In most scaling companies, the first signals look operational: executive tension, compensation disputes, broken agreements, and constant leadership friction. A CEO may gradually realize their calendar has shifted away from strategy and toward internal mediation.
Robert White has seen this pattern repeatedly across growth-stage leadership teams. What CEOs often experience as interpersonal conflict is usually something more structural: unclear and unenforced purpose, vision, and values quietly pulling the leadership team in different directions.
By the time the pattern becomes visible, the cost has already accumulated.
White’s framework for diagnosing and correcting executive misalignment centers on three ideas: alignment to a clear organizational “true north,” leadership enforcement of standards, and a practical diagnostic test for evaluating whether executives truly belong in their roles.
One of the clearest signals of executive misalignment is where the CEO’s time goes.
White describes a familiar complaint from leaders of scaling companies:
“I'm spending 70, 80 percent of my time on people problems.”
At face value, those issues look like individual personnel situations: executive disagreements, compensation negotiations, or the departure of key leaders.
But these are usually presenting problems.
When a CEO spends most of their time managing interpersonal tension across the leadership team, the underlying cause is often structural rather than personal. Something in the organization’s operating center is unclear or inconsistently applied.
Without that clarity, each executive interprets priorities differently. Over time, those interpretations diverge.
The result is an organization that appears aligned on the surface but behaves inconsistently under pressure.
Executive misalignment often develops quietly.
Most companies eventually define some version of purpose, vision, and values. Those statements appear in presentations, internal documents, and recruiting materials. Leaders assume that the presence of these statements means alignment already exists.
White challenges that assumption.
“Alignment requires some kind of true north.”
Purpose, vision, and values provide that reference point. But only when they function as operating constraints rather than aspirational language.
In many organizations, these statements exist without shared ownership or consistent enforcement. The CEO references them periodically, but leadership decisions are still negotiated case by case.
When that happens, executives default to their individual interpretations of what matters most.
The organization continues operating, but alignment gradually weakens.
Most CEOs do not struggle to define values.
The harder problem is enforcing them.
White observes that many leaders avoid confronting misalignment because the leadership role can be isolating. CEOs often lack peers inside the organization with whom they can speak candidly. Maintaining harmony across the leadership team begins to feel important for stability.
That dynamic introduces a subtle leadership tradeoff.
“You will make decisions to be liked instead of respected.”
When that tradeoff appears in leadership decisions, standards begin to erode.
An executive who delivers strong results but violates company values may be tolerated. A difficult leadership conversation is delayed to avoid disruption. Misaligned behavior is managed quietly rather than addressed directly.
Each decision feels pragmatic in the moment.
But collectively they signal that purpose, vision, and values are optional.
Once that perception takes hold, alignment deteriorates quickly.
To diagnose alignment inside leadership teams, White points to a framework widely used in scaling companies through the operating system described in Traction.
The framework evaluates leaders through three questions:
“Do they get it? Do they want it? And are they capable?”
Each dimension reveals a different form of misalignment.
Get it addresses whether an executive truly understands and accepts the organization’s purpose, vision, and values. This is not intellectual agreement; it shows up in how leaders make decisions when tradeoffs appear.
Want it examines motivation. Some executives remain in roles primarily as stepping stones toward other opportunities. When the role itself is not the leader’s genuine objective, engagement weakens.
Capable assesses whether the executive can produce the results the role demands.
Most organizations evaluate leaders primarily through the third dimension. Capability is visible and measurable. The other two dimensions often receive less scrutiny.
White’s observation is that alignment requires all three.
An executive who is capable but does not fully embrace the organization’s purpose or does not truly want the role will eventually create friction across the leadership team.
Applying the “Get It, Want It, Capable” framework often changes how CEOs interpret problems inside the leadership team.
A compensation dispute may not be about compensation at all. It may signal that the executive’s motivation no longer aligns with the company’s direction.
Persistent strategic disagreement may reflect a leader who does not genuinely accept the organization’s values or priorities.
Turnover among senior leaders can reveal deeper uncertainty about the company’s purpose or long-term vision.
The framework forces the CEO to evaluate leadership roles through alignment rather than capability alone.
In many companies, that evaluation exposes the real source of organizational friction.
White’s perspective leads to a practical shift in how CEOs approach leadership alignment.
