#54: Why 80% Execution Is Failing Your Business with Bill Mills

In this episode of The Freedom Experience, I sit down with Bill Mills — CEO of Executive Group, award-winning author of Breakthrough: The Power of Conscious Conversation, and creator of The Leadership Process™.

Bill brings decades of hands-on experience working with CEOs, leadership teams, and peer groups to help business owners build organizations that are indispensable to their customers — and no longer dependent on them to run.

In this conversation, we go beyond theory. Bill shares real stories and simple tools that leaders can use to close the execution gap, drive focus, and build margin-strong businesses that scale without burning people out.

🎥 Watch this conversation on YouTube. And SUBSCRIBE!

Key Themes:

🔹 Closing the Execution Gap
Why 78% execution is a red flag, not a win — and how to use a century-old force field exercise to remove friction, drive alignment, and finish strong.

🔹 Becoming Indispensable
The question that stops CEOs in their tracks: “Who would cry at your funeral?” Bill unpacks what it takes to become a strategic partner to your customers — and earn 70%+ margins doing it.

🔹 Letting Go of Control
Delegating isn’t the goal — sharing control is. Bill explains how to shift managers from bottlenecks to catalysts and build a culture of ownership across the team.

🔹 Focus Over Complexity
Why chasing every shiny object kills momentum, and how one CEO went from $20M to $200M by going all-in on a single customer problem.

🔹 Freedom and Leadership
Bill shares what freedom means to him — and how real freedom shows up when you stop doing it all yourself and start sharing ownership with your team.

Quotes from the Episode:

💬 "If 80% of your priorities get done, the 20% you missed probably held all the value."
💬 "When your business disappears and the customer doesn’t blink, that’s a problem."
💬 "Freedom is when you own the business — it doesn’t own you."
💬 "You don’t have an execution problem. You have a friction problem."
💬 "You can’t chase two rabbits. Focus is the difference-maker."

Links & Resources Mentioned:

🌍 Executive Group: https://executivegroup.com
📘 Breakthrough: The Power of Conscious Conversation
🎓 Tom Foster on Role Complexity & Leadership
📊 Gallup Research on Manager Effectiveness
📈 The 10x CEO Study (via Inc. Magazine)

Actionable Takeaways:

✅ Diagnose the Gap: Use a force field analysis to identify what’s driving results — and what’s holding your team back.
✅ Stop Being Replaceable: Build a business your customers can’t imagine living without.
✅ Share the Wheel: Real power-sharing builds trust and drives scale.
✅ Build Around One Problem: Nail the one thing you solve better than anyone else — and scale from there.
✅ Rethink Execution: It’s not about doing more. It’s about doing the right things — all the way through.

🎧 If this episode made you think differently about leadership, growth, or freedom — subscribe, share, and leave a review.
For more conversations on purpose, people, and building businesses that last, visit www.jeanmoncrieff.com.