In this spotlight episode of the Executive Office Insights podcast, join Diana Brandl for an inspiring conversation with Matthew Chapman (President of Sales and Marketing) and his Executive Business Partner, Agnes Spohn, from Freudenberg Group. Despite being based in the US and Germany, this power duo reveals the dynamics of their thriving, trust-based, remote partnership, including how they leverage time zones for efficiency and rely on open communication.
Learn about the evolving role of the assistant into a strategic business partner. Agnes, who Matthew calls a “networking superhero,” shares her passion project: founding and expanding Freudenberg’s internal assistant community to increase visibility and professional development. Discover the essential tools – from Microsoft Teams and Microsoft To Do to Year Compass – that keep this cross-continental collaboration running smoothly.
CONNECT WITH AGNES AND MATTHEW
ABOUT AGNES and MATTHEW
Matthew Chapman: President of Sales & Marketing, Automotive Sales
Matthew is a dynamic and trusted global sales and marketing executive with extensive experience in strategic planning, sales process development, global intercultural leadership, and sales execution. Confident, self-motivated, bi-lingual leader who is able to recognize cultural differences and resolve problems across cultures. Matthew is proficient at managing multiple complex projects and focused on building strong customer relationships to profitably grow both the top and bottom lines.
Agnes Spohn: EA to Matthew Chapman and Founder of FST Assistant Community
Agnes was born in Berlin where she also lived until 2013. Her background is hotel management and during that time she learned being a multitasking person and enjoyed working with different nationalities & humans. After many years in the hotel operations day to day business, she moved on to a Sales position in charge of the DACH region corporates and the entertainment industry.
By planning her sales calls, she discovered the world of being a frequent traveler which helps her today planning business trips for her manager. Her network to the hotel industry is still huge and that helps a lot by planning meetings and negotiating contracts. Agnes moved to the South of Germany in 2013 working in Frankfurt in the financial industry. During that time, she was mainly in charge of planning investor meetings and roadshows as well as huge investor conferences in Frankfurt and Paris. After her parental leave she started with Freudenberg in 2018. Today, she combines a lot of her skills learned in the past to the daily business of being an Executive Assistant.
Agnes loves working with an international global based team and so it is no surprise that her manager is located in the US but she is located close to Heidelberg.
ABOUT EXECUTIVE OFFICE INSIGHTS with DIANA BRANDL
Executive Office Insights is a podcast for executive support professionals hosted by Diana Brandl – an accomplished trainer, consultant, coach, and former C-suite senior executive assistant with nearly two decades of experience at renowned international companies, this podcast dives deep into the evolving world of executive excellence.
Diana explores the critical themes shaping the modern workplace, including leadership dynamics, digital transformation, AI, and the future of work. Featuring insightful conversations with a diverse range of German and English-speaking experts, each episode equips listeners with actionable insights and strategies to thrive in the ever-changing executive office landscape.
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
00:00:00
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in to the Leader Assistant Podcast. I’m excited to share another spotlight episode of my friend Diana Brandl’s show, Executive Office Insights. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information about her show and today’s featured guest. But in the meantime, enjoy this conversation and keep leading well.
00:00:29
The Leader Assistant podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident, game-changing leader assistants.
00:00:42
Check out the show notes to this episode on leaderassistant.com/374. Well, as you all know, I’m always looking out for these very powerful partnerships when it comes to the work of an assistant together with her executive.
00:00:58
And in this case, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful chat with Agnes and Matthew, both working for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies. Matthew is the president of sales and marketing for the automotive area, and Agnes is his EA.
00:01:17
She’s based in Germany, he’s based in the US, and how they work together, how important it is to have a partnership of trust, but also having an understanding of new work and finding always good ways of innovative working and growing together. This has been the majority of the talk that we had, and it was very interesting.
00:01:41
fascinating to see them work together in such a wonderful way because as they don’t see each other every single day it is still working just fine and I know you’re going to love this episode because especially these episodes are always very high in demand because we love to hear the best practices from executives and their assistants. So welcome Matthew and Agnes.
00:02:08
I specifically love when I have two guests in actually part of my episode here. And that’s the case here tonight, especially since there’s a power duo waiting for me here. We have Agnes and Matt over. Good to have you here with us. Hi. Hi, Dana. Thank you for having us. Hi. Great to be here. It’s a pleasure of hosting you. Where are you actually currently joining us from? Why don’t we start with you, Agnes?
00:02:35
I am dialing in from the area of Weinheim near Mannheim. That’s close to Heidelberg as well. That’s probably the area you might know better. Yeah. So I’m located in Weinheim. Nice area. What about you, Matt? Different time zone, right? Different time zone. Yeah. I’m calling in from the US. I currently live in Michigan and I’m at our headquarters just outside of Metro Detroit. Perfect. It’s been ages since I’ve been to Detroit. I remember years ago, I was a frequent flyer on Northwest Airlines. They were actually stationed there, right, in Detroit. And so I’ve always been on NWA for quite a while. But they’re, I think, now part of Delta, right? That’s right. We still have a hub right in Detroit. So it actually makes it very, very nice to be able to travel out of Detroit. We have direct flights, or at least we had direct flights pretty much anywhere we wanted to go. And, you know, with the pandemic, it’s a bit tougher nowadays. It is true indeed. So, Agnes, why don’t you describe your executive Matt to us?
00:03:33
It would be interesting to find out how you describe him.
00:03:38
So I think I start like with the basics, things like, yeah, I mean, Matt is married.
00:03:44
He’s a father of three. He is an American born in the US. He lives in the US as well, although he already lives two times in Germany, both times three years in a row. So I think like after that experience, I would say he’s kind of a bit of German as well in his mind.
00:04:07
We’ve got to find this out in a minute.
00:04:10
Exactly.
