Matt Andersen sat down with BookLife to answer a Q&A on Intentional Growth. 

The BookLife Review for Intentional Growth, Andersen’s debut leadership book, described it as a “detailed guide [that] turns ambitious business goals into measurable action.” We spoke to Andersen about his career experience and how that led to him writing Intentional Growth for companies that “confuse activity with progress.”

What made you decide to write Intentional Growth?

Honestly, I got tired of watching founders and CEOs work incredibly hard and still not get where they wanted to go. After 27 years and more than 175 transactions, I kept seeing the same pattern: talented people, real businesses, genuine ambition, and outcomes that fell short of what was possible. Not because of bad luck or bad timing, but because nobody had ever given them a clear framework for thinking about growth the right way. I wrote Intentional Growth because I wanted to give leaders the book I wish had existed earlier in my career. One that is practical, honest, and built entirely on what I have actually seen work.

What mistake do you see companies make over and over again?

They confuse activity with progress. I work with companies that are genuinely busy, full of talented people executing against long lists of initiatives, and somehow not getting closer to where they want to be. The reason is almost always the same: they never clearly defined where they were going in the first place. When you don’t have a specific destination, everything looks like it might help. New markets, new hires, new tools, new strategies. It all goes on the list. And the list becomes the strategy, which is not the same thing as actually having one. The companies that build lasting value start with the end in mind and filter every decision through that destination. Most never do.

Was there a point in your career that you wish you would have had Intentional Growth?

Absolutely. Early in my career on the buy side, I was evaluating companies without a structured framework for understanding what actually made one business more valuable than another beyond the financial statements. I was looking at the numbers without fully understanding the organizational story behind them. The QVG (Quality, Value, Growth) framework we developed and write about in the book would have sharpened my thinking considerably in those early years. It also would have helped me have better conversations with the founders I was working alongside, because I would have understood more clearly what they were building and where the real gaps were. Experience is a great teacher, but a good framework accelerates the lesson.

How does your book stand out in the leadership genre?

Most leadership books are written from the outside looking in. Mine is written from 27 years of sitting across the table from founders and CEOs at the most consequential moments of their professional lives. The frameworks in Intentional Growth aren’t theoretical. They come directly from what I have seen produce exceptional outcomes and what I have seen fall short. The book is also unusually honest about the personal dimensions of growth, the identity challenges that come with delegating, the emotional weight of succession planning, and the gap between knowing what needs to change and actually changing it. I did not want to write a book full of tidy advice. I wanted to write one that tells leaders what growth actually looks and feels like.

If you could pick anyone to give this book to, who would it be and why?

A founder who is about ten years into building their business, generating real revenue, and starting to feel like the company is outgrowing them. That is the moment where everything I write about becomes most relevant, and it is also the moment when most founders don’t yet realize they need it. The decisions made in that window, about delegation, about systems, about what kind of leader they want to become, shape everything that follows. If I could put this book in the hands of every founder at that inflection point, I think it would change a lot of outcomes for the better