get any three of them into a process, if I can get significance and connection and growth into a process, it becomes repeatable. They’re going to do it again.

 

This even works in bad ways. I’ve had outside of the office, I work with people who have made some mistakes. And when they go hold up a person, all of a sudden their significance, they have a gun in their hand. All of a sudden person is paying direct connects. They’re paying full attention to you because you got a gun and now there’s a connection. And all of a sudden they turns up that wallet had more money than they expected. Woo. They got a surprise. They are addicted. They’re going to do it again.

 

Jeff Walter (18:39)

Alright.

 

Matthew Reyes (18:54)

They’re going to do it again because at least three human needs got met there in a process. They’re going to repeat the process and do it again.

 

Jeff Walter (19:02)

Yeah. I, I, I, yeah, I’ve heard of like Maslow’s theory of hierarchical needs and that, but I’ve, I’ve never heard. Like I like all the needs that you laid out there, connection, significant, like those all makes sense. Like I’m listening to you on that. I’m going, yeah, that’s a human need. Like, you know, that, that familiarity, that safety is familiarity, reliability. It’s, it’s.

 

I’m in known territory and so I can be comfortable. Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (19:29)

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (19:30)

And then as you went through that, it’s like, but if it’s the same thing, but I need a little variety because I need both parts of my brain working, not just the left side. need my right side to go, Ooh, look at that. But it, but surprising the light, not surprise and dread. Right. And, and, and so I liked all that. When, where, how’d you come up with that? need three.

 

Matthew Reyes (19:36)

Hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (19:52)

Like I, that’s, that’s

 

Matthew Reyes (19:54)

okay.

 

Jeff Walter (19:55)

yeah. Like that’s right. I love the needs. Right. So it’s like, you can kind of go through that. hierarchical needs and this kind of expands it more, uh, you know, from a, uh, a philosophical, but a psychological standpoint. Um, and so that’s really cool. Cause you, you rattled off like six or seven needs or, you know, and, or desires. And so how’d you come up with three?

 

that you need to incorporate.

 

Matthew Reyes (20:22)

So we got that out of gaming. ⁓ So when we were looking at the different parts of the gaming that people will get, so which games… Okay, so the subscription businesses, Crunchyroll subscription business was the last 11 years of trying to work these…

 

Jeff Walter (20:24)

Okay.

 

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (20:44)

different things out, my teams, my people. That started out with a couple of agents and they would get a huge amount of tickets during the week when I started there and then on Friday they would just delete everything. And they would start all over again on Monday.

 

Jeff Walter (20:56)

Problem solved. I’m sorry. I don’t

 

mean to detract you, but I had a client once that did, you know, unsecured loans, you payday loan type things. And when somebody got behind what the branch manager on their payments, what the branch managers would do is just issue another loan at a higher amount.

 

Matthew Reyes (21:11)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (21:23)

to pay off the old loan and put a couple hundred bucks in a guy’s pocket. It’s like problem solved. No more, no more delinquent loan. And so when you said that, it just reminded of the end of the week, you just delete the tickets, problem solved, no late tickets.

 

Matthew Reyes (21:41)

So we had to build something out of that. We had to build the process. But at the same time as we had to build all these processes and all these things, we had to build the team to move out of that stage into where they wanted to do things and they want to solve things. And it’s like, do we get them? for that, they had to understand a real contribution to the company, what they were really doing for the company, which made it obvious why.

 

Jeff Walter (21:43)

Yeah, I think.

 

Matthew Reyes (22:06)

those processes were not the right process. That was not the way to go anymore. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (22:10)

So, well,

 

so you said that when I said, how’d you end up with three? You said that it was gaming. it, was it the Crunchyroll customer experience or actually guys playing the game?

 

Matthew Reyes (22:16)

Yeah, so.

 

So that’s what we studied under the ContraRole customer experience. we had to look, later on, we developed a games team that was just focused only on games. the games that we’re talking about are mobile games. ⁓ So these were people who spend times in different portions of the game. And then we eventually got involved in the quality control of the games and it was out of necessity because those specific, some specific games weren’t being developed internally.

 

Jeff Walter (22:30)

Okay.

 

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (22:48)

They were being developed by external teams in other countries and we had to put those together. So this was early on and they don’t work quite the same way anymore. But we had to do our own quality assurance inside the game. And so what we were faced with was the customers would write in and say, I’m unhappy about this. I have this issue. And so the areas that they would be unhappy about are things we would have to look inside the game itself.

 

Jeff Walter (23:01)

fair.

 

Matthew Reyes (23:15)

say, how does this actually work? And so our team members would actually play the games. They would be assigned to play this game and understand it learn how to look at it and say, how do you think this is going to turn into a problem? This is before the game was released to the public. So we would be on it and we would be playing it and we’d be looking at it. And we would start looking at these and say, OK, which is the part that we think is going to be most popular about this game? And because that’s the part that’s going to get used the most,

 

And that’s the part that people are going to be writing in when there’s a problem, when there’s an issue. So we started trying to divide up the games. And at the same time, as I was looking at some motivations on a training development for managers, I was working on these gaming programs. It was completely separate. And we were looking at which things that were used the most. That’s where the connection came into, ⁓

 

I could see this part of the game is the part that when the game actually tells them, hey, good job, it’s mimicking a connection like there’s really somebody there. There isn’t, it’s a game. But it’s like, And then when I see the messaging parts of the games all of a sudden explode, it’s like, okay, this is a connection part where they can talk at each other, even if they’re yelling at each other. If they get to connect, it’s like, okay, so which portions will be getting used the most?

 

Jeff Walter (24:14)

Bye.

 

Matthew Reyes (24:29)

Now, when we saw that there were pieces that had multiple areas that I could fit into these categories of human need, then I could place my bet and say, yeah, I think that one’s going to take off. I think that piece is going to get used the most. And so we started counting on the different sections of the game. We were saying, OK, how many human needs is this going to hit? And anything that had three?

 

Bam, they were gonna be using that over and over inside the game. And then we could see if, not just hit it just a little bit, but if sometimes if they hit it strongly, so they have a strong user communication between players and they had a strong gamification, even outside of the game you were recognized because you were still within Crunchyroll.

 

So if you’re recognized, you got a badge, if you got, so it’s like, aha, they got significant, there’s somebody, if they can get to go out in the forums and talk about how good they are and it’s backed up by a badge, it’s like, aha, this game has at least three components and has them strongly, that game, we know that game’s gonna do well. Now there can be other things that can kill a game. But those indicators, if I saw three, I knew they were gonna repeat that part of the game.

 

Jeff Walter (25:37)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (25:42)

And if those three were strong for the entire game, then I know there’s gonna be people who are really upset when that game finally gets shut down, when they’re finally said, hey, we’re not making enough money off this game. There’s gonna be a group that will never quit. They’re going, no, you cannot take this game away from me. I need a, I need a standalone version. need it’s, it’s because they become addicted because at least three things are three human needs are being met. And I need those human needs being met on my teams. And.

 

Jeff Walter (26:00)

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (26:09)

As meeting those, if those human needs are being met in the team, then they will give that team their all. They’re not going to quit on me.

