The Strategy and Leadership Podcast with Anthony C. Taylor

Lawrence Armstrong joined Ware Malcomb in 1984 as a designer, when the firm was one office and about 30 people in Irvine, California. In 1992 he and his business partner bought it in the middle of a real estate recession. That year the firm billed just over $3 million. By the time he handed over the CEO role 28 years later, it was billing $139 million. This year, with Lawrence as chairman, it will pass $240 million, with 30 offices and close to 1,000 people.
In this episode of the Strategy & Leadership Podcast, Lawrence explains that the growth came from developing people. He describes Ware Malcomb as a leadership academy, modelled on what Jack Welch built at GE. He walks through the leadership meetings, mentoring and business reviews that keep 30 offices operating as one company. He also talks about how his work as an artist shaped the philosophy in his USA Today bestselling book, Layered Leadership.
In this episode:
Why client requests to open new offices became the core growth strategy
How a leadership meeting of six people grew to more than 100, held three times a year for over 30 years
What Lawrence tells people who ask him how to get promoted
How the “whole brain” demands of architecture carry over into running a business
His work as board chair of Orange County United Way, including United to End Homelessness, which has housed more than 1,300 people
Chapters
00:00 Introduction
00:43 Ware Malcomb and Lawrence’s start in 1984
02:04 One office, 30 people, and running the new LA office
03:26 Buying the firm during a recession
04:12 From $3M to $240M
05:02 Art, architecture and whole-brain leadership
10:17 The foundational growth strategy
12:53 From the building business to the people business
13:37 The GE inspiration and Ware Malcomb’s leadership academy
16:06 Caring for the whole person
18:03 “The company needs you to be promoted”
18:50 Orange County United Way and ending homelessness
21:14 Where to find Lawrence and the book
22:28 Key takeaways
About Lawrence Armstrong
Lawrence is chairman and former CEO of Ware Malcomb, an international architecture, interior design and engineering firm headquartered in Irvine, California. He is the author of Layered Leadership and board chair of Orange County United Way.
Links
Lawrence: https://lawrencerarmstrong.com
Layered Leadership: https://layeredleadershipbook.com
Ware Malcomb: https://www.waremalcomb.com
SME Strategy: https://www.smestrategy.net
#Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #StrategicPlanning #CEO #BusinessGrowth #Architecture #StrategyAndLeadership

Nate Bennett has spent twenty years studying the COO role. His book Riding Shotgun: The Role of the COO, co-written with Stephen Miles, is now in its third edition from Stanford Business Books.
In this conversation: why the right question is what makes a great CEO and COO pair, not what makes a great COO; why founders pushed by their board to hire a number two often never empower that person; the seven types of COO and the three kinds of fit to test before you hire; and why average COO tenure has dropped from five years to about two and a half.
Blog post and full notes: https://www.smestrategy.net/blog/michael-dell-put-a-glass-wall-between-himself-and-his-coo.-heres-why-it-worked
Connect with Anthony: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604
Work with SME Strategy: https://meetings.hubspot.com/anthony930

Jim Weiss built Real Chemistry from one person to 2,500 employees by refusing to do marketing work that didn't move a number the client's CEO cared about. Media impressions were never the measure. Patients on therapy, revenue and stock price were.
Jim is the founder and chairman of Real Chemistry (formerly W2O Group), an integrated marketing and communications firm that helps healthcare companies launch new medicines, vaccines and treatments. Over 25 years he grew the company into a global firm, and he now advises a range of companies and organizations while hosting the Get Real podcast.
In this conversation, Jim and Anthony talk about what actually drove that growth: hiring people with shared values, letting clients pull the firm into new services, and building ownership into the business so people share in the wins. Jim also explains what changed when he moved from CEO to chairman and had to lead through influence instead of authority.
Key takeaways:
- Alignment is what keeps a growing company flying in formation. Without coordination, more people just means more noise.
- Let clients pull you into new work. When a client asked "can you also do this?", Jim hired or bought the capability and grew alongside them.
- Measure against your client's business objectives. If the work doesn't support something the C-suite cares about, don't do it.
- As chairman or advisor, your influence works like the moon on the tides. Advice lands best when it becomes their idea.
- Real ownership, or at least a sense of it, changes how people show up. Jim's advice to owners is to give people stock where they can.
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction: Jim Weiss and Real Chemistry
01:04 Growing up in Honesdale and what Real Chemistry does
02:33 Business lessons learned by age eight
03:46 Alignment and the flying formation
06:32 Clear roles, great hires and picking the right clients
09:28 Growing with clients: "Can you also do this?"
11:25 Values as hashtags and the "no assholes" rule
11:47 Tying the work to the client's business KPIs
17:17 From CEO to chairman: direct impact to influence
18:39 Why ownership matters
20:28 Be like water
21:33 Get Real podcast and the Music and Medicine program
24:30 Closing takeaways
Want to talk about your organization's strategy? Book a conversation with Anthony: https://meetings.hubspot.com/anthony930
Prefer to start on your own? Take the One Destination Alignment Scorecard: https://www.smestrategy.net/one-destination-scorecard
Connect with Anthony C. Taylor at https://www.smestrategy.net
#Leadership #Strategy #ScalingABusiness #HealthcareMarketing #StrategyAndLeadership

Eighty percent of your people using Copilot does not make you an AI company. In a lot of mid-market organizations it means AI is everywhere and strategy is nowhere.
John Rudd built SolutionsIQ into North America's largest Agile consultancy, sold it to Accenture, and went on to run Accenture's global Agile practice and its North America technology M&A program. A former turnaround CFO and current private equity board member, he is co-founder of LightSight and author of The Age of the Speedboat: How Middle Market Leaders Can Win the AI Era.
Anthony and John talk about why license counts are the wrong measure of AI progress, what a CEO should put in place before chasing use cases, and why the leaders who win this era will be the ones who stop pretending to have every answer.
Book a conversation with Anthony: https://meetings.hubspot.com/anthony930
Take the One Destination Alignment Scorecard: https://www.smestrategy.net/one-destination-scorecard
More from SME Strategy: https://www.smestrategy.net
Get John's book: https://speedboatbook.com

Keith Wyche has spent his career inside companies in the middle of a transformation. He was at AT&T before the 1984 breakup, at IBM during its shift to services, at Pitney Bowes looking for life beyond mailing, and at Walmart as it moved from brick and mortar to e-commerce. He was also President of Cub Foods and ACME Markets for SuperValu, and he now serves as an independent director on the board of Brink's.

In this episode, Keith explains the 4 R's he uses to drive change: relevance, readiness, responsiveness, and robustness. He tells the story of growing a grocery chain with no grocery background by tailoring 15% of each store to its community. He also describes the Sears story he used to get long-tenured Walmart teams behind e-commerce, and he shares his equation for trust: character × competency × consistency.

His new book is Uncommon Leadership.

CONNECT WITH KEITH
Website: keithwyche.com
Instagram: @therealkeithwyche
Book: Uncommon Leadership, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and wherever books are sold

WORK WITH ANTHONY
Anthony Taylor facilitates strategic planning and alignment sessions with leadership teams, and speaks at conferences and events as a keynote speaker, trainer, and working-session facilitator on strategy and leadership.
Contact: smestrategy.net/contact
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604

#Leadership #ChangeManagement #Walmart #BoardGovernance #StrategyAndLeadership