Today, I want to pull back the curtain on one of the most transformative leadership journeys I’ve had the pleasure of exploring on Disrupt and Innovate. The voice you are about to hear echoes from Roy Osing, a leader who defied convention, ignited cultural revolutions inside entrenched industries, and scaled a business to an astonishing $1 billion in annual sales.
But this is not about Roy alone. It’s about what his path shows us—the roadmaps, pivots, and pain points that every business executive can learn from if they are bold enough to apply them.
As executives, we crave frameworks that are both executable and practical. Too often, strategy remains trapped in glossy binders and five-year projections that collapse at the first hint of market disruption. Roy’s framework—his obsession with differentiation—is a masterclass in how to tear away the claptrap and chase the results that actually matter: growth, relevance, and loyalty.
So let’s get to it. Here are the key takeaways from Roy’s journey that every executive must engrave into their leadership ethos.
Strategy Without Execution Is Just Fantasy
If you’ve ever sat through a strategy retreat, you know the drill: endless PowerPoint decks, graphs trending upward like hockey sticks, elegant mission statements no one can remember a month later. And then? Nothing.
Roy learned early that plans don’t drive results—execution does. His Strategic Game Plan flipped the ratio corporate leaders cling to. Instead of pouring 80% of effort into perfecting the plan and leaving scraps for execution, he drove his teams to spend just 20% on planning and 80% on how to execute it with precision.
This tangible bias toward action was designed to answer three direct questions:
- How big do you want to be in 24 months?
- Who do you specifically want to serve?
- And most importantly—how will you compete and win?
Notice what’s missing? The five-year forecasts. The academic debates over models. The obsession with “being better.” None of that mattered. What mattered was focus, speed, and discipline.
For executives reading this, ask yourself: Is my team spending too much time debating what could be instead of executing what should be?
Differentiation Is the Currency of Growth
Here’s the harsh reality: if your business is only satisfying “needs,” you’ve already slid into commodity territory. Customers expect their needs to be met. Differentiation comes alive when you deliver what they truly crave.
Roy engineered a powerful tool around this: The Only Statement. Not “we’re the best.” Not “we’re the leader.” Not “we’re number one.” Instead: We are the only ones who…
That linguistic tweak is more than semantics—it’s a competitive arsenal. By chasing uniqueness that maps directly to what customers hunger for, organizations eliminate the price wars, the sameness, and the predictable mediocrity.
Executives must stop asking, “How do we outdo our rivals?” and instead ask, “What do our customers covet that no one else dares deliver?”
Companies struggle here because it means diving deep into the uncomfortable terrain of vulnerability and creativity. It means abandoning marketing clichés in favor of emotional resonance. Businesses that embody this forge stronger loyalties, higher margins, and an ability to survive downturns when “efficiency plays” alone cannot.
Culture Is Built on Goosebumps, Not Compliance
Perhaps the most radical aspect of Roy’s leadership came from what I like to call his philosophy of hiring for goosebumps.
When he was building billion-dollar momentum out of a rigid monopoly, he had to do something more radical than implement new processes—he had to light fires in people’s hearts. His measure for bringing someone onboard wasn’t technical proficiency alone. It was whether they evoked goosebumps—the unshakable sense they were passionate, human-centered, and emotionally connected to the journey ahead.
Culture was never about slogans on a wall. It was forged by:
- Stripping out wasteful rules.
- Elevating frontline employees as supreme executors of strategy.
- Building trust by being present, listening, and removing barriers to performance.
That’s what turned cynicism into belief. That’s what made execution stick.
For executives, this lesson is clear: culture is not perk-driven; it is belief-driven. Hire and empower people who care deeply. Those individuals will bring customers along with them in ways no marketing spend ever could.
The Bigger Picture: Pain, Disruption, and Lasting Growth
There’s a line Roy often repeats: Pain is a strategic concept. If you can’t endure the discomfort of shifting structures, realigning focus, and discarding sacred cows, you’ll never truly innovate.
Business executives today—perhaps more than ever—face environments of relentless change. AI, shifting consumer expectations, geopolitical shocks. These aren’t curveballs; they’re constants. And the playbook that carried mega-corporations through the last century won’t sustain them today.
To thrive, organizations must:
- Embrace short-term focus with long-term intent. Two-year growth cycles over five-year delusions.
- Obsess over emotional differentiation. Needs are met everywhere—cravings are met by the few.
- Build human cultures. Don’t hire for compliance; hire for humanity.
Roy’s billion-dollar journey proved that when leaders embrace these audacious principles, they don’t just grow—they redefine what growth even looks like.
For executives, these are not abstract ideas. They’re survival tactics. In a market where mediocrity dies fast and sameness is a death sentence, the mantra rings true: Be Different or Be Dead.
Final Thoughts
As I reflect on this conversation and its lessons, I want every executive leader reading to pause and ask:
- Where am I allowing planning to overshadow execution?
- Is my business chasing customer needs, or is it aligned to the cravings that create loyalty?
- Am I hiring for goosebumps—building a culture of belief, not compliance?
The leaders who answer these with courage are the ones who will define the next decade of growth.
Executives, do not retreat to the comfort of the familiar. The fortune of your organizations—and more importantly, the relevance of your leadership—depends on being audacious enough to be different.
Listen to the full episode on C-Suite Radio: Disrupt & Innovate | C-Suite Network
Watch the episode: DI 102 Be Different or Be Dead: Insights from Roy Osing on Business Growth
This article was drafted with the assistance of an AI writing assistant (Abacus.AI’s ChatLLM Teams) and edited by Lisa L. Levy for accuracy, tone, and final content.
