Seth Mattison
The workforce most organisations are trying to lead now spans four generations, with a workplace that has changed more in five years than the previous twenty-five. Baby boomers, Gen X, millennials and Gen Z are applying different assumptions to loyalty, hierarchy, meaning and flexibility, and most executive teams are still running management models designed for a single generation. The cost shows up as attrition, friction and leadership pipelines that thin out at predictable points.
Seth Mattison is a US workforce strategist and author of The War at Work who helps leadership teams manage the real friction between hierarchical and networked ways of working across four generations.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Seth Mattison
- His book The War at Work, co-authored with Joshua Medcalf, frames the cultural and structural tension between the traditional hierarchy and the emerging network, which is the underlying shape of most workforce disputes leaders are now managing.
- As a Strategic Partner at BridgeWorks, the firm that helped define generational diversity consulting, he works inside the practitioner tradition rather than commenting on it from the outside.
- His client list is unusual in its breadth: MasterCard, Microsoft, AT&T, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Dow, Disney and the Dallas Cowboys, which means his material has been calibrated across consumer, technology, financial services, industrial and entertainment audiences.
- He is a main-stage speaker first, with an Editors’ Picks Speaker to Watch selection and published quotes in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Globe and Mail, which is useful for all-hands, sales kick-offs and customer conferences.
- He combines data-heavy content on workforce trends with a storyteller’s register, which keeps Gen Z and boomer audiences in the same session without patronising either.
Biography highlights
- Co-Founder and CEO of Luminate Labs; Strategic Partner at BridgeWorks
- Co-author of The War at Work with Joshua Medcalf
- Expert on generational workforce dynamics, future of work and talent management
- Published and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Globe and Mail
- Named clients include MasterCard, Microsoft, AT&T, PepsiCo, Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Dow, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, IBM and the Dallas Cowboys
- Editors’ Picks Speaker to Watch
Biography
Four generations are now working alongside each other in most major organisations, and the assumptions each has brought to the table about loyalty, hierarchy and flexibility are pulling in different directions. Seth Mattison has spent almost two decades working on that gap. As Co-Founder and CEO of Luminate Labs and a Strategic Partner at BridgeWorks, the consulting firm that helped define the generational-diversity category, he works with senior leaders on the specific changes that multi-generational and post-hierarchical workplaces require.
The War at Work, co-authored with Joshua Medcalf, is the most accessible expression of his argument. Written as a fable, it lays out the tension between the traditional hierarchy and the emerging network inside modern organisations, and the unwritten rules leaders need to understand to manage both. The book is widely used in leadership programmes, and it is the same argument his keynotes are built on.
The client list runs across industries that rarely share a training vendor: MasterCard, Microsoft, AT&T, PepsiCo, GE Energy, Cisco, Morgan Stanley, Berkshire Hathaway, Dow, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, IBM and the Dallas Cowboys. His work has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur and The Globe and Mail, and he has been selected as an Editors’ Picks Speaker to Watch.
For CHROs, chief talent officers and executive committees trying to build a leadership pipeline that spans Gen Z through boomers, Mattison offers something most generational speakers do not: a main-stage performer backed by a consulting practice and a published book, with a client footprint that shows the argument holds up across sectors.
Key speaking topics
- Generational dynamics and the multigenerational workplace
- Future of work and the shift from hierarchy to network
- Talent management and high-performance culture
- Sales and leadership in the new workforce
- Next-generation leadership development
- Change and transformation in the people system
Ideal for
- CHROs, chief talent officers and HR leadership teams designing multigenerational workforce strategy
- Sales, revenue and commercial leadership teams adapting to new buyer and workforce dynamics
- All-hands, kick-offs and customer or partner conferences where a main-stage future-of-work voice is needed
- Leadership programmes and corporate universities running high-potential and next-generation cohorts
Audience outcomes
- A working vocabulary for the tension between hierarchy and network inside their own organisation
- A clearer view of what drives and derails each generational cohort at work, drawn from BridgeWorks practice and Mattison’s own research
- Specific prompts for updating leadership, sales and talent practices for a post-hierarchical workforce
- Case material from named Fortune 500 engagements usable as reference cases in the audience’s own context
Talks
A keynote built on the co-authored book, on the tension between hierarchy and network in modern organisations.
Key takeaways:
- The hidden rules driving conflict between traditional and emerging ways of working
- Specific behaviours that bridge the divide for both senior leaders and rising talent
- Practical prompts for leaders running diverse-generation teams
A session on the macro trends reshaping work over the next five to ten years.
Key takeaways:
- A structured view of the demographic, technological and cultural shifts senior leaders should be planning around
- Implications for talent strategy, leadership development and organisational design
- Examples of organisations that are and are not responding in time
A session for leaders building and retaining Gen Z and millennial talent pipelines.
Key takeaways:
- What next-generation talent actually wants from leadership, rather than the stereotype
- The management practices that retain high-potential next-gen employees
- Specific gaps in current talent programmes and how to close them
A session on the personal behaviours required of leaders in a networked, post-hierarchical environment.
Key takeaways:
- The specific behaviours that generate trust and followership in a flatter organisation
- The differences between leading through authority and leading through example
- A practical set of prompts for a senior leader auditing their own behaviour
Videos
Testimonials
Fees
| EUR | GBP | USD | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Asia Pacific | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| Europe | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| Middle East & Africa | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| South America | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| United Kingdom | €40000 to €90000 | £35,001 - £75,000 | $50000 - $100000 |
| US East Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| US West Coast | €12000 to €40000 | £10,001 - £35,000 | $15000 - $50000 |
| Virtual | Please enquire | Please enquire | Please enquire |