00:04:11
So besides that, I mean, as a fun fact, probably he loves doing PowerPoint slides, right? This is like his passion, but… um i mean he is um he’s a full engineer and technology guy so this is why he’s there in the position he is today so but if it would not be the position he’s holding at the moment i think he would run like a powerpoint company or so running slides every day right so things like that so yeah so besides that um
00:04:43
I mean, Matt is a person he fully trusts on you and your work. And this is what makes it really nice to work with him. And he’s also, he challenged us a lot as well. But, you know, he’s always asking the right questions straight to the point, I must say. He’s a good listener.
00:05:06
He appreciates a lot what we are doing and the team is doing. That’s also, and he got the attention to detail. So things like, I mean, that Matt, you sent me flowers for the administrative professionals day. These are things I really, I mean, I really appreciate a lot. So, yeah. And then like coming to more the private area, I would say we became really close, good friends after a couple of years working together. We share the same humor. We also share the passion about food and wine. So, yeah. Lots of great information already coming from you, Agnes. And I, wow, it’s incredible to hear how you describe your executive from a professional and a private perspective. So I have a lot of questions already. I hear PowerPoint here, Matt.
00:06:00
Absolutely. A lot of people actually moving over to Sway. Have you tried it out? Microsoft Sway? Yeah. I have tried Sway.
00:06:07
We work in a very technical business. And while the time that I use Sway, I see for the graphics and the way that it presents information is really nice. But still within our company, PowerPoint is absolutely the base tool that we have. And yeah, I’ve gotten to a point where I really know how to use it. I really enjoy using it. And Yeah, I love it too. That’s the key point. Absolutely. I love it too. But I keep hearing people that are actually ready to move over to Sway or Prezi or try to find out a few new options how to present their content. Another question before you’re going to introduce Agnes to us.
00:06:45
German, German culture. We’ve heard about food lover. Would you say that the German cuisine is something that attracted you or would you say, oh, no, I’d rather go for the Italian side? I mean, it certainly depends.
00:06:58
We were actually I was just in Germany and we had carava in Weinheim and the meat sandwich or a brat with a bun. I mean, this is this is really outstanding.
00:07:09
Certainly, I think we understand that, you know, German cuisine is maybe not the top cuisine in the world, whether French or Italian. It’s certainly something that they really have in those countries. But I think it is a really fascinating. It’s a very comfortable place to go and eat and find food. And certainly, I mean, with the beer and more and more of the wine, it is more and more becoming a food place. Absolutely. And since actually we just opened up Oktoberfest in Munich, I don’t know if you’ve heard it.
00:07:37
Since two years, finally, they opened the gate and everyone is just so happy to be out there again and for sure enjoying food and drinking a good beer and everything. So, yeah, Munich is crazy at the moment, I would say. I can imagine.
00:07:52
So what would you say about Agnes, Matt? How would you describe her?
00:07:57
Yeah, it was great to hear how Agnes described me. And I think maybe I went in a little bit of a different direction as I kind of wrote down what I kind of thought with Agnes. And I wrote down the number one thing is she’s a networking superhero. I know I hear it on your podcast and I agree.
00:08:16
I use the same thing in my own description of people, you know, this superpower, what is her superpower? And it really is not working. And she connects with people like really just by default. And I think maybe you even have that same experience having, having met her personally. Right. And ultimately, what I see is that it really comes from this place of really, truly caring about people.
00:08:39
And I think even just in the way that she described me, she’s able to pick out those different bits and pieces. And maybe that’s where I, as an engineer, am not so good at those things. Yeah.
00:08:52
One of the other things that I wrote down, and I think it’s funny because it’s maybe the two different sides of this coin is we always talk about she loves the status quo. And I wrote down, oh, gosh, oh, gosh, oh, gosh. And she says this all the time. Yeah. But she’s amazing at accepting and adapting to change. She really is. And she’s really open to try new things. It’s maybe the anticipation of the new things that she doesn’t love so much. But once you really get into it, she’s really leading and driving so many of the things. And I think we’ll talk about the future assistant or the network that she’s created where this has really changed within our organization and she’s driving it. Indeed.
00:09:31
And it needs courage also, Agnes, to do these projects. And as Matt said, we’re going to hear more about this later on because, of course, we’re curious to find out where you’re currently standing with the network, right? And maybe two more points. One is she is really a great teammate.
00:09:48
And when I think about our work together, on the one side, she’s my taskmaster and making sure that every single day, the things that need to be done and the tasks that we’ve worked together to make sure that are on our list, she’s making sure that I’m getting those done. But on the other side, I always say she’s my human side. I think maybe one of the funny stories when her and I started working together was… like her number one job is to make me human.
00:10:13
And because so much of what we do and work and being in this technical field that we’re in, you know, is really around the technical things and the processes and whatnot. And as an engineer, I have a tendency to move more and more towards those sides and her, you know, caring about people. It really has worked that the two of us, you know, we make even better as teammates when she’s able to help me do those things. And yeah, it’s really good. So a true people manager, right? Yeah, exactly. Yes. And I definitely agree to that, how I met her and how I see her passion for this profession. For sure. For sure.
00:10:49
Absolutely. So coming back to you, Agnes, of course, we want to hear a little bit about your professional background. So how is that story and why actually did you become an assistant?
00:11:01
Yeah, let’s start probably from the beginning. I was born and grown up in Berlin, and it was during the Berlin Wall even.
00:11:10
So when I was out of school, I thought I had really the feeling that I need to go working, go out, meet people, not studying something. So I started an apprenticeship in a hotel industry. So I was really very classical working in a hotel at a reception.
00:11:30
So in that time, I must really say, I learned so much. I mean, you really, this is the best foundation you can have, like, which comes like you learn so many skills you need for the assistance professional, a profession, let’s say. And during the reception time, you have to challenge things. You have to deal with many things. You have to really multitask all the time. You meet so many different nationalities. They all have their different needs. You have to interact super quick. So this is like, you know, things like…
00:12:07
I really enjoyed to learn. And then I moved over to a sales position, but still keeping my passion in the hotel industry. So I traveled a lot. I was working seven years in outside sales.