Purpose, vision, and values cannot remain symbolic statements. They must function as operating criteria that shape hiring, promotion, and leadership accountability.
That shift requires visible commitment from the CEO.
When executives see that alignment standards are consistently enforced, interpretation becomes unnecessary. Leaders understand the boundaries within which they operate.
The CEO’s role shifts as well. Instead of mediating recurring conflicts across the leadership team, the CEO spends more time on direction and execution.
Alignment becomes structural rather than personal.
Executive misalignment rarely begins as a dramatic failure.
It accumulates quietly through small decisions that avoid confrontation or postpone clarity. Each decision feels manageable in isolation. Over time, however, the organization absorbs the cost.
Leadership tension increases. Standards become negotiable. The CEO’s attention shifts away from strategy toward internal conflict.
White’s framework reframes the situation.
If a CEO’s calendar is dominated by people problems, the organization may not have an interpersonal issue at all. It may have an alignment problem rooted in unclear or unenforced purpose, vision, and values.
Once CEOs recognize that pattern, the path forward becomes clearer: define the organization’s true north, evaluate leadership through alignment as well as capability, and enforce the standards that follow.
The result is not simply a stronger culture.
It is a leadership team operating from the same center — and a CEO with the capacity to lead the company forward.
Robert White is the founder of Extraordinary People and works with growth-stage companies to help leadership teams align around purpose, vision, and values. Earlier in his career, he founded and scaled global training organizations, leading operations that served hundreds of thousands of leaders across multiple countries. His work today focuses on helping executive teams maintain alignment as organizations grow and leadership complexity increases.
__________
Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
__________
The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
__________
Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY
00:00 Intro – Leadership mistakes CEOs make with people
00:18 Welcome to the Breakout CEO Podcast
00:49 Advisory Insights series explained
01:06 Episode topic: executive leadership misalignment
01:33 Robert White’s early life challenges and turning point
03:04 Transforming income and becoming president of Mind Dynamics
03:35 Building a global training company
04:33 Losing a $30M business and rebuilding
05:31 Working with small and mid-sized growth companies
06:06 The framework: Focus, Alignment, and Commitment
07:23 Why most business goals should focus on the next 90 days
08:24 The real meaning of leadership alignment
08:53 Alignment to purpose, vision, and values
10:29 Enforcing alignment when values are violated
11:29 Why many CEOs feel alone
12:33 Choosing respect over being liked as a leader
13:02 Lessons from the Ritz-Carlton founder
13:51 How leaders recognize misalignment in their teams
14:35 The real problem behind constant people issues
15:01 The “Get It, Want It, Capacity” framework for evaluating leaders
16:44 Why leadership teams need facilitated alignment sessions
17:36 Preparing your leadership team for alignment work
18:11 Start with evaluating your own leadership
19:04 Tools CEOs can use to understand themselves better
20:23 Lessons from Stephen Covey’s *7 Habits*
21:45 How leaders get trapped in their own stories
22:10 When deeper personal work is needed for leadership growth
22:55 Learning leadership lessons through failure
24:11 Why experienced mentors accelerate CEO growth
24:59 How to connect with Robert White
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jeff Holman, Host (00:01.82)
Welcome back to the breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman. I'm so excited to talk to you guys today and to bring you Robert White. Robert, welcome to the show.
Robert White (00:10.83)
Hey, it's great to be with you, Jeff.
Jeff Holman, Host (00:13.244)
Yeah, it's good to have you here. So I'm excited to talk with you today. This is part of our advisory insights series. It is actually our first one. We're kicking off in February 2026. So we're going to see how this goes and bring in addition to the stories that we're bringing about scaling CEOs and founders running into issues and solving those problems. We're bringing this advisory insights episode a series to you so that you can actually get to meet some of the people that are also behind the scenes, maybe a little bit like me.
I do the legal stuff and Robert and other people join and also provide services to CEOs. So you might find something here helpful for what, you know, issues you're dealing with in your company as a CEO today. So Robert, let's dig in. Today we're going to be talking about, let's see, I got my topic up and ready. So we're going to be talking about finding and fixing executive leadership misalignment in a scaling business. So, and you've got a perspective that you can bring to the show. But before we jump into your perspective about
misalignment on leadership teams. Give us a little bit background about you and what's brought you here today.