 

Jeff Walter (26:19)

That’s really interesting like that’s I mean that’s Wow I Mean, it’s it’s like looking at the game is a giant human psychological experiment Yeah

 

Matthew Reyes (26:24)

So if you’re designing software, need meter, right? How am going to meet

 

the needs through this software? Now there might be coming to you for some financial software. yet, ⁓ perfect. So the safety and familiarity part is going to be good. But how do I work in variety? How do I work in this? I got to think about it. Anything that shows as plus, maybe I highlighted that when a budget section comes up better than expected, make sure that comes out in the highlights. I need to be highlighting anyway.

 

bottom and top, but make sure the top is at the top. So the first thing that I opened that they can see that positive, hey, my budget area in this one came out better. And so I’ve got those surprises in there. And then on the significance, I need to make sure I’m doing a roll up each month that says, hey, this is how much you’ve improved. You’re doing a lot better in this area. There’s different ways I can build in. I need to show here’s on your savings sections, here’s how it’s been growing.

 

And I need to tell them, and here’s some ideas or suggestions to grow that more. So they need to feel like using this app grows me. It helps me learn more. get better. I’m gaining something. And then make a donation section down there where I can donate even. So whenever I save more than X dollars, I donate $1 to the cause of my choice. I need to feel like even using this app, I’m contributing. I’m becoming part of something. So if I find ways in my app to meet multiple human needs,

 

They’re going to use my app.

 

Jeff Walter (27:51)

So that’s on the customer experience part. So now take that knowledge and then apply it to the human development that you’ve been focused on. So you get this insight in the game and you go in the gaming world and you say to go, hey, we’re seeing a pattern here. Whenever the customer experience is designed so that we’re hitting three of these human needs.

 

You and like I said, you listed off like seven or eight of them earlier. But if we can hit on six of them, you said?

 

Matthew Reyes (28:23)

Six.

 

Safety, variety, significance, connection, growth, and contribution. Those are the six key that if I keep going on those six, we’ll move people around the world.

 

Jeff Walter (28:28)

Okay.

 

Right. And, so you see, so, so you see this insight from the customer experience in the gaming community, you get this insight and go, okay. Now, of course, as a game designer and designing customer experience, it’s like, want this thing to hit three of the six. but then you, kind of took that insight and you took it out of the game into developing the staff and doing human development. And so.

 

When did you start doing that? like that’s that’s really I mean, I think that’s brilliant, by the way. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (29:07)

this was in the, I think this was in the nineties. ⁓ when we were talking about motivations and how to motivate humans. so this was a long time ago. This was a while back. ⁓ and this was at an IT job and I don’t think I ever got to the IT jobs. I was putting in networks, building Novell networks.

 

Jeff Walter (29:11)

Uh-huh.

 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (29:29)

⁓ a great company that was sending me around the world to install networks. I think I was in Paris one year, eight times. the, the actually five times for eight days each. That’s what it was. So it five times for eight days each putting in, putting in networks. yeah. It was tough staying on the Sean’s Elise right there at hotel California, the name of the hotel. It was awesome with the heated marble floors and everything. was, okay. It was a rough job, but.

 

Jeff Walter (29:29)

Uh-huh.

 

Okay, yeah, it’s a rough year.

 

Matthew Reyes (29:56)

I would put in these networks and I had a lot of interactions with people and I didn’t speak French. And so had a lot of interactions with people where I had to communicate my needs and their needs to get things solved. And it came back to motivations. I had people in all different countries that I was working with. I had team members in the UK.

 

and team members back here in Sunnyvale at the same time while I was in France. I’d coordinate all of our teams. We’d be working around the clock. So there would always be somebody working on this network, getting it up and going as quickly as possible by having people in different trading off time zones. And that came into customer service, where now 24-hour time zone is normal. And I have people working and handing off projects, handing off problems around the clock. So that way, nothing gets dropped and everything keeps going.

 

But I think it was back then. There was this guy back then who was famous, Richard Bandler. And he he talks about all kinds of crazy stuff about human needs, behavioral. And he went back to what you had mentioned. What’s his name? Mavlov. That’s the that’s the guy who came up with those that first like a pyramid of them.

 

Jeff Walter (30:55)

Okay.

 

Maslow,

 

Right. It was this theory of hierarchical needs, know, safety is first, and then, you know, and then a bunch of other things and you end up with self-actualization at the top. And so something like that. So.

 

Matthew Reyes (31:16)

Yeah, yeah, human.

 

So yeah, so I break

 

them down and I don’t look at them like a pyramid like this. Well, this is more important than that. Because at different parts of points in our life, they all become super important. In fact, people, if you think of Gandhi, gives up his safety and gives up all that things for something greater, self-actualism. So it just depends on where you are. And so I don’t see them as a, I see them as all needs that happen at the same time.

 

and they’re not one as great as the other because when you’re missing one of them and you miss it over a period of time, it becomes greater than all the rest.

 

Jeff Walter (31:54)

So what were those six let’s go through them slow the six needs safety

 

Matthew Reyes (31:58)

⁓ Safety,

 

familiarity, reliability, that’s all together. And then there’s variety, where we want good surprises. We want things that can delight us. And then significance. And this one is really, really huge with our, basically when working with agents or working with employees, the significance, they really need to know that they are somebody.

 

Jeff Walter (32:02)

variety

 

and moving it.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Reyes (32:25)

They

 

need to know who they are. it’s just so, I’m not sure why that is.

 

Jeff Walter (32:29)

And the significance

 

is that I’m significant, right? it’s like not that the thing I’m doing in this thing is significant, but I’m significant.

 

Matthew Reyes (32:32)

Exactly. You are significant. are…

 

Right, the things you can, you do can add to the significance ⁓ and they can add, they can help other people perceive and understand your significance, but your significance is really about who you are ⁓ and what you can bring and all those experiences you’ve had before, how that comes together and that’s what makes you significant. ⁓ Okay, and then connection. So how we talk to other, I mean,

 

Jeff Walter (32:46)

Right.

 

Right, right. That might, yes.

 

Okay, so significance.

 

In action.

 

Matthew Reyes (33:10)

We at Crunchyroll, we were moderating forums and people had to have a connection. They would be, they’ll even start fights with each other. They’ll argue, they’ll say rude obnoxious things just so they get a reaction because in their life, somehow connection is not happening and they want to feel connected somewhere somehow. And so they’ll throw out stuff on forums and they’ll put stuff just so somebody to see a response. Nobody responds. we sometimes we would shadow, we would shadow ban.

 

⁓ some really abrasive type of people saying some really bad things. We would shadow ban them and see that we could see what they would post, but other people can’t see what they’re posting because they’re shadow banned. So they would post something outrageous and that would get them shadow banned. And then they wouldn’t get enough response because if we did it quickly, it didn’t offend too many people on our forum. And so.

 

Jeff Walter (33:45)

Right.

 

Yep.

 

Matthew Reyes (34:04)

they wouldn’t realize they were shadow banned. And so it’s like, hey, this is not getting enough traction. I want more feedback. I want more response. I need a connection. And they’ll say something even worse. And they’ll say more. And they’ll say the most outrageous stuff. It was like, what is going on? Why is nobody responding to me? they’re getting very, very angry, saying the most obnoxious, hateful, type of stuff. And it just helped us see that connection.