00:12:22
So within that time, I was like organizing fairs. I was organizing bigger meetings, but also learned like what is important on a business trip? What’s the international airports are? What’s this point of being a frequent flyer, right? Things like basic stuff, but what’s the easiest way to go there and there? But also building up a network, which helps me today so much. Like I know all over the world, like so many hotels and people. So this is like, it’s really a great asset. It helps you totally in your room right now, right? Sending Matt all over the place for business meetings, right?
00:13:02
So that helps me a lot today. And then I felt like I needed a change that always or sometimes it happens like after the seven years, right? I don’t know if you also realize that in your private life, but that seven years period is something that is like a constant thing in my life.
00:13:24
And then I moved actually down to the south of Germany because of private reasons, because of my partner.
00:13:32
And then I was actually working in the financial industry. And I started working with investors on investor relations topics. I was doing roadshows with bigger companies. I was doing investor conferences and stuff like that. And then I got the pleasure to get a daughter. Actually, I went on parental leave and she’s turning six in about three weeks.
00:13:59
And then I was on parental leave afterwards. I decided not to go back to Frankfurt because it’s like quite a quite a ride every day.
00:14:09
And I was searching for a job closer to my home. And then I came to the Freudenberg world.
00:14:16
And there I was really lucky to get that position. I was reading through it. I thought, okay, this is sales. It is still sales. I want to be in sales. I’m a salesperson, right? And so I was like, yeah, hiring or I was getting this job actually. And I was really lucky. That was back in 2018, right?
00:14:36
Yeah, and I mean, why did I want to be an assistant? I mean, I love being an assistant, right? This is always what I say, Matt, when he is asking me, like, can you think about something different? I keep on saying, no, I am perfect where I am. I want to be in that role. And this is like a perfect combination from my background. I can, you know, serve people. people is it like a guest or a team it doesn’t matter i can help people i can like create a foundation of admin stuff which helps like everyone on their daily tasks so they can fully concentrate and focus uh what they really want to do and run business at the moment right or at the end um so
00:15:21
And then together with all the skills I learned in the past, it is like the perfect combination for me. I must really say. It’s so funny that you say that, actually, because yesterday in Vienna, my training, there was an assistant working for the sales director. And the sales director came to her in the one-on-one feedback meeting they had. And he said, aren’t you ready for the next role? And I’m happy to give you a role in my sales department. And she said, no. No, I am full of passion for this assistant role. And of course, it was a wonderful statement from him because he actually saw that role in her and he offered that role. And she said, no, I’m happy what I do. Happy to support you and the team. Happy to dive into the sales topics, obviously, and to become a strategic business partner. But I stay in this role because it’s so full of variety. Yeah. So, and here there’s also coming from you that you are so passionate about the role that you are creating the internal assistant network and of course supporting Matt in his various projects, right?
00:16:26
Yeah. Sometimes I just really say it is crazy what we deal with every day. I mean, we have so many different topics on our desk, but it’s also like, it starts with, I don’t know, even, you know, being kind of an HR role during the crisis when the crisis started, right? I was handling like short work topics, right?
00:16:44
And then, but also like then back to, yeah, manager support, but also like business trips. I have sometimes so many different things on my desk. It is a challenge, but it is what it fulfills me, right? This is what I love. Wearing all these various hats. Absolutely. So thank you so much for giving this little insight about you. So jumping back to Matt. So why don’t you share a little bit about your professional background? background with us and what actually was important towards your development, your career. You’ve been out there for a long time serving various companies, now being with Freudenberg. So excited to hear more about you. Yeah, it’s funny. I just looked, I’m 19 years now with Freudenberg and very often I feel like the young guy in the room.
00:17:37
You know, when I look at the leadership team that we have, the reports to me, and the majority of them are 20, 25, you know, or more years.
00:17:45
And it’s just, it’s the power of Freudenberg. And it’s a really, really great place to work. So coming back to me and my path, you know, we’ve talked about a little bit. I’m an engineer, mechanical engineer by education. I’ve really worked in sales now for 20, 25 years. I had one company that I worked with before I came to Freudenberg, just out of school.
00:18:04
And I’ve always really been in this sales communication area. And I, and I really, really have a passion for it.
00:18:12
And when you talk about my own personal development, when I took my first expat assignment, so it was 2011, you know, expat assignments for, for anyone who has a family, it’s not a, it’s not a career move. It’s a life move. And yeah, And so, you know, my wife and I and my two kids at the time, you know, we discussed it a lot. Is this something that we want to do? And ultimately, we took the challenge and said, yeah, let’s move to Germany. At the time, I had really an amazing boss. I was in an individual contributor role, not in a leadership role. And yeah.
00:18:46
The boss came and said, look, you’re here in Germany. Obviously, you have to do your job, but your number one assignment is learn the language. The number two assignment is learn the culture.
00:18:55
Find a way over the three years that you’re here to really integrate. And he gave me the time and the space to be able to do that and to put the energy in to be able to learn a new culture, certainly learn a new language, which for an American is not often something that we do.
00:19:10
was really life changing. And we got to the end of the three years and really started to have debates within the family of, do we want to go home?
00:19:18
And ultimately, the career, it was the right next step for me to come back to the US. And we were in the US for, I think, four years after that. And it was always weird because
00:19:31
we found ourselves no matter where we were, not really, I don’t want to say not being happy, but always missing the other place. So when we were in Germany, we missed America. When we were in America, we always missed Germany. Um, and when the opportunity came back to, um, to move back to Germany in preparation for the role that I’m in now.
00:19:50
Again, we talked about as a family and we said, let’s do it. This was in 2018. It was in preparation for the current role that I’m in. And we talked about it and we said, let’s take the challenge. But definitely it was different the second time around for two big reasons. One, the kids were older and they had a lot more things that they were involved in. And this
00:20:10
like expat vacationy aspect was kind of gone and it was just kind of real life. Um, but then certainly the other aspect was, was COVID hit. Um, and so when we were in 2020 and, you know, I think had COVID not hit, we’d still be there.
00:20:26
But it was really, we ended up having to make a decision as a family and we saw that we weren’t going to be in Germany forever. And so, you know, having gone through that entire thing, we said family was really important to us. So we came back and I mean, we’re very, very close to where the rest of our family is. So it was the right change to come back, but yeah. Really, now we’re stuck in this.