Robert White (01:19.852)
Jeff, the quick summary is that at 27 years old, my life was a mess. I'd had three heart attacks. had a divorce that I felt horribly guilty about personally and of course didn't talk to anybody about it. And my little business was failing. And a friend that went out to California, we were living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin then. And he went out to California to do one of the early human potential movement trainings.
Jeff Holman, Host (01:38.929)
Hmm.
Robert White (01:49.784)
called Mind Dynamics. He was in a similar business, was a long time friend, and I watched his life transform over the next six months. And while he's telling me, I've got to go to California, I've got to do this training, and I'm saying no, and no, and no, and all kinds of resistance to it. But his enthusiasm brought the training to Milwaukee, and I attended the first one that was held there, and my life changed for the better.
Jeff Holman, Host (02:18.128)
Wow. Well, it seems like there was a lot of maybe improvement to be had. No judgment here. We all go through things, but three heart attacks and a divorce and whatever else was going on. That's a lot to deal with just at that age.
Robert White (02:19.017)
And I mean.
Robert White (02:33.002)
Yeah, and all pretty unconscious about all of it. I was ambitious. I really wanted to succeed, but my life was a mess. And over the following year after that training, which didn't mention money or business or building an organization or anything like that, I tripled my income in that first year. And I had 10 times the following year, I started making more money in a month than I had made in years.
Jeff Holman, Host (02:42.204)
Yeah.
Robert White (03:02.702)
My relationships improved. I remarried. A whole bunch of really good things happened. And I started sending people to that training. I ended up as president of that company. I sold my business and took a 70 % pay cut to become the president of Mind Dynamics and ran the business of that business, which took me into seven foreign subsidiaries in my four years there.
Ownership changed, I quit and it just didn't work for me anymore. But I founded a company called LifeSpring. I later sold that and went on to have 17 training centers in the U.S. and a lot of success, half a million graduates. But I sold it and moved to Tokyo. So I've lived abroad 23 years of my working life. I built a company from zero to...
Jeff Holman, Host (03:45.617)
Wow.
Robert White (03:59.566)
240 full-time people and that included 70 of these high-impact experiential trainers, another 60 contract trainers that we used for peaks. in seven countries, 15 training centers became the largest training company in Asia, the second largest in the world. So that's my, the good news part of the story. At 46, I retired kind of.
Jeff Holman, Host (04:02.361)
Awesome.
Jeff Holman, Host (04:12.805)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (04:22.992)
Wow.
Robert White (04:29.71)
moved to Aspen, Colorado, built the big house, bought a jet, did all of the nouveau riche things that the poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks do. You know, I found out there's a pattern there. And lost control of my company, lost essentially $30 million and, you know, worked with 1800 corporations and 700,000 leadership training graduates. We did well.
Jeff Holman, Host (04:42.376)
wow.
Robert White (04:59.386)
and lost it all. So I went back to work and where I've focused in the last 20 years is working with the small and medium sized growth companies, people like me, that's who I enjoy most working with, and particularly with their top teams to get specific results and also to have some fun doing it. So that's my guess.
Jeff Holman, Host (05:24.495)
That's awesome. That's quite the journey you've been on, Robert.
Robert White (05:27.63)
It hasn't been boring.
Jeff Holman, Host (05:30.203)
It doesn't sound boring at all. In fact, you might be an episode, know, a CEO episode at some point with just the story of how you managed that growth of that business. But today we're gonna talk to you about leadership alignment, misalignment, how to find it and how to fix it. I imagine you've seen a bit of that along the way.
Robert White (05:50.806)
I learned it from experience both what worked and then doing more of that and what didn't work and hopefully stop doing that. You know, there's an expression called a guy in a diner. I don't know if you've ever heard that, but you know, if you're in your 20s in Wisconsin, you you're out drinking beer with your buddies and then you maybe have a little too much and then you end up at a diner.
Jeff Holman, Host (05:54.469)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (05:59.462)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (06:08.183)
I'm not sure I have.
Robert White (06:19.17)
to get a little food in you before you go to bed. of course, you know, it's the long, long counter, right? And the guy you're sitting next to is an expert about everything. And he wants to tell you about it. And, you know, the classic line is that he's a mile wide and an inch deep. That's the guy in the diner. About lots of subjects, I'm a guy in a diner. But something I know something about is
Jeff Holman, Host (06:21.839)
Okay.