 

They are looking for a connection and they don’t care where it comes from. They have to feel connected. if you think it’s exactly. Exactly. And that’s where I’m working with with young men. It’s the same thing that happens. They got connections in some negative ways before. Now they need to learn to make connections themselves in positive ways. And in my teams, I have to provide ways where there’s connected. Sometimes I have to force connections. I have to make meetings where there’s

 

Jeff Walter (34:32)

Right. Whether in a positive way or a negative way, they have to connect to a human.

 

Matthew Reyes (34:56)

A part of this meeting is about eliciting things from different people, the people who never speak, the people who don’t talk up. I’ve got to get them connected so that way other people can see where they can connect. I’ve got to get them talking. How do I bring them out of their shell, so to speak? I don’t necessarily need to bring them out of a shell. I just need to show the opening in the shell so others can see the opening and then they communicate. They can even keep their shells on, but they’re still communicating. mean, turtles still make more turtles.

 

They never lose their shell. So connection is one of the big areas. And it’s all about communicating about how do I get a response out of another human being? And now people are getting responses out of AI and they’re feeling satisfied.

 

Jeff Walter (35:32)

Right.

 

Growth. So what’s growth?

 

Matthew Reyes (35:35)

growth is a new term.

 

They have to feel like they are more valuable than before they talked to me. And so if they’re more valuable after they talk to me, they’ve grown. And I need all my leaders, all my managers, all my supervisors who are, I’m turning into super coaches. They have to realize that their job is to add value to grow people. So I’m, I’m a human farmer. ⁓

 

I got to grow. They’ve got to learn more and know more after they talk to me. And then, then that means they’ve grown. Now, if I am growing people, adding value to them, they become more valuable. And now I’ve had so many instances where there are people, they’re like, wow, I see this job over here. I grew some technical people into engineers and they became full on software engineers for other companies.

 

But they didn’t want to leave and I had to help them practice interviewing and say, Hey, this is, this is, it’s time. This is, this is where you need to need to go. Even though it’s not my company because I no longer have the craze, the next place for them and they’re ready for that next place. But meanwhile, I am getting a full-time software engineer at a customer service space. My company is getting a lot out of it. They’re getting a lot of benefit for a long time, even though, and then they get to the, to the space where I’m, I’m helping, I’m helping them interview. I’m saying, Hey.

 

You really are doing a software, you’re a software engineer now full on. It’s time for you to move to a software engineering job. they do. So growth is people need human, need growth. Humans need growth. I’m the one giving it to them. Then they’re going to keep coming to me.

 

Jeff Walter (37:01)

Right, now.

 

Yeah.

 

Right.

 

Yeah. Interesting. then, and was that, and that, was five or is there one more?

 

Matthew Reyes (37:19)

That was five. So six is contribution. So they need to know that what they’re doing is giving value to something, something bigger than themselves. want to be, everyone wants to be part of something. And that’s why you see teams, you see movements, political movements, everything. People want to be part of something. They want to feel that they’re contributing to something. They’re helping move something forward. So on a team, could just be, look at this giant queue of tickets that we’ve got.

 

Jeff Walter (37:22)

contribution.

 

Matthew Reyes (37:48)

Let’s split it up. You’re going to take the top. She’s going to take the bottom. I’ll take the middle and we’re going get through this. And then at the end it’s like, we did it. Look what we accomplished. there’s like, they’re now a team. we’re, how’s brothers at arms. We’ve been through something together and we contributed to it. we did, now that it’s part of our growth because of we can handle such huge numbers. Now it’s part of our connections because we did it.

 

Jeff Walter (37:53)

Right.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (38:16)

I contributed, I have significance. Look, all these things come together to wow, I’m part of a team, especially when they can recognize. In customer service, we talk about our customer experience, talk about KPIs all the time. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (38:29)

Yeah. So, so now

 

how do you, so that’s really, that’s really interesting. And then, and then the magic numbers when you can get three of the six to get yo in a process, it becomes, the word you’d use is like addictive, right? It’s like, it becomes addictive and therefore the person wants to repeat that process over and over and over again. Yeah. So yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (38:36)

Mm-hmm. In a process. Addiction. Yep. will. They need to repeat that process. Addictions work.

 

Jeff Walter (38:55)

Yeah. And there are positive addictions, right? like, you know, like, ⁓ there was a great book I read a few years ago, Atomic Habits. I it was brilliant because it was all, it was all about that, you know, and it was really interesting because it got into the physiology of the brain and neural pathways and how they, you know, they reinforce and reinforce and, and it was really fascinating. it, it, so yes.

 

Matthew Reyes (38:58)

100%. Yes. Yes. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (39:20)

You know, addiction habit forming is positive habit forming, right? Like brushing your teeth every night, positive habit. Right. So, so now if I’m trying to, so now let’s pivot a little. So how do I, or how did, not how do I, but how did you, you know, if you’re trying to bring on a team of 200, like let’s take the example you used earlier, right? Like we want to, we want to ramp up a team of 200 in a month or so. and I’ve got a.

 

train all these folks. got, I got, I got to, you know, I, you know, how do you, how do you apply that theory to a development program? Like say you bring on those 200 people, right? Like, okay, it’s 200 people with 200 different needs and wants and all that. But within, but they all have got the same, they’re humans. So they’ve all got the same six things. How do you develop a develop a training program or to

 

Matthew Reyes (40:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (40:16)

that hits on those notes. Like, so now that I’ve got that baseline, which by the way, I think it is so cool that you saw that in the gaming. It’s almost like a real life cycle, human psychology experiment. And then you let the data. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (40:33)

No, is real life. Gaming is real life. Especially

 

to the people who subscribe, people who buy. Gaming is real life. computer was real. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (40:41)

Yeah. No, but I mean, a real life experiment, right? It’s like humans

 

in the wild and you’re observing them through the gaming stats. You know, very, very cool. Very, very cool. But so now, so, so if you’re doing that, okay, I’m going to bring on, you need to bring on 200 people for, you know, for, uh, you know, customer service. Um, how do you, how do you develop a program that hits three of those six needs?

 

Matthew Reyes (41:08)

So it’s always, this is the same as, in a way, this is same as any training program in that first, I have to know who my audience is. So I have to look at the employees. Now, I was able to help steer who these employees were in the hiring process because I was able to create here are the requirements. Here’s what we’re looking for. We’re looking for people who have some face-to-face, whether it’s retail sales or something like that, because I was spinning up, this was an audience.

 

This was a team for a Google software. A Google set of software that we need to bring up a team really fast. So I started with people who had retail experience. I was looking for people who had done on the floor type of sales type of things. Any of those type of retail face-to-face experiences, I needed that first. They had to be able to talk to people. And a lot of them were doing phone stuff.

 

Jeff Walter (41:58)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (42:00)

So that’s why the face to face phone. So I needed my, and you need to know your audience first on any training program. So I put that first in any training programs. You need to know your audience. Who are your training? What are they about? Where are they at? So since I also knew they’re ⁓ in hiring them, I also knew about their type of experiences and they were all fit into a similar box because those were my hiring requirements. So I got to know my audience and I got to interview a lot of them.