00:20:46
And I always say we feel like we have two homelands. After six years in Germany, we’re as comfortable there as we are here in the United States. And there’s always things that are going to frustrate us about both places. But it really changed the course of my career. And then it also changed the course of my family and the way that we interact as an overall family. So to me, that’s probably the most developmental thing that’s kind of put me where I am today.
00:21:13
And then the, maybe the, the last part is, you know, as I started to progress within my, um, sales organization that I’m a part of and taking on that role of leader in the organization. And, and especially when I came into this role and again, started working with Agnes in 2019, um, you know, leading such a large team, or, I mean, we’re a billion plus Euro sales organization and, um,
00:21:36
I’d had a vision because I’ve been in this team for 15, 20 years, and I had a vision of what I wanted to do and then to be able to put that into place and to be able to watch the team change and the team develop and really watch the organization start to mold after that vision that I have. And it gives me every single day more and more confidence that we’re doing the right things, that we’re moving in the right direction. And it’s really rewarding.
00:22:02
you know we talked about the appreciator agnes talked about the appreciation and it really is i’m really appreciative of the team that we have and the way that people have accepted this this overall vision that we have so to me those are kind of the three bullet points very interesting and i love how you also include your family of course because it is a family decision going uh you know abroad and especially when the kids are involved So looking back at the first steps of learning a new language for you, your wife, the kids, how tough was it? I mean, German is for sure not the easiest language, right? Yeah, it was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done.
00:22:41
We had an amazing teacher. We had a…
00:22:45
uh an individual that was that was contracted with our company and she took care of i would say all of the expats and there’s this large global company we do have quite a few expats coming into the headquarters there in weinheim and uh you know the first she spoke no english to us ever really and it was you know the first day was hello
00:23:03
You know, and then it just started from there. There was no book. There was no, you know, there was only the red thread of if I talk and you talk in the end, it will work.
00:23:15
So we did that for, you know, we were there for three years. And I think we had classes for two years and nine months.
00:23:22
And it was both my wife and I separately doing that.
00:23:25
And it was great, really. I mean, it got us to the point where we could really feel like we were integrated. And I saw it with so many of the people that I knew.
00:23:34
When you don’t learn the language, you can’t integrate. No, I agree. And those people at the end of their two years or three years are like, I need to get home as fast as I can. And we were really, you know, in a much different situation. Absolutely. So let’s be honest, Matt, who’s the better speaker, you or your wife? Yeah. uh i have to i mean it’s not fair you know i i was i was in the office especially in the first that first time i was in the office eight eight hours a day and and hearing german you know that entire time um so i certainly in the business sense i have a really strong german language it is funny we talk about my wife my daughter my oldest daughter who is also fluent in in german and myself like together we’re like one german
00:24:19
I love this picture. That’s amazing. So you’re based in Michigan. Agnes is in Weinheim, a full, of course, remote partnership here. When was actually the last time you saw Agnes?
00:24:32
Yeah. So as I mentioned, I was in I was in Weinheim for two weeks in August. So it was a week of vacation with my wife and I. And then we had a week of board meetings and various things that we had to do. And I try, I would say, every four to six weeks right now to be in Germany. We have a really, really large team in our Weinheim office there.
00:24:56
I also know that as travel increases kind of outside of Europe and that it’ll be, I think, less and less that I’m there and more and more that I’m in places around the world. Absolutely. So, Agnes, would you say that the partnership, the remote partnership actually works? And how do you make it work from your side? Yeah.
00:25:16
It definitely does. I can fully agree on that. I mean, I think having like the background that we both work next to each other for almost two years does really help because we know each exactly like how we interact and how probably also our day is structured let’s say um so matt is like also one of the persons who when when he wakes up he flips through his emails and then he’s like you know leaving his laptop probably for a while and then he comes back so these are things i i realized so that helps him probably to flag the most important things to do then he can put probably think about it already or not or whatever, but it helps him on that. So, I mean, we have the opportunity to work next to each other and that helps us today.
00:26:05
Then we obviously had the COVID situation, right? The first lockdown, although we were located in the same location, we couldn’t sit next to each other. So we were already like practicing this remote thing and So using Teams, that was like a challenging time, I must say. I mean, Matt was like, let’s say, 10 hours in a row in calls, right? So it was super tough for me to get hold of him and to kind of reach him. And we were rolling out Teams at that time as well. So Teams was not that common before within the company. So it was like a very challenging but super important time to have this, like, base of our work today. And then obviously, like when he told me like he’s moving back to the US, I was prepared for that.
00:26:57
But then I told him like, Matt, yeah, I mean, for sure. But hold on, I will stay in my working hours, right? I have a daughter.
00:27:05
I want to spend my afternoon with my daughter. I start at 7 a.m. in the morning. And this is what I do when you’re in the U.S. I will, you know, for sure when there are bigger meetings or so, I can always have someone taking care of her. But then I’m flexible. But I want to stay in that working hours. And this is what he agreed on. And then we, yeah, we managed. Fabulous. So what we…
00:27:29
So thank you for that as well. Was there ever a second where you felt like, hmm, is she not flexible anymore? Do I need more flexibility here? Or did you say, no, I fully, fully understand your point here because I have family too and I support that. I mean, I certainly come from that perspective. I have a family and as much as I travel and as much as I’m away, I certainly value the travel time. And I tell all the people, I mean, we work certainly, but you have to take care of your family. And so there was never really a question of saying, okay, can you shift your hours to 2 p.m. to 8 p.m.? That was never really for me an option. If she had volunteered, I probably wouldn’t have said no, but I certainly didn’t expect that. Yeah.
00:28:13
What else is important for you for this virtual collaboration, Matt? Is there anything on your non-negotiable list where you say, this is important for us, we have regular check-ins, we try to see each other face-to-face in a certain amount of time, or is there anything you put on the list where you say that’s important? I think the key item is trust. And we started working together in 2019 and through 2021. And I think we developed certainly a level of trust between each other and certainly understanding how each other worked. And we were able to carry that into this remote style of working.
