The Strategy and Leadership Podcast with Anthony C. Taylor

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

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/

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#Leadership #PrivateAviation #ChangeManagement #CustomerExperience #ExecutiveLeadership #BusinessPodcast