The Red Pill Executive

Book excerpt: A new paradigm for shaping and aligning processes, tools, and employees—to tap into the power and potential of your company. Through fifteen years of intense observation and analysis, Tony Gruebl, Jeff Welch, and Bryan Wolbert of advisory services firm Think Systems, Inc. identified a powerful controlling force hiding in plain sight—and now they reveal it in The Red Pill Executive. Tony, Jeff, and Bryan named their approach to harnessing this controlling force the Red Pill model. Every company has an invisible framework called culture. Red Pill Operators sense it where others are oblivious. Culture determines how business happens and what success looks like. Some cultures love growth; others, a perfect record in customer service. For some, it’s sales or P&L—regardless of tanking satisfaction or turnover. With culture as their blueprint, Red Pill Operators shape their processes, tools, language, staff, and every other aspect to align—not just with the strategy and mission, but with the culture as it exists in time. The Red Pill Executive offers operating executives and small business owners fresh insight into the grooming of their frontline managers who carry out critical initiatives. This new paradigm unlocks massive potential for Operations Executives and their team members who have the courage to embrace them. It showcases a new way of thinking that empowers operators to capture value and corrects the one-size-fits-all approach created by the project management industry in reaction to massive project failure. In The Red Pill Executive, Tony, Jeff, and Bryan use a straight-talking style—and some entertaining pop culture metaphors—to deliver their results in an engaging and readable style.