00:28:50
And for me, when I think about the things that we’re doing, certainly a lot of frequent open communication, we talk very openly with each other about what’s working, what’s not working.
00:29:00
I think whether it’s virtual or not virtual, that’s really important. And then we’re really flexible and really open-minded to try all sorts of different things. And being able to communicate with each other what our expectations are for those. And as an example, I…
00:29:16
I think Agnes understands I text her not by phone, but you know, in teams, I text her a lot at night. So it’s the end of my day and I’m basically offloading the items that I have on my desk. And when she gets in the office, you know, it’s 2am my time and she’s able to take all of those things and progress them. And I actually find that in a lot of ways, some of this stuff becomes really efficient because it’s the end of my day. And I already know that a lot of these items will be done when I start my day, you know, the next day. Yeah, absolutely. It does have definitely advantages, the time zones, right? So speaking of tools, Matt, is there any specific tool where you say that’s my game changer tool that Agnes and I use all the time? You just mentioned Microsoft Teams that has been established. Anything else you say that’s very helpful for us? Yeah, I mean, certainly it’s redundant to say email and Microsoft Teams. Teams really becomes the core, I think, of how the two of us work together.
00:30:14
If you ask me about the things that I use, I have two things that I try to use very regularly. One is Habit Tracker, which is an app, and I think we’ll put it in the show notes for you. Yes, absolutely. I would say it’s not anything special. It just happens to mirror the way that I think. And I think there’s lots of different habit tracker apps that are out there. Another one is Headspace. So trying to do a lot of mindfulness stuff.
00:30:37
And I find that that really helps set me into a place where I’m able to then manage these large groups of people and Certainly manage the emotions and all the things that are coming. And it really helps me a lot. I have one super analog tool that I use. And I know that wasn’t maybe your question, but it’s called Year Compass. It’s something that I would say has been really a game changer for me over the past six or seven years. And it’s a tool that is released every December. It’s free on the Internet. We’ll send you a link to it. And it’s a structured process for setting goals. Certainly, it doesn’t have to be done every single year. But I think a lot of people have the rhythm of saying, you know, at the beginning of New Year, I’m going to set my goals for the year. And I’ve been able to do this. And I now go back, you know, I can go back to 2017, 18. And I have all those goals.
00:31:26
that I’ve created. And then I track them, you know, and I work through them every day. And whether they’re personal goals or professional goals, I really find that it’s something that that I reference, you know, whether it’s daily, or certainly weekly going back and saying, what are the high level things that I want to get done, whether it’s personal or professional, and then really pushing and making sure that I don’t get stuck in the details of things that are maybe dealing with the urgent and not really the important. And as Agnes knows, those goals get laminated because when you create something awesome, you laminate it. That’s just what we do. That is so true. But great tools here. I mean, I’m always super interested in new tools. So it’s a great resource you’re sharing with us. And we’re definitely going to put this in the show notes. So thank you so much. So, Agnes, what about you? Would you add anything? What is on your tool side and what helps you to manage that?
00:32:24
I mean, I definitely need Microsoft to do. Without that tool, I couldn’t survive anymore because that is like it’s always called as my second brain, I would say.
00:32:35
Because I even have it on my mobile device. It is like whenever something comes to my mind, I put it in there. So because then I know, yeah, I get an automatic reminder the next day and I don’t get, you know, or I don’t forget about it or so. And I really love to tick boxes, tick off boxes, right? Yes. I just love that. Me too. Yeah.
00:32:57
This is why I love that tool actually a lot. Then for sure, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint, that’s the communication tool, right? Without that, I couldn’t function. I don’t know. I mean, this is like the best tool ever. I see out of the crisis, which we got released, like because of the crisis probably as well. And then what I use a lot as well is OneNote. That’s more a tool I use, like having like my conversation list with Matt. It’s like a super simple list where I like, you know, bullet point, the most important topics. And then I read down things we have to speak about. And that’s like, yeah, a communication base, let’s say. But also it’s my tool where I store all my files, ideas,
00:33:47
links articles podcasts stuff like that i want to go through and i want to work on uh whenever i have like some spare time and so on so very good i’m a big fan of all of the tools you’ve mentioned just uh especially microsoft too is also one of my game changer tools and as you said ticking the boxes and sharing these um these these to do’s with with you know, colleagues, or in my case, I shared with my husband, you know, we have it as a grocery list shopping and everything. And I always love to see when, yep, he puts the bananas into the basket. So it’s done, mission accomplished. And it’s nice to track it a little bit. So I would like to jump into another field for you, Agnes. I know that is close to your heart. because you’re not only a great right hand to Matt and a wonderful assistant, you also work on the voices of all of the assistants within Freudenberg.
00:34:48
So you are the founder of the internal assistant community. So why is this so important for you? Why did you create the group? It’s still quite new. And what are you currently working on?
00:35:00
So I want to make the assistant’s role more visible, right? So this is what I feel like sometimes we have that company slogan, often invisible, always essential. And that perfectly fits to our role.
00:35:16
We are so essential in the background, but unfortunately, that would probably miss here, often invisible. So what I realized when I started as well, there were no real communication between the departments or the admins, let’s say. I was starting to build a network. I was picking up the phone and just asked, hey, guys, how do you do this? Where can I find this? Topics of onboarding things and so on. So I really started from the scratch. And then…
00:35:52
um i was i was like uh got i got introduced to the uh to your podcast actually which helped i mean that was like probably the big change during the first lockdown you know i was like listening to all the episodes you were recording at that time already and i thought oh my god this is exactly what i feel and this is so this is the best thing i i really realized and then i started to share these things within the other admins i got um
00:36:22
connected to at that time already. And then I got also linked to the LinkedIn group, Future Top Assistants, and I was attending the Microsoft Assistant Week, right?