Jeff Holman, Host (06:30.165)
yes, yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (06:37.741)
Yes, I've heard that phrase.
Jeff Holman, Host (06:43.851)
okay.
Robert White (06:48.076)
being an entrepreneur, building a business, what works and what doesn't work. And today with clients, I find that the filter that I like to ask people about is, you focused? Are you aligned? And are you committed? And your subject today is aligned and that's a great piece of that. Focused refers to what's gonna happen around here in the next 90 days. And I've set longer term goals in my time.
Jeff Holman, Host (07:02.905)
Okay.
Jeff Holman, Host (07:12.366)
Okay.
Robert White (07:16.842)
I've never seen them really be effective. mean, to have a vision longer term, yes, but goals need to be pretty immediate and widely shared and committed to, focused, aligned and committed. committed is among the eight principles that I've run my life on, my business on, that I'm attracted to. If your listeners want a copy of those, it's at ExtraordinaryPeople.com.
Jeff Holman, Host (07:23.812)
Yeah.
Robert White (07:46.222)
sign up for my Greek leaves and you'll get that and a full explanation of all of those eight principles. But the most important is commitment. So back to alignment, back to your question. I find that alignment is kind of a popular term today in the business press and the media, but it's understood on the surface, not in depth, because there's a question that every leader, I believe, needs to ask, which is,
Jeff Holman, Host (07:52.271)
Awesome.
Jeff Holman, Host (07:56.73)
Yeah.
Robert White (08:15.776)
Okay, I'm supposed to create alignment around here. And the question is alignment to what? Alignment requires some kind of you know, the late Stephen. Yeah, you know, he called it true north, given call it a lot of things. For me, it's alignment to your purpose, your vision and your values. So have you first of all, spent the time to come up with a statement of
Jeff Holman, Host (08:26.798)
A reference point.
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (08:37.391)
Okay.
Robert White (08:44.642)
purpose, vision and values for your organization. You can go online now, plug in a certain amount into AI and then you'll get a formulaic thing and then you put it on the coffee cups and you put it on a banner on the wall and the CEO talks about it once a year, something like that. That's pretty common. What I'm talking about is having your group create the purpose, vision and values. Ideally,
Jeff Holman, Host (09:03.033)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Robert White (09:13.472)
facilitated by an outsider, someone like me or someone like me that does this kind of work. And that you really own it, that everybody owns it from day one. Your purpose, reason for existing, what is it that's unique about you, your vision, you know, that picture that maybe you'll never accomplish. I think the best visions are the ones that you know you won't accomplish it in your lifetime, but it's worth
Jeff Holman, Host (09:19.439)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (09:32.325)
Yeah.
Robert White (09:43.426)
dedicating your life to, and then your values. What are your core values that you're actually committed to living? So that's kind of how I've looked at those three things, focus, alignment, and commitment. And alignment is the one that is challenging because people can give kind of a surface level of commitment to alignment.
Jeff Holman, Host (10:10.532)
Yeah, yeah.
Robert White (10:12.652)
but not actually be living it. You know, there's an expression about catch people doing something right and in public and criticize in private. think that truism is mostly true. But it isn't just announcing it. It is maintaining it, enforcing it. And that's a pretty strong word.
Jeff Holman, Host (10:26.683)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (10:39.087)
What do you mean by that? You're talking about enforcing the commitment that you find or enforcing the commitment when it's not there, which...
Robert White (10:49.495)
enforcing it when it's violated, when you're not acting in alignment.
Jeff Holman, Host (10:52.397)
Okay, okay. So not just positive reinforcement, but you need to actually call out sometimes when stuff is not aligned.
Robert White (11:00.834)
Yes. you know, look, my clients, leaders, very smart people, very hardworking. mean, they're amazing, amazing people. And yet most of them feel alone. You know, I spent six months during my semi-retirement in Aspen traveling with the late John Denver. And he has a song called Sweet Surrender. And
Jeff Holman, Host (11:16.069)
Mm-hmm.
Robert White (11:29.396)
In that song, there's a line where he says, lost and alone on a forgotten highway, traveled by many, remembered by few. And it goes on to dig deeper into that. that's most of the leaders that I work with have some version of that going on. They feel alone. There's nobody they can talk to really authentically, honestly. And they want to be liked because they're social animals. We all are.
Jeff Holman, Host (11:38.639)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (11:51.472)
Yeah.
