Meet Matt Mayer, Founder of Arete Initiative

Meet Matt Mayer the founder of Arete Initiative, who is a leader in the art of guiding people and organizations towards achieving greater passion and purpose.

In meeting with Matt there was a calm and thoughtful energy that resonated from him.  I assumed that part of this energy must stem from his working approach of holding space in the moment to see what arises.   Not only is this approach evident in his work, but he holds this space with pretty much every interaction he has.

Matt started Arete Initiative in response to a personal desire to create an organization that works with and practices manifesting its best self, while being reflective of the future requirements of organizations. 

Really this passion derived from the experiences in his youth, where he actively played a variety of sports. It was through these team sport experiences where he realized people could succeed if they passionately worked together, regardless of what the team stats or even individual player stats looked like on paper. He experienced several instances where success was realized because the sum was greater than the parts.

He is fascinated by organizations that practice self-management combined with high degrees of collaboration and participation, and very unique distributed forms of leadership and authority – essentially organizations that are very innovative by design.

Matt felt like he was witnessing organizations who would come up with really well crafted strategies using great processes, but that some of the barriers to enacting these strategies came down to management systems, management structures, the enactment of strategy and the spirit of innovation that each of the organizations were holding.  

He recognized that working at this level and trying to address the leadership opportunities needed would ultimately enable purpose driven organizations to achieve even greater things than they had been able to achieve before - and he set out to do just that when he started Arete Initiative in 2017.   

In his down time, you can find Matt listening to vinyl records, getting lost in playing sports - especially team sports like hockey. He loves to learn and can usually be found reading nonfiction.  His current reading list includes a lot of academic articles related to management theory as he is currently undertaking a Doctor of Business Administration program at the University of Calgary.

Want to watch the sparkle in his eyes light up and his smile broaden?  Then simply ask Matt about his family!  
“I have an amazing wife Jill, and we have three daughters – Ruby, Lily, and Ella - that I love to spend time being goofy with, and doing silly things like dance parties, rock concerts and playing at playgrounds.”
Matt added that they have Slate, their family cat.  And that he really enjoys playing the guitar and baking sourdough, and that when both of these are ‘highly active in my life’, it may suggest that his life and work are all in balance.

When asked about his biggest fear, Matt responded:
“My biggest fear is about the climate emergency that we find ourselves in, and what that means for my children, their friends our communities  - and all of the future generations,” he said, “I fear that we will not be able to come together and act in time to make a difference for their ability to thrive. I fear that my work and contribution does not provide commensurate value to such challenges, and as such I'm driven to show demonstrable results in what I do and tend to favor tangible results than intangible -  although I'm getting more comfortable with emphasizing intangible results and playing a long game even if I can’t see it right away.”

When asked about heroes to understand what might have inspired him, Matt responded, “I have so many heroes.  I try each and every day to see how every person I interact with is a hero in any given moment, each in their own unique way.”

I suppose I have never really looked at the idea of heroes being in each and everyone one of us, nor in every interaction had.  I suppose though that Matt might very well be right, and that there is a hero in each and every one of us.  And maybe, just maybe for Matt… this might very well be his personal superpower.   

Matt’s Recommended Reading List? 
Reinventing Organizations, by Frederick Laloux.
Humanocracy, by Gary Hamel

Other favorite authors include: 
Margaret Wheatley, Peter Senge, and Robert Kegan.