00:36:33
And out of that, out of all these conversations and articles and sessions, I realized, okay, there is so much more we can do. And obviously we have to start with a network. And then I was like,
00:36:53
Starting in the Weinheim area first, I initiated a regular lunch between the assistants. I’m speaking about our unit, right? In the Vordenberg world, we have that ceiling unit we work for.
00:37:07
And then we started a regular lunch and that was super successful. It was all even before the crisis.
00:37:16
We were meeting a lot of times. We shared knowledge. We were really feeling like, hey, we have to align. We have to be more open-minded. We have to share things. We even can negotiate on contracts much better if we consolidate things and needs and so on.
00:37:37
Then, based on these assistant weeks and so on, speaking to other assistants outside of Freudenberg, where I also like started to grow up my network, I realized, okay, we have to roll out an assistant community. So we have like local assistant communities since a while already. The Weinheim one, it’s like a simple Teams channel. And within that channel, it is really a lot of traffic already. Although we don’t have, yeah, it is really, I mean, it’s like almost on a daily base, we have so many things. It is really amazing and fascinating. So many different topics. So it’s buzzing, right? It is really.
00:38:16
And then out of this, I thought, okay, I have to go out. I want to have this community on an international level. Because I work on international. I work in an international team. So I want to align with other systems based, let’s say, in India or in the U.S. as well, right? Yeah. And then first of all, I went to Matt with my idea, because for me, it was important that my manager supports me in that. And he also allows me that I can spend time on that. So what was your answer, Matt? Full of support right away?
00:38:51
Yeah, actually, actually, it really was. We certainly we talked about resources and limitations and things like that. But as soon as we had clarified that, you know, I look over at my wall, and we have our values kind of our stated values written on the wall. And I see ownership and open minded and people oriented. And here I have someone who’s coming to me saying that they’re trying to bring value to the company by, you know, being able to share and create this network. And
00:39:17
There are stated values, either we love them or we don’t. And that includes me. So for me, the answer was for sure. And I’m sure you support knowledge transfer and networking within the assistant community because at the end of the day, it’s a win for everyone, right?
00:39:33
Agreed. Agreed. Yeah, that’s wonderful. And I remember my friend in Hyatt, who’s a former assistant to Google’s Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos’ assistant, good friend of mine, who’s now actually living in Spain. And I was in Zurich with her two weeks ago, where she had the opening keynote, and I gave the closing keynote at an assistance day. And she always talks about the three wins that Eric Schmidt always said. Whenever you pitch yourself, there needs to be the win for yourself. There needs to be the win for your executive. At the end of the day, it needs to be the win for the organization. And I think you had these three wins ready, Agnes, right? Mm-hmm.
00:40:11
Yeah, absolutely. For sure. And this is like my vision I have. And I mean, then I went out and I was like, you know, asking, we went even public on the portal with an article. And then like within that article, we were like, raising the question like, is there someone out who want to build the core team together with me? And then based on that, the core team got founded. We are five core team members now globally located. So they’re not all in Weinheim, which is great. We have like different aspects to bring into the conversations. And we already created the name and the slogan of our community.
00:40:58
And yeah, and then we also assigned the roles, the different roles, because I made really clear in front of the core team as well from the very beginning, I don’t want to be the leader.
00:41:08
We are all in this together and I don’t have the capacity to run this all on my own. Right. It can’t be. And we have to really like assign roles. And we are we are all on the same level, let’s say so.
00:41:22
and um now my role my assigned role is more or less like on the communication thing so i’m i’m went to whomever i speak to in the community in the con in the sorry in the con organization i always point out what i do very good so yeah and then um also like it’s a matter of um sponsoring thing whenever we we are we’re having our pitch deck um out and fully created which is almost done I will go out to specific managers and go there and see if I can probably have some budget as well, even to run like an in-house meeting, training session, things like that, right? You need these sponsors and I’m glad that also Matt is supporting you, of course, and giving you resources and empowerment here.
00:42:10
And that’s really important that there’s support of the management in the background and, of course, HR and all the other stakeholders. So, when we look at the role of the management assistant in general, Matt, what is your view here? How is the role transforming and what are the skills that are essential?
00:42:29
We all watched COVID hit. We saw almost instantly the role of the assistant really change.
00:42:35
At that time, I was running about 50% travel and that went to zero. We had tons of corporate events that were happening where Agnes was really taking a lead on a lot of those and they went almost for a year, year and a half, they went to zero. And I think any company at that time is starting to look around saying, what is the role of an assistant at that point? And I think
00:42:57
When Agnes talked about, you know, she found your podcast, she found this network on LinkedIn and really searching for what are the things that can make me valuable inside of an organization. It was really important for her to have done that. And then the discussion that happened between her and I, I think she mentioned early on that she was getting involved in HR topics and things. And it was all, you know, the work between her and I to say, how do we make sure that you have a real workload in front of you that’s valuable and bringing value to the company? I think that was important.
00:43:26
And it highlights to me that at the end of the day, it’s a partnership between two people. And when we talk about what is that role to me in an ideal world, you have that pair of people sit down and talk about what their strengths and weaknesses are and what their skills that they have that can make each other stronger.
00:43:45
We talked in the beginning about she’s a people person and I’m an engineer and together we’re able to use those skills to the value of the company. And I think the most important thing is for the two to be able to be flexible, to figure out how they make that strongest team.
00:43:59
Absolutely. And it’s so wonderful to hear this from you, how you really also see the role of the assistant, how it is transforming, how it’s specifically in your case, Agnes can support you in other areas. I mean, I was the same when I was working for my executives. I always wanted more. I pushed for more. I was in charge of internal communications. I was writing speeches. I was a majorly involved in event management, organized the big IFA fair in Berlin, all these kind of things with huge budgets. But I never waited for an invitation unless someone felt like, oh, let’s ask if Diana wants to jump into this project or run this initiative. I wanted to have a seat at the table and I asked for it and I got into an open dialogue with my executive. And it sounds to me like you have these conversations as well. And especially since Agnes knows exactly also what she wants and how she wants to push the assistant community within Freudenberg.
00:44:59
So, Agnes, is there anything else you want to add about your community and about your passion project?