 

Jeff Walter (42:24)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (42:29)

And so that helped me on my training program of where they are. So a lot of them were in a certain place. Some had more advanced. had done experience. They’d done a lot more, had a lot more experience in maybe they were the lead on the floor ⁓ in, in Nates or wherever, wherever they were. So I was able to pull out and say, okay, which are the people with more experience that I can move and set up as my, they’re going to be my first supervisors. So audience versus you have to know your

 

Jeff Walter (42:43)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Reyes (42:56)

know your audience, know who you’re training, know who they are. And in that quick situation, I had to box them all into, well, I’ve hired mostly for this. ⁓ When you do journey mapping, when you look at your customer and you put your customers and you say, and you even name your customers and say, have a customer, I have customer Johnny, and I have, you and you have different customers and those fit a certain age.

 

Jeff Walter (43:06)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Reyes (43:19)

demographic, may even a certain economic that you put them in. You’re making these different people that you look at as though they were a real person. You say, how is this group of people going interact? When we do that,

 

Jeff Walter (43:21)

Mm-hmm.

 

So is that kind of like, I’m just, as you’re describing that, it reminds me a lot of what you hear in marketing in terms of the ideal customer profile. It’s almost like you’re defining the ideal learner profile, right?

 

Matthew Reyes (43:38)

Yep.

 

Yep. So we’re making

 

that we’re making a profile because especially now if you have a really small group in your training, then we would know them each individually, but we can’t when we’re doing large groups, we have to put them in, in a group. So I have to say, here’s my, here’s my profiles. and so I had to do the same thing with those 200 if, cause I had met a good sub group of them and I was able to say, okay, here’s, here’s my group. So I start with my audience of where they are and where they want to go. And there was a lot of them.

 

Jeff Walter (43:50)

Right.

 

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (44:09)

that were, they were at the beginning of their careers in a way. And so for that group of them, the desire to go somewhere, to be something is a bigger attraction. While then there are some that just had a few more years experience and they were leaving that other job because they just wanted to get paid more and we were paying more. So I had to look at what are the motivations of the current

 

Jeff Walter (44:29)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (44:34)

group where my audience first, I had to look at my audience first and then I had to say what were their needs and what were my needs. What were the needs of my of the business? What are the pieces they have to have down? And now once I have the needs now that gets me to objectives. And I can say here’s where I want them to be. And then on my own, I’d say who I already have on my team, who are my people resources? Because what I really, really am about is developing a person and helping them multiply.

 

So they, so train the trainer is pretty much all I do is train the trainer. So how’s it go? You can teach a man to fish or you can give a man a fish or you can teach them how to fish. Well, I want to teach them to teach other people how to fish. Cause I don’t want to just impact the village. I want to impact the whole world. So I have to train the trainer has to be normal. I’m training them to train the trainer as well.

 

Jeff Walter (45:06)

Okay.

 

Any feets for a day? Yup.

 

Matthew Reyes (45:29)

So we’re always spreading out and when we’re given an example of how to do something, we say, how would you explain that to someone else and have them explain it back to me? It’s like, aha, okay. So not only am I making sure it’s cemented in their mind the process that they’re following, but I’m getting the idea in their mind that they need to show somebody else. That’s what I keep pushing in all my training is train the trainer. So even if it’s technically not a train the trainer class,

 

train the trainer so they’re showing each other they’re reinforcing with each other and they’re becoming a group and they’re communicating with each other they’re becoming they’re forming their own identity as a team and upward we go so everything comes around back to those same six.

 

Jeff Walter (46:08)

Well, and so when you do the train the trainer, what, what needs are you hitting on there? Is that the, is that the contribution need or like the growth? Like what, when you get to that point, what, what do you think, what, are those three needs you’re hitting on in your opinion?

 

Matthew Reyes (46:21)

So

 

on training the trainer, the trainer themselves, ⁓ a big thing for them is significance, contribution, and growth.

 

Jeff Walter (46:27)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Significance

 

country. So that’s, you know, because I’m, it’s interesting, what’s going on in my head is I’m a big believer in the learn, do, teach pedagogy. Right? It’s like, to really to get to get mastery, have to teach it. But you start by learning, right? And it’s, you know, and I always use the analogy of, of driving your car, right? It’s like, first thing you got to do is you got to learn the rules, rules of the road, right? What is that red

 

Matthew Reyes (46:51)

Yep, it yourself.

 

Jeff Walter (47:04)

You know, octagon mean what, what, what are those green, yellow and red lights mean? What does that line in the middle of the road? Like I just kept to know some stuff, right? I got to learn some stuff before I can. And then I’ve got to be able to do it. I actually have to get the car, pull it out, merge into traffic, not hit anybody. and, be a safe operator. But, but then to really understand it, you go to the next level and it’s like, okay, now, now try and teach somebody how to drive.

 

And if you, if you, know, if you’ve ever been a parent with a teenager with their learner’s permit, you get a whole new appreciation for, for mastering driving by training your teenager how to drive. There’s all these things you just took for granted because you’ve been doing it for years. And it’s interesting because so I’m a big believer in that. Right. And as I’m listening to your six needs, I’m seeing you’re going, huh.

 

each one of those stages actually maps to a different set of needs. You know, and like you just said, ⁓ it’s, significance contribution and growth, right? Is, is when you’re at that teach, but different when you’re at the learn, right? and different when you’re in the, at the do. So it’s, it’s, that’s, that’s really cool by the way. That’s really cool.

 

Matthew Reyes (48:22)

But

 

they all still apply all the time.

 

Jeff Walter (48:25)

Yeah, no, it’s yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

No, but, but I’m seeing you’re going, if you’re designing a program, right. Like, and it’s, it’s kind of like the gaming thing. It’s like, look, the entire game is not going to hit all three, three of the six at every moment in time. Right. It’s, it’s like, you know, sometimes there’s just some things you got to slog through and it’s maybe only hitting one or two, but you’re trying to create these, you know, magnets, if you would, where the habit form, the process habit forming grows.

 

And that’s where the people are gonna get energized. And that’s where they’re gonna spend their time, right? Well, that’s really cool.

 

Matthew Reyes (48:59)

Even this log

 

through part though, I can add in, try to add connection into the slog through. So they have to, there’s a big, huge setup portion of a piece of software and they need to go through. every few items.

 

I could say I put it into categories so they feel like they’re getting someplace. And I have a little flow chart that shows that they know how far they are in the setup. They need to know. They don’t want to feel like this is going forever. They’re just going to quit. They need to see the ending. So like if you’re swimming the English Channel, if you’re in the fog, you’re more likely to quit compared to somebody on a clear day. And they could see the land coming up and they’ll keep going. So you need to be able to see the end to keep going. You need to know where you’re going.

 

Jeff Walter (49:15)

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (49:38)

So,

 

Jeff Walter (49:38)

That’s really cool that you just used that example. I did a half an Ironman with my daughters earlier this year. And on the swim portion, when they were prepping us for it, they said, you know, a lot of people drop out in the swim because that’s usually the least prepared people are. But the person said, but nobody has dropped out once they made it past that first marker out there.

