Summary: For the past several decades, Rob Waite has studied what makes executives and entrepreneurs effective.<br> Rob’s career required him to master this topic. He’s been an international senior executive for Fortune 500 companies, CEO of a large privately held company, and CEO of a successful private equity-backed entity.<br> This episode is for anyone running a business. Rob breaks down what the most successful executives do differently from those who run their companies into the ground.<br> <br> <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-Magic-Bullets-Executives-Entrepreneurs-ebook/dp/B01N59VGF8" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a>Get Rob’s book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/No-Magic-Bullets-Executives-Entrepreneurs-ebook/dp/B01N59VGF8" target="_blank" rel="noopener">No Magic Bullets</a> on Amazon.<br> Check out Rob’s company at <a href="http://nomagicbullets.xyz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NoMagicBullets.xyz</a>. <br> <br> <br> Why did you pick the title No Magic Bullets?<br> I have seen executives all over the world, entrepreneurs at every level, chase “the next big thing” when it comes to management theory, book ideas, etc., that deal with one thing.<br> What ends up happening is their teams get emotional whiplash every couple of months. It’s the new way they’re going to do things, the path to business nirvana. People fall into this trap too often.<br> Nothing comes perfectly easy in business. You have to continuously learn, evolve, and progress. That’s hard to do.<br> <br> <br> What’s a common example of business people latching onto “the next big thing”? <br> I’d researched the top selling business books over a 50 year period, and one book that has been on the top selling list since 1959 is titled <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Thinking-Big-David-Schwartz/dp/0671646788" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Magic of Thinking Big.</a><br> Now, that makes a lot of sense. You do need to think big, and it was written by a gentleman who is a PHD, but the cover goes on and states:<br> <br> “Learn the secrets of success, magnify your thinking patterns, and achieve everything you’ve always wanted.”<br> <br> If that isn’t a magic bullet statement, I don’t know what is.<br> That’s very typical of often how certain types of books are promoted. A modern example is <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Things-Done-Stress-Free-Productivity/dp/0142000280" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Getting Things Done by David Allen</a>. It’s a great book that people should read, but my perspective in No Magic Bullets as “getting the right things done.”<br> Because I saw a lot of executives read Getting Things Done, they loved it, they had their teams read it. Then everything was about the process that the author derived and they never overlayed on top of it.<br> They kicked up a lot of activity, but activity doesn’t necessarily equal accomplishment.<br> The better questions business people need to think about are, “What’s our business strategy? Who are the clients we want to serve? Are we in the best markets for ourselves?”<br> <br> I’m guessing you’re not a big fan of The Secret.<br> That’s right.<br> <br> What is the #1 idea that people need to take away from your book?<br> There are seven capabilities that I write about, which all work in conjunction with each other. If you decide you only need to focus on one or two, you will get out of balance.<br> But if you view how you’re approaching your company, your business, or your career through the lens of the seven strung together, you will have greater success than you’d otherwise envisioned.<br> <br> What are the seven capabilities?<br> <br> * <br> Understand the purpose of a business.<br> <br> * <br> Create a strategic value proposition.<br> <br> * <br> Get the right things done.