00:45:05
Yeah, I think, I mean, it’s also interesting to see because we have to define the tool actually we are using to run our community, right? Because for sure, as a first guest, we were all saying like, yeah, for sure, it will be launched in Microsoft Teams. And for sure, yes. But then I got introduced to Yammer, which is, I think nowadays, or will be called in the future Viva Engage or so. I don’t know. I really…
00:45:34
I heard about that new name. So Yammer. So that’s a community tool. So I am now part of a test user team. We have the pleasure, we as the assistant community, have the pleasure to test the tool together with two other communities.
00:45:54
And to really like, you know, have like a testing phase to run, post things, use the system how we want to have. We will align afterwards with IT, speak about pros and cons and things like that. And this is what I really love because coming back.
00:46:14
Getting into the role of having a new tool launch probably for the organization is something I really enjoy, I must say. Very good. Yes, I’m glad you mentioned the tool because for sure it is very important to find the right platform to exchange with the other executive assistants. and assistants in general. So Yammer, yeah, I’ve heard the new name for the first time. So let’s see what we’re going to find out. Yeah, quite interesting. I remember I’ve been using Yammer for quite some years and a few companies. It’s always called like the internal Facebook or something. So it’s for sure something that is helpful for your work.
00:46:56
Regarding the transformation of the role of the management assistant, Matt, I would like to come back to you when it comes to titles. And I know title is for sure not always the highest priority, although a few people are definitely relying on their titles. But I would like to share a title with you that Google is using for their assistants for quite some years now, which is executive business partner. And you just mentioned about partnerships. So would you say that this could be a title that we’re going to see more in the future? I certainly know this discussion and I don’t know if maybe my answer is what you hope to hear. I would say that On a macro level, it’s really good conversation to have. I think that way too many businesses and I think way too many executives still look at the role of assistant kind of like it’s portrayed in this TV show, Mad Men.
00:47:49
But in reality, so much has changed. We talked about the pandemic. We’ve talked a lot about the other things that are happening and
00:47:55
But on an individual level, to me, these conversations, they’re so influenced by the unique situations of every company and the individuals that are there. So I would say my answer is it depends. But I will say I do have some concrete advice.
00:48:12
You even kind of mentioned when you said, no, you didn’t ever really in your career wait for the invitation. And I think it’s really great advice to people. Like too often we tell ourselves that if something external to us changes, like then we ourselves will change. And maybe here we focus on the title or a job description or something like this. And we say, if I have a different title, then people will see me differently. And the problem is it’s not real. At the end of the day, it comes from what is it that I’m doing every single day to make myself invaluable to the company. And I do it and Agnes does it. And I’m sure you now is running your own business. You have to do it every day. How do I learn a new skill? How do I grow my responsibility? How do I step myself forward into the next, the next, the next? And the more we all do this as an organization, the easier it is for us to step back and look at
00:49:04
you know, what are we doing in reality and then make the case to our employers that we should be having a different conversation. You know, it’s a promotion, a new title, a pay raise or whatever it is, you know, really taking the steps to do it as an individual. And then the business title, the job description, the pay, whatever the promotion, those things will make sense.
00:49:24
I fully agree to that. Yes, absolutely. And it starts in many situations by leaving the comfort zone. And I know, especially when we look at the role of the assistants, and I just had it actually today in one of my webinars when there was an assistant who clearly stated like, well, my executive is not working with OneNote. Why should I work with it? And I always keep saying, hey, you are investing in yourself, right? And the challenge is always about you. And
00:49:51
understanding a new tool, optimizing a process, getting tech savvy. And this is, of course, the future, the digital competencies. We cannot ignore them. And I felt like, in this case, the comfort zone, she wasn’t ready to leave it. But we all know how dynamic times are. And we see restructurings, and we see new team assignments. And especially assistants, they can work for one executive today and work for another one tomorrow. So I always say, and also for our audience here that is listening to the episode, invest in yourself. I think it’s so important to do that. And then, of course, see how you can transform this investment to your executive and to your organization. Totally agree. Yeah. So speaking of remote leadership, and I would love to hear from Agnes in a second how she describes your leadership style, Matt. But what would you say from an executive perspective that remote leadership has changed the way you lead?
00:50:49
Would you say it was way harder?
00:50:52
Also, a lot of organizations are going hybrid. So give us a little information about the way you lead your teams.
00:51:00
First off, I wouldn’t say that it’s either harder or easier. I would say that it’s the two different styles being remote and in office. They’re really different, both good and both bad.
00:51:14
And I think about 2019, I was in office every day, ran a global team, and I can tell you that was hard.
00:51:21
I spent 2019 living on an airplane and from hotels, and it was because being face-to-face with a global team means you’re always somewhere else.
00:51:31
And I can tell you that the year of 2020 was, you know, on a personal level, it was as difficult as all the things we went through. It was one of the nicest experiences I’ve ever had in 15 years. I can’t tell you, you know, a time when I didn’t go a month without traveling, much less a whole year without, you know, without leaving my house or at least without getting on an airplane. So that great experience that we’ve, or experiment that we’ve been through over these last few years there’s a pendulum that swings. And I think right now it’s swinging really heavy and it’s going in one direction. And I think we’ll also come back.
00:52:06
For remote leadership, I think when relationships are pre-established, I think remote leadership works really, really well. And I think we have that within our team, the leadership team, as I talked about 19 years in the company and I’m the young guy, that relationships really, we are able to leverage that to maintain our culture. i think what doesn’t really work well or at least yet work well is figuring out how to transition long-term uh culture creation and transmission of culture within teams so when we bring someone new on how do we transition to say if we’re in a remote setting that they understand what the culture is and what what it means to be part of our team and i think that’s really really tough um yes
00:52:50
Excuse me. Yeah, you go ahead. Maybe, you know, we are a little bit skewed. We’ve talked a lot about sales. We’re in a sales office and we are by nature really relational people. We need to touch and feel and, you know, it’s not because…
00:53:06
we want managers to be able to control but we want our colleagues to learn from each other and to be in the same place um and it is clear for us that that sales as a just by nature is remote right is that we have to be in front of the customer but the same thing is about our leadership is that we have to be in front of our people and talking to and understanding you know what they need and how they need and and so much of that is just lost you know in a virtual screen
00:53:34
Yes, indeed. And once again, here’s the connection to the role of the assistant, supporting the team, having a feel for the atmosphere. What do we need as a team? How do we need to work on our values, on our commitments? And I think this is one of the core skills here when we come back to the discussion of being a people manager is, to having a feeling, OK, I’m not having the water cooler discussion here because there is no water cooler discussion because we are all remote, but still so connected. And you said that earlier, Matt, that one of the core skills of Agnes is for sure the networking and the building bridges. So I always say also part of this new leadership style is for sure the power of the assistant in the background.