Robert White (11:58.326)
And whether we admit it or not, we'll make decisions to be liked instead of respected. And so that leader, in order to enforce alignment, needs to sometimes take a person or the entire organization on and to do it with courage, with clarity, and with a commitment to that purpose, vision, and values himself or herself.
Jeff Holman, Host (12:04.644)
Yeah.
Robert White (12:27.308)
Are you familiar with Patrick David?
Jeff Holman, Host (12:27.664)
Yeah.
I'm not.
Robert White (12:32.438)
He does a podcast, an extremely popular podcast for business people. And I'm kind of a fan. And recently he interviewed the founder, the founding CEO of Ritz Carlton. This guy's in his 90s now and sharp, sharp, sharp, and very, very clear about where he stands about business. And that's basically what he talks about is that the way you hire, the way you, you train, the way you manage.
is by rigorous attention to an action around standards, purpose, what I would say is purpose, vision and values. His emphasis is on the values, but he talks a lot about purpose too.
Jeff Holman, Host (13:11.789)
Yes, yes.
That makes sense. How do you... I'm sorry.
Robert White (13:22.134)
It's a great interview.
Jeff Holman, Host (13:24.035)
great. I'll have to listen to it. How do you help a leader of one of these mid-size scaling companies that's super busy? How do you help them, first of all, see the misalignment and second of all, stop and, you know, have the time and energy to do something about that misalignment?
Robert White (13:44.984)
You know, I've been accused of being an amateur psychologist and I've had no training. And if somebody really needs a therapist, it's not me. But I think one of the things that they say is that to look at when they're looking at a client, they look at what is the presenting problem versus what is the problem.
Jeff Holman, Host (13:49.028)
You
Jeff Holman, Host (14:04.027)
Okay. You're talking about this is how a therapist would approach, would approach this issue. What's the presenting problem? What do I see on the surface, right?
Robert White (14:08.578)
Yeah.
spending problem is I'm spending 70, 80 % of my time on people problems. I'm losing key people. They're either talking about leaving or they're leaving or they left. People are making ridiculous salary or equity demands that make no sense to me and yet they're somehow they've decided that's what's right and that's what you should do.
Jeff Holman, Host (14:17.787)
Okay.
Jeff Holman, Host (14:25.477)
Yeah.
Robert White (14:40.62)
I mean, those are presenting problems. Particularly the amount of time you spend on drama, on broken agreement, on people having problems at home and they're bringing them to work, all that kind of stuff. Those are the presenting problems. If you look underneath that, what you find is that, and the book Traction talks about
Jeff Holman, Host (14:43.61)
Okay.
Jeff Holman, Host (14:47.885)
Ha ha ha.
Jeff Holman, Host (14:54.768)
Yeah.
Robert White (15:07.212)
evaluating people in three areas. Number one is, do they get it? And I don't know that Chino Workman, the author of that book, would use this expression, but I will. Do they get purpose, vision and values? You know, do they actually get it, live it? And then, do they want it? That's the W. The JWC, the W is, do they want it? Or are they in the job to get some other job?
Jeff Holman, Host (15:12.645)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (15:22.468)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (15:35.181)
Okay.
Robert White (15:35.342)
either in your company or outside, you know, is it a holding pattern? Because that person is not going to be contributing at 100%. And then finally, are they capable? And, you know, most leaders, I think, fall into the trap of just hiring for capability, at least what they think is capable. But you got to pay attention to all three. And then as you evaluate your leadership team, I think Geno is right about that, that you look at
Jeff Holman, Host (15:37.915)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (15:52.911)
Mm-hmm.
Robert White (16:04.747)
Do they get it? Are they in alignment with your purpose, vision, and values? Do they really want the job they're in right now? And then finally, are they really capable? Are they proving that with results? So I think for most leaders, the way to get there, my recommendation, and this is the line, never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
Jeff Holman, Host (16:12.623)
Right.
Jeff Holman, Host (16:17.307)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (16:29.948)
Yeah, never go to a surgeon unless you want surgery, Same concept.
Robert White (16:34.506)
Yeah, surgeons do surgery. Unfortunately, I've learned that a lot in my life. Look, if you ask me, I'm going to say put people in a room with a talented facilitator that's been there and done that. Somebody with both the business experience but a proven ability to get results and then secondly has some facilitation skills. So
Jeff Holman, Host (16:38.277)
Right, right.
