A new CEO walks into a nightmare scenario: years of stock decline, growth that stalls, a major baby formula recall, and a shipment of Kit Kat bars that literally gets hijacked. That’s the leadership crucible we unpack as we go inside Nestlé and pull out the decisions that matter when performance slips and public trust is on the line.

Lone Rock Leadership co-founder Russ Hill talks through the first big lever: ruthless focus. Nestlé narrows the company’s attention to four core areas (coffee, pet care, nutrition, and food and snacks) and starts shedding complexity that slows execution. From there, we get practical about what “speed” really means inside large organizations: reducing internal congestion, simplifying priorities, and making structural changes that let teams move without endless meetings and approval loops.

Then Russ digs into accountability and performance management. We break down why “revenue growth” can be a mirage when it’s driven by price hikes and how a metric like Real Internal Growth (RIG) forces leaders to face the truth: are we actually selling more units? If you lead teams through change, this is a clear blueprint for turning strategy into measurable results with a few meaningful KPIs.

Subscribe for more leadership lessons you can use fast, share this with a colleague, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

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Visit the Lone Rock Leadership Website:
https://www.lonerock.io

Connect with me on LinkedIn or to send me a DM:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russleads/

Tap here to check out my first book, Decide to Lead, on Amazon. Thank you so much to the thousands of you who have already purchased it for yourself or your company!

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About the podcast:
The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!

“People managers won’t have any value in the future.” That line is making the rounds, and we’re not letting it slide by without a real leadership reality check. We dig into Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky’s comments on AI, organizational structure, and the kind of manager he thinks will disappear, then we break down what’s actually useful for leaders outside the Silicon Valley bubble.

We talk about the very real push for efficiency, flatter org charts, and fewer layers of management as AI tools get better and faster. If you’re spending most of your week in recurring one-on-ones, status meetings, or running routines that don’t move the work forward, the pressure is only going to increase. But we also call out what doesn’t work: pretending leadership is just “content” and that human connection can be reduced to a twice-a-year check-in. Teams still need trust, coaching, clarity, and leaders who can guide people through wave after wave of change.

We also share a concrete example of agentic AI in action: tools that can find the right source, download it, clip it, and hand it to you with almost no effort. That’s not a novelty, it’s a preview of how quickly productivity expectations will reset, and why your best protection is becoming a high-leverage leader with real proximity to customers and outcomes.

If you want to future proof your value in the age of AI, listen closely, share this with a colleague, and then tell us what you’re seeing inside your organization. Subscribe, leave a review, and send this episode to someone whose calendar is full but impact feels unclear.

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Visit the Lone Rock Leadership Website:
https://www.lonerock.io

Connect with me on LinkedIn or to send me a DM:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russleads/

Tap here to check out my first book, Decide to Lead, on Amazon. Thank you so much to the thousands of you who have already purchased it for yourself or your company!

--
About the podcast:
The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!

Starbucks didn’t get its best quarter in three years by adding more initiatives. It got there by getting clearer. When Brian Niccol steps in after years of CEO churn and brand drift, he makes a move that sounds simple but hits like a reset button: he rolls out a focused operating system called the Grow Scorecard.

We walk through what Starbucks chose to measure and why it matters for any leader trying to drive execution, improve customer experience, and build a culture that performs under pressure. The scorecard ranks every store on a 1 to 5 “shot” scale across five priorities: customer experience, peak hour performance, employee scheduling, product availability, and food safety. We dig into the details that make it real, including the five key moments Starbucks trains in every interaction: greet, take the order, make the drink, hand off, and say goodbye. That’s what operational clarity looks like when it’s designed to be coached, observed, and repeated.

Then we bring it back to your team. If your dashboard has dozens of KPIs, you may have activity but not alignment. We challenge you to pressure test your own “team key results” and tighten them to the few measures that actually drive outcomes, then reinforce them in every meeting, every time. If you lead a function, a business unit, or an HR and L and D team, this is a practical playbook for turning leadership development into measurable ROI. Subscribe, share this with a leader who needs focus, and leave a review with the top 3 to 5 priorities you’d put on your own scorecard.

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Visit the Lone Rock Leadership Website:
https://www.lonerock.io

Connect with me on LinkedIn or to send me a DM:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/russleads/

Tap here to check out my first book, Decide to Lead, on Amazon. Thank you so much to the thousands of you who have already purchased it for yourself or your company!

--
About the podcast:
The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!