 

And so, you know, so when you use that as an analogy, was like, my God, it’s that that was it. It’s like, and I remember it’s like, I just want to get to that marker. And then, but yeah, yeah, that’s really cool. Very, very cool. I’m sorry. Yeah, but that was very cool. Very, very cool. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (50:12)

You

 

But even during that slog part, I need

 

to that communication coming back. And I need to say, hey, you finished the first section. Awesome job. Thank you for getting that finished. And it feels like, even though I know it’s just the software communicating with me, I got a connection. I did something. And it says, ⁓ I finished a piece. And it told me, hey, good job. Hey, great job. OK. So each one of those, especially on the slog parts, is where we need to find a way to try to fit it in one of these pieces.

 

to say, nice, hey, you finished that faster than most. Find some way of helping them feel significant, helping them feel a connection. Find some way, even in the slog part, and they’re more likely to finish the slog.

 

Jeff Walter (50:58)

Yeah. Interesting. It’s well, it’s a really, I mean, it’s, know, I’ve, I’ve only been doing this for 20 years. So just, just, it’s, well, it’s interesting because I’ve been on the platform side and, I’ve worked with a lot of clients doing a lot of different things. And I’ve never heard anyone say, Hey, there are these six motivations and you want to hit three of these motivations. And when you hit three of those motivations, that’s what the magic occurs. And

 

Matthew Reyes (51:06)

You

 

Jeff Walter (51:24)

You know, there was this whole thing in learning development, know, gamification this and, and, and, and, yet when I was talking to clients or working with clients on, on that, it was very check the Baki boxish. You know, and it was almost like, I always asked why, why, why, like what, and you’re giving the, the why.

 

Matthew Reyes (51:48)

And the why

 

helps define the how because ⁓ it doesn’t mean, yeah, I gamified. And other people are going, that’s so lame. They’re like.

 

Jeff Walter (51:50)

Right, exactly.

 

Exactly, or they gamified

 

and nobody cares. Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (52:00)

Exactly, because he didn’t do

 

it right. Because the whole point of gamification is significance for people to be able to see and be able to show this is who I am. And so other people can see who they are. So that was the whole point of, and gamification also has another part of challenging yourself. And that’s where growth, that’s the growth piece of it. The gamification, have to pour myself out. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (52:16)

Well, that’s all. Yeah.

 

Yeah, well, it’s like the whole level up thing, right? It’s like every time I level

 

up, I’m achieving something. There’s more significance. ⁓

 

Matthew Reyes (52:28)

Yeah. I was working with a

 

agent who was underperforming. And the talking to him, it’s like, wow, this guy’s really smart. And yet he was not performing. And so I was just like, I’m just going to sit with you. That’s another thing. Big thing is just sitting with people and as they work shadowing. I put top people.

 

with the underperformers, just let them shadow, let them see, and then talk to each other and then switch it. Now this person sits and watches that and asks why. So I did that with an agent who was underperforming and I was seeing them getting bogged down in different portions and going, why, what’s happening here? What’s going on? And finally, I was asking enough questions and he stopped everything and he said, can we go over the break areas? Like, yes. So we went over the break area and he told me, he said, I have ADHD and I have dyslexia.

 

And he thought he was going to be fired. He thought that was the end. And I was like, well, why didn’t you say so? That changes everything. That changes everything on how, and he thought he had to hide all that in order to get hired and in order to have the job. And so it was like, this changes a lot of things for me. So now we’re going to change this approach and you’re no longer going to type. Instead, you’re going to talk to your computer. And we put out at the time it was dragon speech, I think. So you’re not, you’re going to now going to type.

 

Jeff Walter (53:17)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (53:43)

you’re not going to type on your computer, you’re going to talk to your computer. And you’re not even going to read long texts, it’s going to read to you the different parts. You highlight and it’s going to read to you. So we started having different methods for being able to communicate with his computer to help on the dyslexia side. On the ADHD side, we got a timer. And I put an egg timer on it, a 15 minute egg timer. And I said, this is how I want you to use it. And I gave them some specific cues for triaging.

 

And I said, you’re gonna work in this queue for 15 minutes. And as soon as that dings, you got to finish whatever ticket you’re on and you no longer work in that queue. You’re now gonna switch to another queue. Now this is the opposite of how we work with most agents. Most agents, you stick them in a queue and they become a professional in that queue and they got it down. They’re hitting ticket after ticket. And this we did differently. We said 15 minutes is it. Then you’re gonna switch to another queue of a different type. But it was a different type of support.

 

but was very similar in the process of what he needed to do. So those 15 minute timers kept going off and he kept switching, test switching between these things. And it became a game because he was working on three minute tickets and he, so he had to hit five in that 15 minute timer. Now, normally you can’t, they can’t hit five, but he was, this guy was starting to hit five pretty quickly. And it was like, whoa. And this guy, he started putting up numbers that other people couldn’t hit. And there’s like,

 

How is this? It was his game. Now we’re talking about attention spans and all these young people, these, these, these kids. They use that term a lot. these kids, they have a shorter attention spans. are Jen’s ears. They have a shorter. They’re not kids. Soon as they say kids, know, okay, person’s not thinking right. So, but they’ll play a game for hours and hours.

 

Jeff Walter (55:18)

He’s 30 year old kids.

 

Matthew Reyes (55:32)

You can them the back plate. You got them on the Xbox. You got them on the PlayStation. They’ll be playing for hours and hours. You can’t get them to quit. So those games, those things are meeting needs. But the game part, if you can keep their attention, keep them challenged. If we keep them interacting, then they will keep going and they’ll keep, they’ll start hitting numbers that other people can’t hit. And so I had this guy as a top performer within three days. He was a top performer.

 

Jeff Walter (55:56)

Holy

 

smokes.

 

Matthew Reyes (55:58)

At the end of his next week, his numbers were the best numbers of any of the people in his category, in his section. Other people couldn’t do it, couldn’t do what he, they couldn’t focus that long. Now here’s a guy with ADHD and normal people can’t focus as long as him. It’s not really, when we’re saying, ⁓ these people can’t focus, they’re these, know, what we’re really saying is we haven’t got their attention.

 

And we’re not holding it. And so I don’t want to switch off topics, but I’ve been seeing a lot of Gen Z stuff lately. A lot of people saying, how do you manage Gen Zers? Because they are a problem and they have all these special needs. It’s like, no, they’re humans. Maybe you haven’t been treating your other humans the way these humans are demanding to be treated.

 

Jeff Walter (56:26)

Right. That’s interesting.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s funny because yeah, I’m, I’m not a Gen Z or, uh, I’ve been around a block a little while and, it’s funny. haven’t thought about it from the perspective of the knees that you’re the way you’re, presenting it. But I, but every time anybody brings up something about, know, Oh, kids today, blah, blah, blah. It’s like I, in my mind go back to when I was 21 and I’m like,

 

Matthew Reyes (57:17)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (57:18)

the kids coming out of school today, they had their stuff so much more together than like, just think, I just think like, like nobody had a job coming out of school. You got a job after you graduated and now like they’ve got jobs. They’re like, it’s just like, they’re so far along and they’re, they’re, they’re also so, I just think, yeah, I, whenever people do that, I’m just like,

 

Matthew Reyes (57:58)

I think one of the things I hear a lot is that they have less real world experience these kids these days. And when I hear that comment, go,

 

Jeff Walter (57:44)

You forget what you were like and what your generation was like at that age. the folks that are coming up today, know, adult and like they’ve I’m actually very impressed personally. Very impressed.