Hahaha
Robert White (17:02.719)
In my experience, putting the group in a room is better than coaching. Coaching is good for follow-up, not for a breakthrough.
Jeff Holman, Host (17:11.484)
Yeah, you're reminding me of the book I recently read, Patrick Lincione's Five Dysfunctions of a Team, which is the story book along, or fictional business where the CEO, the new CEO puts the team in a room and essentially is different words, but is looking for everybody to weigh in, everybody to buy in, and then everybody to perform in alignment with what they've weighed into and bought into, right?
It sounds like a similar thing. How would you suggest to somebody who hasn't got that facilitator lined up yet, they're struggling with their team or they think they are, they're seeing presenting problems at a minimum and wondering what the underlying problems might be. what should they do to prepare their team to step into that room with a facilitated conversation and understand
why we're doing it or what to expect when you're in there or what to expect as a result coming out of it. Like how do you prepare a CEO to make that commitment on behalf of the team?
Robert White (18:19.116)
Well, first of all, you begin with yourself, not with the team. You start looking and getting input about how you're showing up in a leadership role in your own organization. And there are great books that can help. You can buy my book, Living an Extraordinary Life. You can certainly read a bit from Daniel Goldman, the guy that wrote about EQ. I think that's valuable.
Jeff Holman, Host (18:23.12)
Okay.
Jeff Holman, Host (18:45.573)
Okay.
Robert White (18:46.894)
You can go to Gallup and take their strength finder test. I think maybe a hundred bucks or 150, something like that. Not expensive. And you really get some insight in how your your what works for you, what's your strength, but also areas of growth. You can I think reading Gino Workman's book about which is more about management than leadership, but it's it's really good. It's really solid. Gino is one of those people that
Jeff Holman, Host (18:50.438)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (19:04.006)
Yeah.
Robert White (19:16.874)
has been an entrepreneur, I think, most of his life and his lessons are simple, straightforward, and when applied, they work wonderfully. Management is not my strength, but I call on people like him when I have those kinds of challenges. People ask me about writing my book, and for 20 years, people said, you should write a book about your work, and I had a zillion.
really well crafted excuses. The guy that teaches personal responsibility is very good at giving excuses, right? Just they're more sophisticated and subtle. That's what I figured out about myself. But I finally did write the book and then, and I'm jealous of the late Stephen Covey because he's more than 25 million copies and I haven't, you know, that's.
Jeff Holman, Host (19:47.086)
Hahaha
Jeff Holman, Host (19:51.727)
Yes, yes.
Jeff Holman, Host (20:08.091)
Hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (20:11.781)
Yes.
Robert White (20:13.282)
That's the small part of me speaking. But one of the things that I noticed in my own organization is that my team and we thought we were the best at everything. We were the answer. It was a cult. We were believers. And what they said, which is true, is that one third of Stephen's Seven Habits book, the one I'm so jealous of his sales, and it's a great book, by the way. But one third.
Jeff Holman, Host (20:28.101)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (20:41.797)
We're talking seven habits or seven habits of highly successful people, right?
Robert White (20:46.67)
highly effective people, yes. And yeah, and it's a great book actually. But about one third of it is his experience in the Mormon church. One third of it is what he's learned as a professor who does his research and teaching and all you learn from teaching, right? But the one third is basically stolen from us, from LifeSpring, my original company, and Arc.
Jeff Holman, Host (20:49.231)
Highly effective people, yes.
Jeff Holman, Host (20:58.735)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Holman, Host (21:07.643)
Yeah.
Robert White (21:16.76)
So our staff reads this book and they recognize that right away and then they complained and then they're victims of Stephen Curry. But my point is that whatever your story is as a leader or your team story, you get trapped by that into not looking at what's really happening, what's really going on, what's really working and not working.
Jeff Holman, Host (21:22.459)
really?
Robert White (21:46.624)
as a system, you know, and that requires some deeper work. There are not a lot, but a few senior executives that I've worked with who do need to go see a therapist to clear something from their past to reduce shame or blame or regret or guilt, you know, those kinds of things that they've they've because they're ambitious, they stuff it, you know, you know,
Jeff Holman, Host (22:02.907)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (22:13.145)
Right. But it's still part of their underlying story.
