What separates a project from a company? And what makes some organizations scale effortlessly—while others stall out under their own ambition?
Few people have lived that question more deeply than Mike Oakman. With three decades of experience spanning startups, private equity-backed growth, and billion-dollar enterprises, Mike has led everything from scrappy engineering teams to 400-person global operations. Most recently, as CTO of RVO Health, he helped unite some of the world’s most trusted health and wellness brands under one mission: making healthcare personal, at scale.
Now, after exiting corporate life, Mike is helping industrial leaders reimagine what’s next—at the intersection of people, process, and intelligent technology. His philosophy is deceptively simple: growth isn’t about more; it’s about better.
In this episode of Real Leadership, Mike and host Jim Weaver unpack the lessons learned from a career spent scaling complexity into clarity.
In this episode, we cover:

Why most startups fail before they even begin—and how to tell if you’ve built a project or a company
The power of knowing your “why” and how purpose becomes a competitive advantage
How to connect 400 engineers around one mission (and why connection beats communication)
Why “boring” companies are often the most effective ones
The four gears of AI adoption—and how industrial companies can finally shift out of first
How technology done right brings leaders closer to their customers, not further away

Listen for: a rare conversation that moves seamlessly from tech strategy to human behavior—from agile frameworks to the art of focus.
Time Stamps

00:03:21 — RVO Health at scale and why consumer trust starts with experience and security.
00:07:56 — Personalization in action: “I’m here—do you see me?” and serving the next best action.
00:11:41 — Team at scale: 300+ engineers, 60 data scientists, and the org around them.
00:13:18 — The Engineering Summit: aligning builders to mission (and why it matters more in remote work).
00:15:02 — From waterfall to flow: a plain-English explainer of agile that leaders actually use.
00:20:26 — Project vs. product vs. company: the hard truth about TAM/SAM/SOM and repeatability.
00:30:31 — Industrial reality check: automation on the line, spreadsheets in the back office—opportunity hiding in plain sight.
00:31:49 — Three questions for leaders: Are we visible, attractive, and responsive when buyers find us?
00:37:52 — The maturity path for AI/automation and how to assess your org—fast.
00:42:12 — Free your customer-facing teams: where automation creates human time that actually grows revenue.
00:44:53 — How to reach Mike (and why leaders are calling him now).



Show Notes

Mike Oakman — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikeoakman/ 
RVO Health: https://www.rvohealth.com/ 
Content Logistix: contentlogistix.com/ 
Jim Weaver — LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jim-weaver-36457418
Real Leadership Podcast: realleadership.oningroup.com 
Real Leadership — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/104897916/
The Ōnin Group: oningroup.com/clients 

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