 

Matthew Reyes (58:06)

I think their world and your world are not lining up are not the same. Because they’re coming in with more digital world experience. And maybe less face-to-face experience, but more digital world experience. So it’s a different world. And the thing is, my world, our old world, that world is disappearing. So we’re saying that experience like, they have more experience. It’s just in the world that we’re coming into, rather than the world.

 

Jeff Walter (58:24)

Yeah, wait, yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (58:32)

that you are used to or you want to hold on to and that there’s no way to hold on to.

 

Jeff Walter (58:36)

You know, it’s really interesting you bring that up because I’ve had a long enough career that when the internet hit and, you know, client server hit and then the internet. And I remember, you know, in the whole digital revolution in the eighties and nineties. And I remember reading things at that time and they were talking about how brains get wired based on what you do. And they were talking about at the time in an agrarian society.

 

Everything is cyclical. You know, there’s a season for planting, a season for growing, a season for harvesting, and people that are of agrarian societies think cyclically. And then those of us, know, Gen X, Gen Z, before, not Gen Z, Gen X boomers and the greatest, you know, before boomers. like we’re products of the industrial revolution and it’s all linear. And so we’re all linear thinkers.

 

And they were saying in the nineties, that with the digitization of everything in the end, that, that kids growing up, kids born at the time were now adults in their twenties and, and, know, hitting 30, they will be network thinkers because everything is networked and their brains will be wired to be network thinkers. And that, was 30 years ago. People were writing that. And was really interesting because they also said,

 

You know, that prior generation, the boomers, they are not part of the digitized world. My generation and the Generation X, we’re digital immigrants. We grew up in an analog world. The prior generation were analog.

 

the folks that are now in their 50s, 60s, late 40s are digital immigrants. We grew up in an analog world, but then as adults created the digital world. now the people in their 20s and 30s now are digital natives. so just highlighting what you just said, it’s spot on. I think it’s spot on. ⁓

 

Matthew Reyes (1:00:42)

I think people saw

 

that there was going to be this networking world. I think what they didn’t foresee was that this networking world would be so customizable that people are essentially building their own worlds to, they’re building their own world to meet their needs while not understanding their own needs. So that’s how these worlds get created that are just so far off. And you go, wow, that person’s really out there. It’s like, how do they even believe all the stuff that they’re repeating or they’re saying?

 

Jeff Walter (1:01:00)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:01:10)

is because they’ve created this world. This networking means I can create a world. So I can have the weirdest idea, no matter how strange this idea is, because of this world is network, I can find 100 other people with that very same strange idea and belief.

 

Jeff Walter (1:01:28)

Yeah. Well, you’re hitting right on the hyper connectivity. We’ve never had a world that was hyper connected. And, and, you know, I go back in history and I look at the industrial revolution and, sit there and go, look, it took the industrialized world a hundred years to figure it out. Some would say 150 years to figure it out, you know, to go from an agrarian society to industrial society and all the things that that means, right? You know, from

 

Matthew Reyes (1:01:52)

. .

 

Jeff Walter (1:01:55)

all of a sudden mandatory school, social safety net, like the modern, you know, and it’s going to take decades for all the, all of this, cause you’re to have to have these digital, the digital natives go through an entire life cycle. And then by the time they’re in their sixties, they’ll be like, well, you know what we really should do,

 

you know, and it, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s fascinating, but Hey,

 

Matthew Reyes (1:02:18)

You should. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (1:02:24)

This has been a really interesting conversation, but I want to shift gears before we go because I think it’s related to everything we’ve talked about. And it’s the thing that you’re passionate about because it’s really fascinating when we talked earlier, your involvement in helping young men

 

that are incarcerated integrate back into society.

 

And, and, and you kind of touched on a little in the conversation, but how did you get in? Tell me a little bit about that. How you got involved in that and, and, and how these lessons that you’ve developed on your professional side, how you’re applying them to that and what type of results you’re seeing. Cause I, it, it, it hits on the universe, universality of, of the concept.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:03:11)

Okay, so getting involved with them. It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t on purpose. My wife got involved in teaching with some women’s groups. ⁓ And she’s a certified domestic violence counselor. She has all these different areas that she works on.

 

Jeff Walter (1:03:21)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:03:29)

⁓ and so I was like, well, that’s, that’s her thing. That’s what she does. and, and she goes and volunteers. Well, there was a home, a men’s home and a women’s home run by the same organization. And they were right next to each other. And she said, Hey, while I’m over here teaching at this home, they really need help over here on this, at the, at the, at the men’s home. is there, maybe you could just, just do this.

 

⁓ for the next, ⁓ five weeks, cause that’s how long I’m doing it over here at the, at the women’s home. And so I was like, you’re going to be there. It’s right next door. And she goes, yeah. And it’s a sketchy neighborhood and I don’t want to go there by myself. And I was like, okay, you, know, yeah, like, let’s do it. And so, so it was like, we’ll go to this, this, this neighborhood and she’ll go there and I’ll go there. And I committed to it.

 

Jeff Walter (1:04:06)

Okay, now chivalry has to come in.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:04:20)

And I talked to the guy running the program. was like, yeah, you got me for the next five weeks. And let’s talk about some of the needs. And I thought I understood the audience already. There’s a lot of things I went in thinking I knew and I didn’t know. But I went, OK. And on the very first day to show up, she went and said, there’s the ladies’ home and the men’s home is supposed to be right behind it. And I had not clarified the actual physical location. They had just moved.

 

They had just moved and they thought I knew about their moving and I didn’t know about their movie and it’s like OK, so I dropped her off and then I was like I need to drive over to the new place and they weren’t even next to each other. But I had already committed and once so I said OK, I’m going to do these these five and will be done and she did her five and she was done and I did my five and I couldn’t walk away from those guys. I could see the development in growth that was happening.

 

Jeff Walter (1:04:45)

Jesus.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:05:12)

⁓ I could see where there were people were moving from one step to the next. And I can also see where they were feeling that safety, that familiarity. There was somebody that they could trust. And there was no way for me to walk away. And so that’s, this is now something that I normally and regularly do. And I do it much more often than my wife does.

 

Jeff Walter (1:05:23)

You

 

And well, so so what is that like when you said five weeks like what is it you’re doing there?

 

Matthew Reyes (1:05:38)

So at the time I was helping them that first five week was about they wanted me to teach about goals. And we were not at a level where I could just start out teaching about goals. There were things underneath that had to be worked on before they can get to here’s your goal. So even on a job we can say here’s a goal and we’re gonna.

 

Jeff Walter (1:05:46)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:06:01)

get through all this work level, they already know that their processes underneath that they have to repeat over and over to get to that goal. And for these people, the processes were not there. And the reason their processes were not there, no one had ever showed them the processes, but no one had also showed them that they are, no one had showed them the reason for those goals. We gave them goals without telling them why. Hey, this is what you need to do.

