The Strategy and Leadership Podcast with Anthony C. Taylor

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

Glenn Kaufman runs KEH Camera, North America's largest pre-owned camera and video equipment reseller, founded D Cubed Group, and previously chaired the Finance Committee on the board of Red Robin Gourmet Burgers. In this conversation he explains why he treats himself as reporting to his own board even as CEO, the line he uses to build real alignment with the leaders he backs, and how he tells a company that's genuinely healthy from one that's been dressed up to sell. If you sit on a board, report to one, or want to, this is a masterclass in building trust before you need it.

🔗 Read the full write-up: https://www.smestrategy.net/blog/glenn-kaufman-keh-camera-ceo-board-accountability

🔗 Strategic planning facilitation with Anthony: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator

🔗 Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/

Alan Walsh is President of Sentient Jet, the company that invented the private jet card. Before that, he spent 20+ years at Dell and EMC, including leading the 4,500-person Global Support Center team through the EMC-Dell merger across 12 locations and six continents.
In this episode, Alan shares the leadership credo he's carried since his EMC days ("if there's no precedent, you can't be wrong"), what it actually takes to communicate change to thousands of people at once, and the operational discipline behind Sentient Jet's commitment to answering every phone call in 15 seconds or less, 24/7.

00:00 Intro: Meet Alan Walsh, President of Sentient Jet
01:12 From Cork, Ireland to the U.S. — Alan's path
02:06 The first rule of leadership: "It's never about me"
03:33 Alan's credo: "If there's no precedent, you can't be wrong"
05:15 Communicating "the why" across a 4,500-person global team
07:38 Inside the Dell-EMC merger integration
10:45 The failure that changed how Alan leads
13:17 How applied physics shaped his leadership style
15:02 A day in the life as President of Sentient Jet
18:08 Where AI fits in private aviation (and where it doesn't)
20:51 The 15-second rule: Sentient Jet's service philosophy
22:46 Close

Learn more about Sentient Jet: https://sentient.com
Want strategic clarity like this in your own organization? Work with SME Strategy on your strategic plan: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Or connect with Anthony directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and subscribe wherever you listen. It helps more leaders find the show.
#Leadership #PrivateAviation #ChangeManagement #CustomerExperience #ExecutiveLeadership #BusinessPodcast

Most franchise CEOs chase the wrong number. Mike Rotondo — who's led Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Edible Arrangements, and Altitude Trampoline Parks, and now runs pet care franchise Skiptown — explains why the real measure of a healthy system isn't new franchise agreements, it's the "second signature": whether the franchisees you already have want to do it again.
Anthony and Mike dig into unit-level economics, when to innovate versus when to protect your core (and why "we'll never do that" often doesn't age well), and the three traits that separate franchisees who thrive from ones who burn out. A candid, practical conversation for anyone building a business — franchise or not — that depends on other people executing well.
ABOUT SME STRATEGY
SME Strategy helps organizations around the world create and execute their strategic plans through expert facilitation, leadership training, and organizational alignment. We work with leadership teams to make strategy implementation easier, faster, and more effective.
Learn More About Our Strategic Planning Facilitation Services:
https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Visit SME Strategy Consulting:
https://www.smestrategy.net
Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/

Ron Johnson built the Apple Store from scratch. He was also CEO of JCPenney and led the design-for-all era at Target. In this episode of the Strategy and Leadership Podcast, he walks Anthony Taylor through the specific counterintuitive bets that made Apple retail the most successful launch in the history of the category.

The list is longer than most people realize. He hired baristas and librarians instead of technology experts, because he could train product knowledge in a week but couldn't train warmth. He killed sales commissions, so customers would buy when they were ready and not when a rep needed a number. He invented the Genius Bar as a visible promise of service at the back of every store. He put Apple on the world's most expensive real estate. And he built the Fifth Avenue store underground, so rent landed at roughly 1% of sales while the store did $350 million in its first year.

The through-line for CEOs and senior operators: the strategies that separate you from your competitors are the ones that look counterintuitive on paper, and they come from your own lived experience, not from copying what's already been done.
If you're a CEO, president, or senior operator running a mid-market business and trying to build a strategy that actually differentiates you, this conversation is for you.

CHAPTERS
00:00 Ron Johnson: Apple Store, JCPenney, Target
01:05 Starting at the bottom, unloading trucks at Mervyn's
03:25 Why he hired baristas and librarians instead of tech experts
06:07 The real future of retail: 85% of sales are still physical
09:25 Why customers want to be approached in stores
10:42 Killing sales commissions at the Apple Store
11:47 Designing a store so the service is visible from the door
13:41 What made the Apple Store concept so counterintuitive
15:42 Personal geography: the edge nobody can copy
17:16 The Fifth Avenue store, the fifth most photographed site in NYC
19:52 $350M in year one at 1% rent: the underground bet
21:15 What courage in strategy actually looks like
22:22 Ron's new book and where to find him

ABOUT THE GUEST
Ron Johnson is the former Senior Vice President of Retail Operations at Apple, where he built the Apple Store from concept to global rollout and created the Genius Bar. He was previously Executive Vice President of Merchandising at Target, where he led the design-for-all strategy that reshaped the brand, and later served as CEO of JCPenney.
His new book, Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius, is out from HarperCollins.
Learn more: https://ronjohnsonshopsdifferent.com

ABOUT THE PODCAST
The Strategy and Leadership Podcast is hosted by Anthony Taylor, Managing Partner at SME Strategy, and features conversations with CEOs and senior operators about the strategic bets, frameworks, and decisions that separate great companies from average ones.

Work with SME Strategy on your next planning session:
https://www.smestrategy.net
Subscribe for a new episode every week.

#RonJohnson #AppleStore #StrategicPlanning #RetailStrategy #BusinessStrategy