Robert White (22:15.852)
Yeah, and it pops out in how they hire, in how they fire, how they manage, how they lead. So sometimes people need that deeper work. I'm not a person that does that. I mean, I can help a little, but not a lot. And there are books out there. There is Gino Workman's book, Traction. There is my favorite book of all time, Man's Search for Meaning, the Victor Franklin book. There is...
Jeff Holman, Host (22:20.559)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (22:29.146)
Yeah.
Robert White (22:44.78)
There are things they can do themselves. There's the Gallup strength finder thing and they're low cost. They can give me a call if they've got one issue that, you know, we'll just talk about it. Maybe we'll work together in the future. Maybe we won't, you know, I'm, I love talking to other entrepreneurs. I love working with those issues and Jeff, maybe it's my ego saying this. I admit, okay, I'm guilty.
Jeff Holman, Host (22:55.845)
Okay.
Robert White (23:14.722)
There are very few problems I haven't already confronted, either successfully or unsuccessfully. And it's not just a truism, I've learned the most from failure. And a willingness to look at that and what were the patterns that I had developed that created that failure? Not being a victim of betrayal, which was massive, or the economy or whatever that...
Jeff Holman, Host (23:22.427)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (23:35.279)
Yeah.
Jeff Holman, Host (23:43.439)
Mm-hmm.
Robert White (23:43.726)
I'm the source. I'm personally responsible for my organization and its results. So it's a process. Hire me or somebody similar that's been there and done that and has some ability that's proven. You know, I have a million four hundred thousand people now that have been through programs and companies I founded and led. I know something about that. I am not a guy, a diner in that area.
Jeff Holman, Host (24:06.937)
Wow. Wow.
Jeff Holman, Host (24:11.835)
Well, and that's why this show exists, right? Is because people who have led companies, they've experienced that loneliness or success or the difficult times. And then people who train, people who come in, whether you've got the CEO background behind that, or you've just got a capability with training and coaching. Like we bring people on so that people can be exposed to a lot of different things, you know, and find the ones that they think are going to be a good match for them.
On that note, give us again a couple of your, what am I trying to say? Tell us how people can connect with you. Remind us your book, your website, if you do LinkedIn, things like that, because there might be some people from this podcast listening that say, hey, it sounds like the right thing for me at this point in time.
Robert White (25:03.502)
Certainly the best way is through my website, ExtraordinaryPeople.com. They can sign up for a free weekly easy and I've been doing for 17 years now. It's an idea that I've come across in a book, a video, a training that I have attended, something, and then my comments on it all designed to be read in one minute or less. along with that, they're going to get a 28 page PDF of what I've learned about success.
Jeff Holman, Host (25:15.418)
Nice.
Robert White (25:32.966)
And that includes eight principles and explaining them. That's also free and it's shareable. You can use it for a team meeting, for your family meetings, for the brown bag lunch, you know, use it any way you want it. And it has been used by a lot of people in a lot of ways. But the best way to reach me is extraordinarypeople.com. If you sign up for the e-zine and you get it every week, if it becomes clutter, it's easy to unsubscribe. But if you want to reach me, hit reply.
Jeff Holman, Host (25:33.347)
Nice.
Robert White (26:02.646)
I read every one of them personally and reply to most. Or just give me a call. It's all about relationships and can we serve each other.
Jeff Holman, Host (26:04.283)
fantastic. I love that.
Jeff Holman, Host (26:11.503)
Awesome.
Jeff Holman, Host (26:16.473)
Yeah, at ExtraordinaryPeople.com. Fantastic.
Robert White (26:19.168)
Exactly. and the book, can buy my book there. If you buy it online, or if you buy it on Amazon and stuff, you know, you get the book. If you buy it through my website, I'll sign it for you. So.
Jeff Holman, Host (26:32.117)
fantastic. Very good. Well, Robert, this has been this has been really good. It's a great quick hit for our audience to to hear these types of things and experiences and know that, you know, there's help out there, maybe not therapeutic help in a medical sense from you, but that's available. But there's but there's coaching and mentoring and training help that that they can get and have facilitated sessions if they want that. So thank you so much for joining us on the show, Robert.
Robert White (26:59.234)
My great pleasure.
Jeff Holman, Host (27:00.813)
It's been fun. And thanks to our audience again for joining us for this episode of the Breakout CEO Podcast.