 

Jeff Walter (1:06:11)

Okay.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:06:26)

They didn’t understand the why. So the things that we saw as normal, everyday things, you’re going to get a job. and then that job, it’s just like, wait a minute, the person doesn’t even have a driver’s ⁓ these basic things have never happened. These first thing, no one did the basics with them first. So they’re a normal process. They don’t know how or why everything can become super difficult. reading levels, not even there.

 

Jeff Walter (1:06:37)

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:06:53)

all these different, what we see as normal communication, they didn’t have. Some of them, it’s like, it’s a different dialect. It’s like, we live in the same city. And you grew up here and yet your dialect is completely different. The way they talk, the words that they use, like, wait a minute. I don’t think I understood what you said. Let’s repeat it. Let’s start again. We had to get to a certain level before we could teach goals. And so that’s when I started.

 

going, hey, isn’t this the same thing? need to, because they need to, why should I learn this? Why should I do this? Now we’re back to needs. Now we’re back to motivations and getting them through, it became the same types of lessons. So I started teaching them about KPIs. Now what do they care about KPIs? What do they got? No, KPIs means a way to measure yourself. If you’re going to the gym and you’re saying, if the numbers on the weights are not there, it makes it really hard.

 

And so if they understand, if they can’t see those numbers, they’re never going to get, again, a really move up because they can’t even see the numbers. They don’t know the numbers there or what those numbers mean. So I’ve got to start out teaching them these different things and how to set their own KPIs, how to set their own measurements, how to say, is what I did today. This is what I want to accomplish this week. And that’s what goals are about. Right. But to start with, how do I measure myself? What am I measuring? What should we measure?

 

Jeff Walter (1:08:04)

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:08:10)

And that’s the same with when I’m producing a report for senior management. What are the numbers that they really need to see? What are the numbers that actually mean something? What are the pieces that make a difference? And that’s what I do with these individuals that are coming out of institutions.

 

Jeff Walter (1:08:26)

So, so, yeah, I’ve read a lot of self help and things like that. When you say KPIs and you say there are those basic things that they need to, um, learn first, what, what do those KPIs tend to look like? Right. Like, you know, like, like, for example, a buddy of mine recently retired, wants to stay fit and he’s got KPIs. He’s going to ski 30 days a year.

 

And he’s going to bike 6,000 miles, right? So for his physical fitness, right? Well, that already presupposes a whole bunch of stuff, right?

 

Matthew Reyes (1:09:04)

It sure does. Like

 

how to make a list, how to write down the things that you want. No one ever told them to make a list or write down what they want. And they need to have a, okay, how do you have, they have smartphones. When you go and look at their alarms, they don’t use the alarms. Just whatever happens, happens. Like, no, we need to schedule your day into an alarm.

 

They don’t schedule their days. didn’t start out that way. Their day was scheduled for them in an institution maybe. But once they go, freedom, let me see the alarms on your phone and that’s gonna tell me how successful you’re gonna be. So that’s gonna tell me if you’re gonna make it back where you’re setting your, you either set your own alarms or someone else is gonna set your alarms for you. So.

 

Jeff Walter (1:09:44)

And that would be an example of a KPI. that when you say KPI, it’s like, okay, what’s your schedule for the day? How are you going to spend your time? And, I like that. If you don’t schedule your time, somebody else is going to schedule it for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I like, think that’s universal. I like that. ⁓

 

Matthew Reyes (1:09:58)

And that fits for everybody. doesn’t matter what little…

 

But these

 

guys look at me and they go, don’t ever told me that. Like, well, now you know, let’s go.

 

Jeff Walter (1:10:06)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, great. And so now how long have you been doing that now?

 

Matthew Reyes (1:10:14)

Um, I’ve been doing a tree. I’ve all let’s see that part. I think we’re coming on like two years. Um, but before that, I was working with young people. Um, and then I was a director of our junior program at a large church nearby for 14 years. Um, that was teaching younger set, even younger set kids and,

 

when it comes to attention span, that’s when you can actually say kids. When there really are kids. Exactly. And so I teach every summer still. I teach at summer camps teaching kids. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (1:10:45)

Hahaha.

 

Yeah, an eight year old. That’s right. ⁓

 

That’s it. So, so,

 

so you’ve been doing about two years. So with, with, with the folks, with, with the young men, with the men, have you, have you noticed an effect or what have you seen as a, as a, ⁓ as a fact is, you know, a lot, I mean, there’s a lot of people that get into a lot of negative behaviors, incarceration being

 

Matthew Reyes (1:11:01)

with its… Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (1:11:22)

like, you know, a very negative behavior, but a lot of other negative behaviors. And it’s hard to get out. It’s hard. It’s, hard to rewire your brain. It’s very difficult to rewire your brain to, um, to change negative behaviors. It’s just, it is, that’s the way we’re built. Right. Um, once you wire something, it’s hard to rewire. So, you know, when you look at a lot of different

 

programs, whether it’s addiction programs or recidivism programs or anti-recidivism actually, it’s really difficult. My girlfriend’s involved with something up here that it’s a grace centers of hope and it’s ⁓ focused on the homeless, but it’s an entire program. They come in, addiction’s part of it.

 

skills as part of it, being able to show up on time for a job. Like it’s an all-inclusive, everything holistic program.

 

you know, and most of the folks drop out. They don’t, they, they, they opt out. Right. And, so it’s really hard, really, really, it’s a really hard thing to do, but the beautiful thing is a whole bunch of people make it through and it’s a beautiful thing. So in, in, in what you’re, what you’ve experienced the last couple of years, how, how have you seen the, like what, what, has been the results or the KPIs or.

 

or for your own efforts.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:12:48)

So

 

for myself, I think when I was doing IT, it would take four to five years to really develop somebody, to really move them from one level to up a few levels where they’re making a very difference. Because IT is slow. The computer system is relatively slow. So it take a few years to take them from a help desk person and become a system administrator of an Outlook server or something like that. It would take a few years to get them up there. When I started doing customer service,

 

I was so excited because of the speed, because I could take somebody and I could, within a few months, I can move them from an agent to a lead. A few more months, can be, they’re ready. They may even be ready to be a supervisor. Within a year, they can go to manage a manager for the right person. I mean, not all, as you’re developing, growing people, it was a lot faster and also a lot more people. And so that’s what really got me was I get to develop people and I get to develop a lot of people.

 

Jeff Walter (1:13:17)

Okay.

 

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:13:42)

Now with this, with these ⁓ programs and where I go and volunteer and teaching, it’s, it’s a little bit different, but the speed, wow, maybe that’s, that’s addictive for me is the speed that you get to make a difference in someone’s life. how quickly you can turn things around for them. Now that doesn’t mean they don’t fall back. It doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes. I’m that’s really normal. And in fact, I use, ⁓ I do a lot that’s parallel with a 12 step programs.

