An Interview With Catherine Mattiske, Author of 30 Books & CEO of the Performance Company

Catherine Mattiske is a globally recognized training expert. Her focus is on energizing and influencing organizations with solutions to drive employee behavior and business results to achieve goals. Founded in 1994 by Catherine, TPC serves clients worldwide with offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Los Angeles, New York, and London. TPC’s impressive client list is comprised of Fortune 100 companies and organizations led by the world’s most innovative masterminds.

Catherine is the inventor of the globally acclaimed instructional design process ID9 Intelligent Design: an inventive, research-based system to create corporate training that delivers results. ID9 Intelligent Design dynamically powers many of the internal training programs for the world’s leading brands. Over 5 million participants have attended a program written using ID9 Intelligent Design.

Catherine is sought after as a consultant advising the world’s largest organizations on their L&D strategy and how to move organizations into a virtual workplace, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Catherine Mattiske is the author of 30 published books. The 27 part Learning Short-take™ series, the best sellers, ‘Train for Results’ and ‘Training Activities That Work’.

What motivated you to start The Performance Company? How did the idea come about?

Businesses are all striving to achieve a common goal. That is to achieve the best outcome with the team they have. Human potential is what excites me. Every person holds the potential to improve the way they learn and how they contribute. By creating a learning design system, I was able to unlock individuals and teams which empowers companies to improve overall outcomes.

What was your mission at the beginning of starting your business?

My mission was to elevate the value that L+D could contribute to an organisation by creating high performance teams.

What do you attribute your success to? Is there a trait you have or a person who helped you along the way?

People are the key. I believe that people drive change if they are empowered.

When times get tough, what would you say motivates you to keep going? To not hit the snooze button and to keep fighting for your goals.

We all have untapped potential. I provide keys to help people and organisations to unlock this. I am passionate about supporting people to drive change. It energises me.

Employees are one of the most important players to succeed in business. What do you look for in an employee?

It obviously takes different skills to successfully run an company but I believe the common denominator is finding those people who have a sense of adventure, enjoy collaboration and want to succeed.

What is unique about your business? Is there a competitive advantage that you have over the rest?

We love to evolve. The art of learning and the human brain have not changed over time but the world has. We enjoy transforming with the world around us to keep ourselves relevant and valuable.

Have you ever had a disappointed client or customer? If so, how did you handle the situation?

Of course, we all have. It’s important to find your common point of understanding and work from there.

Is there a type of marketing that has worked amazingly for The Performance Company? If so, how did you stumble upon it?

Personal referral has always been the best form of marketing. While it can be hard to track, a genuine referral from participants or managers carry the highest sentiment and value.

Is there any resource or resources that helped you on your journey to becoming a business owner?

It may be obvious but digitization of all business and marketing channels is paramount when providing services to clients. It has enabled us to operate a virtual business to a global audience.

What are the three best pieces of advice that you would give to anyone starting a business in Australia? What do they need to know from the very beginning?

• Know (exactly) who your customer is, what their pain points are and how you are their Panadol not just their vitamin.
• Find the problem you want to solve, test small then scale quickly
• Don’t be limited by our coastline, it’s a big digitally enabled world out there.

Catherine Mattiske is Expert in corporate learning strategy & learning design. Connect with her on Linkedin or Visit her Website.

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