00:54:21
Agnes, what would you say about the leadership style of Matt? Would you say it changed from having him in the room and now being remote? Or what would you say in general about the way he leads the team?
00:54:37
Well, I think in general, what I said earlier already, like Matt fully trusts in the team and in the work we are doing. And that’s a super important point. We all know that. And he also appreciates a lot what we are doing. So this is like, I think the most important that we really all know that, right? Then for sure, I mean, he’s running…
00:55:02
town hall meetings so everyone, even the new people on the team can see him at least virtually, keeping the team updated on latest data, but also on the strategics and on the newest vision and values and things like that. Everything he and the leadership team works on. This is important for him that he’s pretty transparent
00:55:33
What he also does is he’s doing skip-level meetings quite often with the team. So he is meeting different team members, inviting them to either in-person meetings when they’re in the same location, obviously, but also via Teams. And within these meetings, he’s a good listener. He’s trying to understand the challenges we all face every day on our daily work.
00:56:04
But he’s also like, you know, connecting to the people a bit on a private life, right? To really keep like the relationship we had already alive, right? So this is like super important. And I know that these type of meetings are really appreciated by the team as well.
00:56:24
And he’s always available. Whenever you have something, you need advice or you really have difficulties or so on, everyone knows that they can really reach out to Matt. They don’t hesitate. That’s wonderful. So I hear a lot of kudos here coming out of this, the things you just said about Matt, which is wonderful. So why don’t we end the conversation of giving a few more kudos to Agnes. Matt, is there anything you specifically, my English is gone, specifically want to address to her, especially when you look back at the collaboration you are in and also the way she’s supporting you?
00:57:07
Yeah, for sure. I think we’ve covered a couple of the big key items. We talked about trust and ownership. And I think that it’s one of the things that I see very much with Agnes is that she really has that trusting relationship together with me. And I’m fully confident she takes ownership for the things that she’s doing. And for me, that’s really, really important. And I really appreciate it.
00:57:30
I appreciate really her desire to grow in whatever way she can. I mean, we’ve talked about, you know,
00:57:37
Different examples of things that assistants might grow into and she was really clear. I love my job. I love what I’m doing. But it also doesn’t mean that she wants to be stagnant. And I, you know, I’m always pushing the people around me and I push myself to grow and in whatever way that means I really appreciate that. She is looking for ways to be better, better for herself, not necessarily just better for me or for the team, but just to be better.
00:58:02
I really appreciate the deep passion that she has for helping others. I see it and I really, really saw it over the last three years, both as my assistant who was working with me as an expat, but I saw her stepping in to fill gaps where the organization was not.
00:58:20
uh maybe doing what we thought was the right amount of support for some of the other expats that were within our organization and and she was really saying you know someone’s got to do it and i’m going to do it because you know at the end it’s just caring for people um of course the networking superpower right i don’t have it and and she does and i really appreciate that and maybe the last one is is the friendship you know she mentioned in the beginning and i would echo what she said Um, I’ve always said, and my wife and I’ve talked about this, you know, the partnership that you develop with an assistant over time is, is to a certain extent, kind of intimate in the way that, I mean, I’ve always joked if my, um, if my identity is ever stolen, Agnes is the first person that I’m going to call. She has everything. She knows every single thing about me. Um, and, and, and, but over time it develops, you know, or can develop into a friendship. And I think with, with Agnes and I, that’s definitely true.
00:59:15
That is such great kudos what we’re hearing here. And I definitely can echo what you just said, Matt. And in many cases, I always or I got the call from my executive and the first call always came to me and then the wife got the call.
00:59:33
When something happened, it was always the assistance numbers first and then the call to the wife. So, I mean, it’s always wonderful to see when these partnerships are running. And I definitely hear this here from the conversation. We had so much appreciation for both of you for giving out a little insight about the way you collaborate, about the way you look at change, about the way you have been transforming through the COVID time. And it was a wonderful opportunity for me to talk to you both and to get a little bit more information about your working style. We’re going to cover, of course, everything you’ve been sharing, especially Matt, thanks for all the tools you gave away. A few new tools for me as well. I’m definitely going to check out the Habit Tracker website. And we’re going to put all of this into the show notes. So everybody who’s listening to us, make sure you check out show notes.
01:00:26
We’re going to share a little bit of information there. You also have the opportunity to connect with Agnes and Matt over LinkedIn. So you’re going to find their links in there. And I can only say, assistants, get in touch with Agnes. She’s full of passion.
01:00:40
She is going to bring the assistant community within Freudenberg for sure to the next level. And of course, she is ready to share her knowledge. And this is what I really adore about you, Agnes, that you share knowledge, that you open up your network and help others to grow. And so kudos also from my side to you. Thank you. very welcome so thank you so much for being here on the future system podcast very excited to release this episode uh all the best to you and be safe thank you thank you so much Diana
01:01:15
I would like to remind you to check out the show notes because there are two links waiting for you that Matthew has been mentioning. The habit list and the year compass. And you’re going to find also the LinkedIn links to the profiles to Matthew and Agnes. So make sure you reach out to them, especially Agnes, of course. Wonderful to have her out there as a strong voice for supporting assistance. for setting up internal assistant networks. And I can only say thank you so much to both of you for being on the show today. Wishing you all the best.