 

Jeff Walter (1:14:02)

All right, yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:14:10)

⁓ so it’s a, it’s a great basis to start with and go. So, and yet every single step of those, I still put them through the safety variety, significance, connection, growth, put it through that lens. And now when I’m sharing, they’re going, I haven’t heard that anyway. And I’m looking at the program directors like, wait, you did, you, you’ve been through so many of these things from so many different people, so many different vendors, different people that come in and teach these programs. And you never.

 

Jeff Walter (1:14:21)

Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:14:37)

And you didn’t get, you didn’t catch that.

 

Jeff Walter (1:14:39)

Yeah. Well, well,

 

I mean, that’s what I’ve loved about this conversation is I’ve been in the learning development industry for over two decades and it’s the first time I’ve heard like, well, there are these six needs. And if you had three of them, bingo. so in your, if, your, in your training program, if you can design your training program and all the elements, your training program to always be hitting three of the six needs. And then when we talked about learn, teach, when you were talking about like the teaching, I’m like, my God, learn, teach.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:14:52)

Okay.

 

Jeff Walter (1:15:07)

They teach it’s these three to learn it. My brain, I’m mapping them. I’m like, my God. my God. It’s brilliant. it’s, ⁓ I, yeah. 100%. 100%. That’s really cool. so would you, if I, if I hear what you said on it with the, with this program, it’s like, it’s, and again, you know, like I said, I’ve seen it with, grace centers of hope.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:15:15)

So I added value to you. Awesome.

 

Jeff Walter (1:15:32)

It’s really hard and the batting average is midline, right? Like, you know, it’s, more like a baseball batting average than a, ⁓ NBA three throw average, right? But, ⁓ but it makes it, but it changes the lives of hundreds of people. just, that would not have, and, ⁓ it sounds like something similar. It’s like that you’re saying it’s like, look, this is really hard.

 

And so it’s, you’re not batting a thousand. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not hitting 90 % of your free throws. but, but man, the folks that you can touch, it sounds like they get it and it get it pretty, you’re measuring it in weeks and months. sounds like.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:16:12)

Yep, and they don’t even look the same. A year later, they don’t even look the same. Well, first, they don’t have an ankle monitor on them anymore. they look like a totally different person. act and they sound like it. Now you still there’s still things on them that people other people will go, hey, look at it. Look at the way the look at the markings on them. Look at the tattoos. Look at the look at those those kind of things. And they’ll say, ⁓ and they’ll make some assumptions. But as soon as the person starts talking, they’re going, this is not what I expected.

 

Jeff Walter (1:16:19)

But.

 

Right.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:16:40)

Who’s that? there’s that famous guy, Jelly Roll, right? Right. And then he’s and that’s kind of common. That’s pretty common now. But when he starts talking and people go, wait, there’s something about him. There’s there. There’s something there’s there’s a gentleness, a humanness. There’s a wow. And when after you’ve been working with somebody for a while, when they start sharing that because remember, I’m still doing train the trainer.

 

Jeff Walter (1:16:43)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. my gosh, talk about facial markings, ⁓

 

Yeah.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:17:06)

And I’m teaching them to teach each other and to teach each other how to care. And that these old things that don’t work anymore, these old words, they need to not be part of their vocabulary anymore. The snitch and the, it’s like, no, it’s a whole different mindset. If there’s something you would have to be snitch on, then you shouldn’t even be there. You need to be separate yourself and get away from all, you need to make a different world for yourself. That’s what I’m teaching them is build their own worlds.

 

Jeff Walter (1:17:06)

All right.

 

Alright.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:17:34)

with all these say they need to understand their own needs. And when you understand your own needs, you’re not gonna get pulled into crazy things because you were trying to get that need met because you didn’t realize when you’re starving for a certain need, you will do crazy stuff to do it to meet it. And if you found a healthy way to meet that need, and those other things have no pull on you and you get like, why would I do that? So.

 

Jeff Walter (1:17:58)

But

 

yeah, well, I think it was really brilliant earlier in the conversation when you were like, hey, the person mugging somebody, it’s like they’re hitting those needs. I’ve got connection, I’ve got significance, and a little variety, and maybe it’s like, oh, look, he just hit the ATM, that’s great. But you’re doing it in a…

 

Matthew Reyes (1:18:12)

And then variety and then.

 

So if we do look at the needs.

 

Jeff Walter (1:18:27)

a negative manner that’s not conducive to you as a human being having a fulfilling life.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:18:29)

Right? If we don’t What’s

 

their end result going to be? You’re going to be dead or in jail or both after awhile. But we other people don’t know why would they do that? It’s like hello. We can see once we start understanding the human needs, we see why people do things and now it makes more sense and now we can give him healthier and better ways to do things more like and then they will contribute and they’ll move forward and they’ll become a top performer.

 

Jeff Walter (1:18:36)

Right.

 

Or, right.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Well, it’s interesting because I’ve heard things not, the way you’ve put it in similar. It’s like, it’s a good short term strategy, but a terrible mid to longterm strategy. And like, I heard somebody talking about addiction once, like ⁓ say cocaine. And they were like, the question is not, why did this person become an addict? The question is, why isn’t everybody an addict? Because it is a great short term.

 

meter of all those needs and a terrible long-term strategy for meeting those needs. Yeah. But it’s like, but in the short term, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. It’s hitting all those needs, but it just destroys your long-term and, and, and, and well, that’s the whole thing with, well, you know, because you’re involved, you know, an addiction it’s, you know, it’s good short-term strategy, terrible long-term strategy, right. Yeah. And that’s the, that’s the negative meeting those needs in a negative way.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:19:32)

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (1:19:55)

versus a positive way. So it’s really cool. Very cool.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:19:57)

Yep, that’s

 

a huge training area is looking at your future, looking at your future self, looking at your look in this. you doing this for your now? Are you doing this for your yesterday? Are you doing this for your tomorrow? And the things that we step through and help them think through when they’re making decisions.

 

Jeff Walter (1:20:13)

That is so cool. That is so cool. But hey, I’ve kept you a much longer than I asked you to be on the show for. So I saw, appreciate it. I, know, it’s, it was really interesting. Very fascinating. Thank you. Thank you for your pressure. Um, before we wrap up, is there any, uh, anything else you want to tell the crowd,

 

Matthew Reyes (1:20:22)

But it was fun.

 

Jeff Walter (1:20:36)

But if somebody wanted to get a hold of you, what would they do?

 

Matthew Reyes (1:20:39)

Email is would be one route. Rayus, R-E-Y-E-S, Vision, V-I-S-I-O-N. Rayus, Vision, all one word at gmail.com.

 

Jeff Walter (1:20:48)

Alright and and you’re on LinkedIn also and to be.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:20:51)

LinkedIn find me on

 

LinkedIn. Yep. Ping me. You got questions about development about training about working. Hey, I’m happy to discuss happy to talk. I love talking about this stuff.

 

Jeff Walter (1:21:00)

It was, I really enjoyed it. Thank you very much, Matt. Appreciate it. And sharing your insights with everyone. It you know, it’s an area in learning and development that we don’t really talk much about on the motivational side. And so it was really, really insightful. So thank you.

 

Matthew Reyes (1:21:18)

All right, good talking to you.

 

Jeff Walter (1:21:20)

Good talking to everybody out there. Thanks for listening. We’ll catch you around next time.